After a long day of work I am so ready to go play my sax and clarinet. Suzy and I are bringing in six instruments between the two of us because Arwen needs to borrow a tenor sax while hers is being tweaked. So it’s a tenor sax and bass clarinet for me. Suzy has an alto sax, a Bb and Eb soprano clarinets. It will be three hours of practice for us, 1.5 hours of jazz and 1.5 hours of concert band. And to me it usually seems like 15 minutes.
But I enjoy the people too. After a number of years with this band, my best freinds are now people who play in the band. Many were music majors in college and but me to shame, but playing with them is sooo fun. Molly is about to get married and I hope she can stay with the band. As the lead alto in both the jazz ensemble and the concert band, she is very important. And to date, no lead alto saxophonists have be appreciated as much as her.
The bass, guitarist, and drummer are stellar too. Sometimes you just get lucky with the right people at the right time. With a great rhythm section and lead/taught by a local high school band teacher, this jazz ensemble is tackling some very challenging music like Basie’s ‘Straight, No Chaser’ and ‘Residual Fire’ by another arranger. We hope to kick some proverbal jazz ass with our concerts in Victoria this year. :o)
The Bis Key Chronicles 
This may seem like a stupid question but I’m really serious: is your home filled with music all the time? It is my greatest hope that my girls take up an instrument and I can just imagine the house filling up with squeaks and ear-splitting sounds (initially anyway!) and I would positively LOVE IT.
Almost all the time. :o)
When we aren’t practicing, the player piano or stereo is on. Right now we are working with our grandson to do a solo next month. It will be his second on clarinet before a live audience. And he’s only been playing the clarinet for 8 months.
Enjoyed reading about your trip to Fargo! Around what time will you be in Victoria? It is a place that hubby and I have on our list of places to go. Thanks for stopping by. I do have Live Writer, as a friend gave me the link, and I know it is downloaded on my computer, but haven’t a clue how to access it. What I need is someone that could teach me how to use it or let me know where the instructions are in learning how to use it. As you can see, I am not very computer or Word savvy. I plug away the best I can. Have a great weekend!
Beth
Okay, let’s see if I’ve fixed the name field in my Windows Live Profile.