Had the final rehearsal with Mr. McCann and B&R last night as we get ready for tomorrow’s show in York with David Childs and the King’s Singers.

After spending hours on my own learning the music over the last 10 days and doing quite a bit of extra cornet practice to try and figure out how the thing is supposed to work, I feel like last night I actually kept up with the group.  There were only a couple of moments where I totally folded.  This is a drastic change from last week where I folded like every 5 minutes…..and attracted some looks form Mr. McCann…….

It looks like my first cornet lesson will be sometime on Monday.  I’ll just call Philip on Monday morning and he’ll tell me when to run down to the university.  As I’m free ALL THE TIME I’m guessing I’ll be able to work it into my schedule. Ha!

He had a couple of very interesting comments last night.  Too many to remember really but here are a few:

• In a lyrical passage at the end of a piece while asking for better time:  “The beauty is in the simplicity.  You don’t have to do anything else to it.”
• On starting and stopping notes together:  “It isn’t the conductor’s job to get you to cut off at the same time.  Just listen to each other.”
• On making a ritardando work:  “Look, it doesn’t matter what I do here (as conductor) or if you are with me, really.  But you must be together.”.
• On establishing a standard:  “At this level those sorts of things (untidy entrances) just shouldn’t happen.”
• On dotted crotchet-quaver rhythms:  “Measure the quaver and be together.”  (he must have said this 15 times last night)
• For those of you who don’t know crotchet-quaver it is dotted-quarter and eighth-note.

Hope everyone at home is fine.  We are very much enjoying our time here.  

Cheers,

B-