Thoughts On Orchestra And The Upcoming Concert

Augh.

Did I say the church was on the corner of St John's and Lakeview? I misremembered. It's about three or four houses along Lakeview. I'm so used to churches being on corners that I neatly edited my memory of Cedar Park United. So if you're driving down St John's this Saturday looking for a church, just turn west on Lakeview. No, really. Trust me.

I had a really bad fibro day yesterday; not only was the body clunky but I spent two hours after I submitted the proofs staring at a computer screen and I don't remember any of it. I started waking up around the time I brought the boy home, and was in great form when I left (so I thought). Loved the drive to rehearsal, which was at the church, but took the northbound exit at St John's instead of the southbound, which I do every other time I drive to this church because I am a creature of habit and nine times out of ten when I take St John's I'm going north. There was a beautiful fiery coral sunset to admire along the way. I cannot express how much I love this time of year, with dry roads and crystal-clear nights.

When I got there I discovered that the church had invested in new folding chairs that are not only padded but feature straight seats, for which all the cellists were thankful as most folding chairs slant backwards and create nasty stress on the lower back. These chairs are the perfect height and enable my knees to be at ninety-degree angles. They were set up on a grey-blue runner, so I didn't need to pull out the leather belt I use to stabilize my endpin on stone floors. Excellent! As a bonus, the ambient light was good enough that I didn't need my stand light. (This was a mistake, but more on that later.)

We shifted the order of two small pieces within the suite: the chanson now comes before all the airs and dances instead of after the finale, which makes me very happy because now everything resolves nicely. Before the shift there was the massive pounding finale followed by a very gentle song, which, while lovely, kind of robbed the suite of its oomph. We had our guest mandolinist there again as well as the guest vocalist there for the first time, and the balance is lovely. I'm really enjoying this suite, the damned Passepied aside. (Although last night it worked for me -- I kept up and only lost my place once instead of every three bars.)

I tried playing with a shorter pin last night, which made the cello more vertical, and there's not as much body in the way as when the cello is more horizontal as a result of the longer endpin. It's comfortable (at least with these particular chairs). I also played with the yet-again-remodelled bow (HRH took more off the body of the stick for me this week so it's nice and light, although the frog is still chunkier than I'd like, not that we can do anything about it) and I was impressed by the quality of sound I was producing. Every church has really different acoustics and affects how we hear our instruments and the ensemble; this one is pleasant, but overall the orchestra has problems hearing the other sections because the strings are on two different levels. It never ceases to amaze me that it takes moving out of the cavernous auditorium in which we regularly rehearse to remind me of how badly it swallows sound.

I was the only inside cellist there last night so I was playing the lower cello line alone in one of the pieces, as compared to the three outside cellists playing the upper line. I wondered why it sounded so thin. And my cello's nasal A string is really starting to hold me back; I have to constantly pull my weight and stroke when I use the open string, which is more work than I need to be doing. Maybe I'll try a wolf eliminator. It can't hurt, and it's under ten dollars. I wonder if I can get one before dress rehearsal Friday night. Maybe I'll go downtown tomorrow morning to my regular luthier and pick one up. I could ask them about 7/8s, too. If I get there when they open at 9h30 then I can be home by noon. Too bad I didn't think of this before; I could have gone out this morning instead, because it's beautifully sunny. Or maybe I'll try the new luthier; it would take about the same amount of time to get there by public transport. I don't know if I'm relaxed enough to try to travel somewhere new and head into an environment I know nothing about right now, though. After the book is handed in, I think.

Not only was the body clunky and fine motor control was pretty much absent (not a good thing when you have to make minute changes to balance in the right hand, although the left hand seemed to be just fine), but my body temperature plummeted about half an hour after arriving and thought processes slowed down too. By the time we got through most of the smaller pieces, I was fading fast. As a result I was only partially present for the symphony, which engendered interesting results. I managed to sail through places where I'd stumbled every single time in rehearsal, and messed up perfectly simple things. I have got to remind myself to get up and walk around at half-time. It would help give my mind a break. It's just that I like to use the time to run through tricky bits on what we're going to do next. (Also, as I am shyness incarnate, this way I don't have to mingle and chat.) I strongly suspect that the ambient light, while adequate to see by, affected my not-wholly-thereness.

It really felt like I was woolly, or part of me was missing. It was slightly alarming when it came to the drive home. I was determined that the I-lost-two-hours-staring-at-a-monitor thing of the afternoon was not going to happen to me on the way home, thank you very much, so I turned the music up, held the wheel with both hands, and stared at the road directly ahead of me. Once upon a time I could drive home from t!'s house and not remember any of it, but that was okay because I was nineteen, it was the West Island, and it was around one in the morning so the roads were deserted. Highways are bad. Then of course, when I got home, I couldn't fall asleep until midnight-thirty.

I'll say one thing for being slightly out of it: I was much better at moving past being anxious about small mistakes. But I was so exhausted by the end of the evening that I wonder how I'll handle Saturday night. It's a really long programme. I'm still not convinced by the opening of the Ravel, we didn't get to the Faure, and no matter how I angle my chair I can't quite see the conductor, and I'm sitting in front of him. I'll try the old raise-the-stand-an-inch trick and see if that helps. Proof that I was out of it last night: that didn't even occur to me.

On the other hand, I really liked the tone I was producing last night. I was hitting a few strings during crossings (thanks, stupid clunky right hand), but aside from that and the nasal A string I could actually appreciate the sound. You have no idea how happy that makes me.

~ Originally posted at my main journal Owls' Court.