My eventful day started with a suprise but not one I was expecting. While tidying up a few things I spotted a bit of fluff on the duvet that looked like a very tiny scorpion. I blew on it and rather than moving as fluff does it curled itself up! I picked it up on a bit of paper and put it on the window sill for a clearer look. It opened up like a scorpion and started looking around. I got a blurry photo and, not one for killing things no matter how small or annoying, I threw it out of the window. I asked a few people if you got scorpions in southern France and there was mixed opinion. Someone thought it was an insect that happens to look like a scorpion but I'm not so sure.
After breakfast we all made our way to the rehearsal room which is the chapel. As the building and grounds originally belonged to a convent the chapel is very big and quite grand.
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| Part of the chapel where we rehearse |
I set myself up behind the second violins, not too far from the flutes, both of whom I know very well. While age doesn't matter too much on courses like this I was quite pleased to see a few players who are a little nearer my age group. Two are also pros, one is the strings coach to the learning orchestra and the other was just here for a spot of playing and a holiday. The morning rehearsal was a play through of all the pieces to be looked at during the week. There is a good mixture of older baroque tunes, a few classical, romantic and slightly more recent works. I am half on clarinet and half on harp which suits me fine. The harp parts are straight forward enough as I can follow them without getting lost and as the orchestra was louder than me today I played a lot of wrong notes and just had fun finding my way around. First rehearsals on courses like this always sound appalling but very quickly players learn to listen and understand how their part fits in with everyone else and the music usually comes together to create a satisfactory second play through. By the last day there is some fine ensemble playing and hopefully this will be the case on Sunday when we give a performance.
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| View from my seat. Everyone has gone because I take the longest to pack up. |
At events like this there are often unforseen problems and we had one with the clarinets. Most players get by with a 'clarinet in B flat' but as you do more and more playing, particularly orchestral, you need a slightly bigger 'clarinet in A'. If not you need to re-write the music - a skill known as transposing - to be able to play it in tune with the others. I have one but didn't bring it as it wasn't specified. I can transpose at sight so it's not a problem for me. Of the other clarinets Anita had hers but Katy and Melvyn do not have their own. We didn't have time to re-write the three parts for clarinets in A before we ran through them but there is a neat trick where you use a piece of string the length of the clarinet. You attach one end by wedging it between the mouthpiece and barrel and by some great feat of science it makes your clarinet a semi-tone lower. Not great for tone quality but very useful as an emergency quick fix and Tricia the trombonist had brought some string in her emergency travel pack! It worked for the second half of the rehearsal and we were able to rewrite the music for the evening practise. Lunch was at a little cafe just in the village and I read a bit of my book in the courtyard before going in for the 5pm rehearsal. We focussed on a piece by Boldlieu and the Chanson de Nuit. David the conductor works the players hard and his dry wit and almost impatient style means he is very different to how myself and Caroline work with our groups. However it gets results and he has respect from the players. At dinner I sat with some other players I'd not yet met properly and I think I now know everyone's names. Not bad for the first 24 hours here. I am hoping to get up early tomorrow to go for a walk while it is still cool enough. But first I need to check my bed linen for small creatures!
Á la prochaine!
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