I did my two church gigs yesterday.
The first one continues to not quite be organized. Yesterday was better...we finished the rehearsal early, but then the leader said "Oh, we forgot to go over the offertory song!" No big deal--he passed out a chord lyrics sheet with chords. As the soundguy was rewiring the piano microphone (with the lid on the grand piano wide open), the leader said to me "Take the melody," except that I usually put my music on the piano, so I was trying to see it up on top of the pipe organ (which I guess was kind of futile anyway since there was no music, only words and chords). Then, as I figured out the key of the first song, it segued into a second song with which I was not familiar. "I've got to have you on melody for this part." OK. A couple of thoughts:
1. If this is going to be an instrumental song and you want me to play the melody, why are you giving me lyrics and not sheet music?
2. If you knew you wanted to do this particular song, why not alert me earlier in the week?
In performance, the leader started the song by himself, and I kept looking at him to try and gauge what might be a cue to play the first melody, but got nothing. Finally, he looked at me. First melody? Second melody? We went into the second, which was the one I really didn't know. Thanks. So, I stood there for the part I did know, and then fumbled the one I didn't, and the way we did it in rehearsal was not the way we did it during the service.
My other frustration on this particular gig was a song we did with a prerecorded track. The track had full instrumentation, including an entire woodwind and brass section. No room for me! At one point there was a trumpet melody--maybe sixteen measures--and I played the melody on soprano in unison with the track. The leader aked that we do it again so I could take another shot at it. He wanted me to "play around the melody." Umm. So in the actual performance, I ended up kind of destroying the trumpet part because I couldn't help but play on top of it. Unison would have sounded better.
My second church gig was the same as it always is. What else can I tell you? I said the prayers in different accents. The hot usher was ushering. I've decided she's not really hot, but dresses in tight clothing (which I mentally applaud). The drummer (for the third week in a row) played a ride cymbal with felt mallets sofly and unmic'ed for an entire song. It's funny that he's wearing headphones to hear the mix, but doesn't hear that the cymbal is not showing up there. I kind of wanted to put a microphone on it, but if I do it will probably pick up more of the piano than the percussion (just like his hand drum microphone does). The Colts lost to the Patriots and I was watching on my phone, and when I finished, I noticed one of the church busy-bodies watching me watch it. I kind of wanted to give her the finger.
I think I'm going to go back to my straight soprano sax neck--the curved neck has different intonation, and I just can't find the right spot where I can reach all the notes. I like the angle of the curved neck, but the straight one has a better sound and better tuning.
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