Church gig number one was fairly straight forward. I ended up using every instrument I'd brought-flute, clarinet, soprano, and tenor. When we were excused for the sermon I was able to carry everything but the clarinet off stage, so I didn't spend ten minutes packing up afterwards.
We had some "road map" issues on one song. It's funny to me how differently some musicians hear music than others. In this case, a couple of guys had trouble figuring out how to get to the last page--lots of measure numbers going back and forth--when it seemed obvious to my ears that we were playing the chorus again, and then taking the outro.
The other thing that stuck out to me about the morning service was the way the drummer was playing. He's a college student who probably hasn't played a bunch of gigs at this point, I'd guess. On several songs, he was wandering back and forth between the hi hat and the ride every couple of measures, like he was trying out several different approaches within the song. It got me thinking again about how drummers are very responsible for shaping the arrangement of the song we are playing. I think some of the younger guys I have played with in the last couple of years don't realize that what they're doing and when they're doing it changes how the guys around them play. This guy would open up the groove to the ride and then come back down to the hi hat, and then we'd go into the chorus and he would realize it needed to be bigger again and he'd go back, and probably didn't think about how that was forcing the intensity of the music up and down. It's a lot like a driver who stomps on the gas and then takes his foot off, then floors again, then coasts again. We're moving along, but you're making me sick!
My second gig began a half hour after the Super Bowl began. At that point, it was 9-0 Giants. Not too many people there! I'd bet there were fewer than a hundred in the congregation.
My newly overhauled flute felt awesome--that thing is playing better than ever. My soprano felt good and sounded good, but I had all kinds of trouble playing in tune. My left hand and my right hand were very far apart. Not too fun. I didn't do anything really noteworthy. We finished about fifteen minutes early.
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