I’m in the middle of synthesizing music from three parts into one part for me to play for a theater production. There are over 90 pages in each book, cuts to consider, and instrumentation to balance. Some of it is easy, but all of it has to be proofed. I was going to try to have it done by today for our second practice, but alas, it was not to be. Out of town family visitors, practices for other bands, and work have conspired to keep me way too busy. I am now only on page 13 and feeling a tad stressed.

I’m creating parts for bari sax and bass clarinet, mostly from two trombone, EEb contrabass and basson parts. There is no simple way to do this. I know a lot of tricks but if I use the most common trick for transposing from C in bass cleft to Eb in treble cleft, I still run into F’s in the music that are sharped but remain F for me because of the transposition model.

I do it mostly by hand. We have a number of music editors but typing in the music is still a slow process for me. And scanning them in, I’ve been told is a hit or miss proposition. I guess I really should learn how to play bassoon, trombone, and contrabass clarinet. NOT.

I have to say, once you get the music prep work done there is a lot of practice that needs to go on to get the chosen instrument to sound like the replaced instrument. And then there is the challenges of getting your doubled instrument, in my case clarinet, up to speed so that the orchestra doesn’t think poorly of you. The audience rarely, if ever, know or hear the weak parts so they are less of a challenge to impress.

It looks like I will be playing bari sax, bass clarinet, and clarinet this go around. Last time I played soprano, tenor, and bass sax. It was much easier to do that, but still a challenge. Wish me luck.