I thought February might be a little easier but I am still catching up with little bits of work and preparation for upcoming things so the practise has been short and sweet again.
Tuesday - Walden Winds
A few years ago I arranged Ravel's Mother Goose Suite for woodwind ensemble. Ravel originally worte the five movements for piano duet then later arranged it for orchestra before expanding it into the larger work as a ballet. The movements are beautiful and woodwind features heavily making it difficult but extremely satisfying to play when it works! Palace Band performed it after some serious rehearsal and practise time. I decided it was time for Walden Winds to have a go but as there is also some very effective harp writing in several movements I went through the score and created my own manageable optional harp part. The first movement Sleeping Beauty in the Wood is very easy with single notes and a few harmonics creating a magical sound so I could do that in full. With some editing Beauty and the Beast and Leaving the Fairy Garden also worked well and these two both have glissandos in them so I had some fun doing those. Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes was too hard as it goes too quickly but the orchestral version requires a tam-tam, which is a type of gong. I have seen 4Girls4Harps perform an arrangement of some of the Mother Goose movements and know that to get a tam-tam sound on the harp you hit all the lower strings at once. So I did that a few times in the right place and that was my contribution!
All in all it was great fun so thanks to WW for letting me play with them.
Thursday - Orchestra
I play with the local orchestra on a Thursday evening and this evening we were working on Beethoven 6 (Pastorale Symphony) and Haydn Harmonie Mass. Adrian the conductor has a passion which he passes onto groups through a lifetime in music and from his many anecdotes from his lengthy associations with much of the repertoire having sung, played violin and studied with many leading musicians of the day. Of the Beethoven Symphony he was explaining how he felt Beethoven had put the work together, covering every little nuance (today it was how the duplet quavers get overturned by the triplet quavers, then back to duplets before the triplets win though) but also revealing how each time he performs it he discovers something new about the work and perhaps this is what keeps it so fresh and popular today. However at one point though he got talking about contemporary music, the sort of contemporary music that doesn't stay around for long and the sort that makes you stand up at the end of a three hour performance of something hard on the ears and declare to anyone within ear shot that you are about to go home and listen to some Ronald Binge! This led to an anecdote about a first performance of a work by a composer he didn't name. At one point the tam-tam was supposed to be struck while it was submerged in water. The percussionist got ready at the right point and dipped the tam-tam in the bath only to discover someone had put some goldfish in there! What these poor creatures felt when the thing was struck Adrian couldn't say but I got the impression the player's conscience wasn't clear for a while afterwards.
Friday - Fundraising
While I have been playing my harp and developing my own skills I have neglected the fundraising side of things which is probably the most important thing. Today I re-launched my fundraising and at the time of writing I have had a couple of donations so the practise sessions over the weekend will be meaningful and industrious. The link is here:
https://www.justgiving.com/Stephanie-Reeve1/
Just before I log off I've just learned that Mum has had a win on the bingo. Not enough to retire but enough to encourage for me to send her the link to my justgiving page!!
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