Well last pm’s rehearsal with Dissonance went alright. It was rather humbling to read charts again for the first time in over 6 years! Yikes…I had to remember what those funny little black things in between and on those 5 lines were 😉 …. However I am now confident that I won’t embarrass myself or the band, when we play at the Ballard Locks on Sunday.
I think I nearly gave Jim a heart attack when I asked him before we started if the first note in my first piece of music was an “E”. I’m sure by now he knows that I have a good sense of humor, as does he, but I think I did detect just a glimmer of fear in his eyes before I cracked a smile.
I was really looking forward to using his Herb Couf, but in the afternoon I discovered when I played the horn against a tuner, that Dukoffs don’t work particularly well on them. I had to push it so far in to get it to play most notes in tune, that a number of others were out of tune. So many notes in fact, that it just wasn’t going to be worth fighting the horn over. So…
Jim let me use his baby…His totally tweaked Reference 36. Nice horn. Not a mark on it. I did not like playing it. It was just too new looking. I sat on the edge of the chair all night to make sure that not a scratch would happen from the metal chair rail. I wore a long shirt to make sure that the rivets from my jeans wouldn’t rub against it.
Jim’s pristine Reference 36 that looks as good now as it did before I played it at rehearsal.
So today I’m going to give his other horn a try: a Reference 54. Not that I’m expecting it to looks any less pristine…I’ll still treat it with the same respect…But I think both of us will feel more comfortable with me playing it. I know I sure will.
If you’re not a sax player you might not understand, but handing over your favorite sax, is like handing over your newborn. Even if you totally trust the person you’re handing it to, you still have that nagging doubt in the back of your mind…Are they going to drop it? Is the neck strap going to break? Will the drummer’s stick fly across the room and hit the horn? The possibilities are endless, so horn players are really like worried parents when their favorite horns are out of their hands.
Here are a couple of other pics I took today. Ah yes, really only a sax player would consider these “vacation pictures”. 😀
The famous Selmer logo on the Reference 54 Series alto, limited Kookaburra Edition.
Ah yes…Payback…Luckily he’s a gentle man and it should not hurt. 😀
That was a very amusing story (asking Jim if your first note was an E). I can just see the look on his face as he realized that he had made a horrible mistake by asking you to play with the band.
You should keep in mind that he has an entire week to get you back. Wait for it.