Day 5

While most people went back to school or work today I went on a little trip to Colchester to interview a clarinettist and conductor for a future article. Having had experience as a performer, educator, ensemble conductor and festival organiser he had much to say and my next job today is getting that transcribed to turn into a feature for the Clarinet & Saxophone magazine. I can't reveal too much of what he said but one little nugget was about keeping the music the most important thing in a performance. Don't compromise how it should go if your technique is not up to standard but allow your technique to develop and improve in order to play the music. There was much more of course and we had a discussion on squeaks but you can find out more if you become a member of CASS in time for the Spring issue!

Writing the blog in 2011 turned out to be great practise at gathering thoughts and getting ideas written down and this developed into reviews and features for the magazine. More recently the editor has started a feature intended to fill the important back page that finds out a little more about the members, particularly those who are not professional players. Having an interest in amateur music making and adult learning this was right up my street and as the members I met were so interesting, often having wonderful stories or useful insights, it went way beyond one A4 side and had to be promoted to an earlier page leaving my editor with the headache of filling the back page once again.


I did my practise as soon as I got in, about 20 minutes today as both of my first fingers are slightly sore from going at it a bit too much yesterday probably. I did a gentle run through of Showing Off, an even gentler run of the Bach then I had a quick look at the outline of the study I want to do. This is particularly harpy as the melody is within semiquaver (for the non-musicians they're the fast-ish ones) patterns so will need to be brought out.

No photo today so here is the poster advertising the concert.