Do do DO do do-do-do-do DO do do-do-do-do DO do DOOOOOOO
Okay, sorry, but I’m pretty outta practice. And I cannot for the life of me get high a-flat to make a nice sound out of my ancient piccolo. I need some practice and maybe my picc needs an overhaul. Anyway, deal.
I have umpteen million things to do these days. I should be stress dreaming about flash and photoshop and html and css and javascript and writing resumes, etc., and jury duty 😐 and flying to Callyforny, etc. What did I stress-dream about instead? I got this blasted little earwigworm into my head. Thanks Karen, for the term. It’s perfect and I had never heard of it before. So, yes, I was frantically playing (that means I was going through the fingerings in my head as well as hearing the tune) the piccolo solo in Sousa’s march The Stars and Stripes Forever. In my dream, I was trying to play it on a piccolo that was much smaller than my small fingers could handle. So I was tripping up on fingerings constantly.
Every good high school floot player aspires to play that picc solo, especially when he/she gets to stand up in front of his/her high school band. And I got to do that once. It meant more to me than being a national merit finalist. Who the heck cares if you can fill in little circles on a blasted piece of paper. I suspect that a friend put a bug in the band director’s ear about the Stars and Stripes solo. It was a return favor for something that I did for someone else that year, a friend who probably doesn’t even know and probably shouldn’t. Assuming that’s all true, thank you Susan, wherever you are. Actually I know approximately where you are because I ran into your mom last summer. Thanks.
February 10th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Don’t feel too bad about that high A-flat…I’ve got a picc solo for “The Chimes of Liberty” march that is very heavy on that high B-flat above that!! Plus too many of those “false fingerings” notes that approach that ultimate “note”!!
What kills me, is that I used to be able to HIT that high B-flat on that same piccolo from the time I got it in high school all the way through college, and even for a time after…must’ve lost that note somewhere in the shambling mounds during those years of barely playing….
February 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Maybe you could overlay your piccolo track on the trombone section playing the Stars and Stripes Forever that you or Karen posted a few years ago. And Froggy’s track too, if he is too insistent.
February 10th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Duckin’ up outta photoshop (making my own brushes today! ;-)) for a minute. I never posted trombones playing SnSF. Karen? Was it on the MooU site or somewhere? I have actually heard a bass trombone do the picc solo. And why not?!? 🙂
Karen, undoubtedly, it’s the picc’s fault (high B-flat). Prob’ly needs adjustment. False fingerings? Doya mean the notes in the 3rd register in general?
February 10th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Yep “false fingerings” = “3rd register” – talk about tangled fingers!!
Yeah – it was *moi* who’d posted the trombone ensemble doing “S&SF” – some group I think either Val or Jim discovered – absolutely amazing that one could play that picc solo with a *slide* of all things.
February 10th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
i cannot find the group of – what was it, 3 or 4 women?? – playing S&SF…
I ‘ll keep looking.
February 10th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
FOUND IT!!!
February 10th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
bones01.wmv
February 10th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
guess it didn’t copy in. will post.
February 10th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
http://www.cliffsvic.com/?page_id=254
February 11th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
what?? jury duty *again*???!!?!?
aren’t you *always* called in for jury duty??