Update:
One of the violinists spontaneously broke into the Mario Brother's theme while warming up. And now the Godfather themem.
-TFitC
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Those Wacky Russions
This week was the first rehearsal of the UW orchestra for the fall term which is the open rehearsal at which the newbies get to check things out and decide if they want to join or not. (It also seems to be traditional for me to mention it in my blog.)
We basically sight read two pieces at the rehearsal. One was an overture from some Verdi opera, the name of which escapes me at the moment. We've played this piece before during one of the summer terms. It's an easier piece and was used as a warm up (it's not one of the actual pieces we're playing this term).
The second piece, and one of the pieces we are playing for read were the 2nd and 3rd movements of a symphony by Shastakovitch (if I'm spelling that right). He's one of those crazy Russian composers. We've played a shorter piece by him in a previous term.
I'm not quite sure what I think of the Shastakovitch symphony just yet. It sounded... strange. Now, part of that is probably due to the fact that everyone was sight reading and I'm not at all familiar with it yet or how it's supposed to sound. Even so, it sounded fairly different from most of the other stuff we've played. If I had to try to describe it, I'd compare it to more atmospheric music or perhaps movie sound track-ish, perhaps even more "modern" (whatever that means) than other stuff we've played. Well, we'll see how it goes.
There were 9 cellos at the open rehearsal this term (down from our high of a whopping 13 over the summer) so it seems like a decent amount and, assuming everyone who came out decides to join, everyone will probably get it. If I recall correctly, we had 8 cellos during the most recent winter term. The most we've had during a non-summer term was 11. (Yes, the cellos went to 11 one term.)
On a related note, I am current doing some wrangling for some of the string auditions and have my trusty lap top to entertain me (hence this post).
That's all for now, so until next time,
Freak Out.
-TFitC
We basically sight read two pieces at the rehearsal. One was an overture from some Verdi opera, the name of which escapes me at the moment. We've played this piece before during one of the summer terms. It's an easier piece and was used as a warm up (it's not one of the actual pieces we're playing this term).
The second piece, and one of the pieces we are playing for read were the 2nd and 3rd movements of a symphony by Shastakovitch (if I'm spelling that right). He's one of those crazy Russian composers. We've played a shorter piece by him in a previous term.
I'm not quite sure what I think of the Shastakovitch symphony just yet. It sounded... strange. Now, part of that is probably due to the fact that everyone was sight reading and I'm not at all familiar with it yet or how it's supposed to sound. Even so, it sounded fairly different from most of the other stuff we've played. If I had to try to describe it, I'd compare it to more atmospheric music or perhaps movie sound track-ish, perhaps even more "modern" (whatever that means) than other stuff we've played. Well, we'll see how it goes.
There were 9 cellos at the open rehearsal this term (down from our high of a whopping 13 over the summer) so it seems like a decent amount and, assuming everyone who came out decides to join, everyone will probably get it. If I recall correctly, we had 8 cellos during the most recent winter term. The most we've had during a non-summer term was 11. (Yes, the cellos went to 11 one term.)
On a related note, I am current doing some wrangling for some of the string auditions and have my trusty lap top to entertain me (hence this post).
That's all for now, so until next time,
Freak Out.
-TFitC
Friday, September 4, 2009
And Now For Something A Bit Different...
Yay, it's experiment time! Click for the full-sized version. Oh, and my apologies in advance for making everyone read my hand writing.
Probably should have taken some extra time to ink it. Well, I'll keep that in mind if I do this again.
Probably should have taken some extra time to ink it. Well, I'll keep that in mind if I do this again.
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