And I'm also losing money not having the Harbor Brass or Penn Cove Brass. And I really miss directing them.
And then there's lessons. Well, it hasn't been a total loss with lessons because the majority of my students have actually been doing video lessons with me, and it's worked out as well as it could. Not all of my students are wanting to do this, though, so I'm not able to teach them through this. That sucks. I just hope I can retain my full student load with things go back to normal.
In the meantime, I've been hanging in there. It's busy here with my family here all the time, but I have still be able to find some time to do some music work. I finally figured out how to make multi-frame videos of me playing all the parts to a piece of music, combining it with the multi-track audio recording that I already do. Here's the very first product of that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqUt9yCqhvo
I'm pretty happy with it, and it has been surprisingly well-received by my colleagues on Facebook. It's encouraging, so I aim to do a lot more of that, and will make sure to put a lot of nuance into making the recording sound good. That's what I did with this one, and I think it really paid off. A lot of other recordings I have made have little things like out-of-tune notes or out-of-sync parts, or the balance isn't right.
So I'm doing that stuff, and just trying to practice, too. Practicing has been going pretty decently. I'm realizing that I have a long ways to go to reach the level of elite that i was mentioning in a previous blog. I mean, when I think about how well those guys and gals play in tune and how clear each note is in every circumstance, and then compare it to my playing...I've just got a long ways to go.
Ugh...I wish I'd practiced more in my wonder year.
I've also completed a fun arrangement of the first movement of Beethoven's 5th for 4 trumpets and 4 trombones. And I'm working on an arrangement of Mars for a larger ensemble that I plan to use at a future brass camp. I've also been thinking a lot (but haven't started) about an original work for brass ensemble...It's hard to think about composition right now, though.
Take care and value music.