Topic: The orchestra

[gentleman]

Hello.

Just thought It'd be good to have a thread for people who play musical instruments and suchlike.  I'm joining an orchestra after a few years of not playing the trumpet.  Does anyone else have experience of getting back into the trumpet after 2 and a half years out (lip going etc)?

[waittillmay]

your lip will take a bit to get back in, so defo do as much practise as you can. All the slurs and long notes and stuff to get your tone etc back in too.
As soon as i stop working nights i'll be getting back to playing too either in a brass band or orchestra.

Good luck, it feels really good when youre back playing after a while.

Dont know about you, but everytime i see or hear music now i feel jealous that i'm not playing anymore and it makes me even more determined to get back into it.

[gentleman]

yeh definitely, i didn't go a day without playing in band/orchestra or just at lessons/practice from like 10-18, but as soon as i went to uni it all went by wayside. student house not good for trumpet practice, no piano either!

 i've found a website, www.pianostreet.com if anyone's interested that is like £12 for a year worth of unlimited access to pretty much any piano music ever, you just load it up and print it off. so i'm using that to try and get back into piano,

i'm starting the orchestra at the end of this month, so i should get going with the practice! i feel like not doing something about it now would mean i'd lose the ability to play well forever, and that'd be a waste...

[ying_agger]

It's my dream to join an orchestra. Good luck!

[gentleman]

mmm,

this orchestra I was gonna join seem quite relaxed, practice for 2-3 months before each concert, only 3 concerts a year so 6-9 months of playing, the rest off. i liked the idea of that cos I could play football a lot of tuesday's too as they didn't seem too strict on turning up to every session.  It's a long way away though, 45 mins-hour's drive so the petrol would be costly, but they're prob about my current standard etc.

But....

another, much more respected orchestra has said they would like me to join, it's in Belfast, much closer to me but costs £100 a year to play in.  They're a proper orchestra though, record CDs etc and all that which is cool, but cos of that they seem stricter and are probably of very good playing standard, which I could get to but it'd take some time to get back into, and cos of their strictness i'm not sure I could play footy with everyone ever on a tuesday.

not sure what to do...

[waittillmay]

If i was you i'd definately join the better orchestra, and £100 is hardly anything to pay in subs per year.

[Ben J]

If you want to get your lip back in, buy (or dig out) Cornet Method by J. B. Arban.  Bout £20 to buy but covers everything you could possibly imagine.  Start on page 1 and see how far you get, my old band conductor used to say that if you can play every page in that book you'll be the world's best player.  Also, try to get playing with others as soon as possible as no matter how much individual work you do, you'll need to sort your dynamics/balance out.  I rejoined a brass band in feb after 18 months without playing a note.  Was incredibly frustrated at how my technique had slipped at first but even after 2 months or so I felt fairly at ease with it again.

[gentleman]

yeh i was at the orchestra for the first time last week and am going again tonight. originally i thought it was 2.5 years since i'd played but it's actually 5! was very frustrating as you say how much i'd slipped, but the music wasn't too bad, so i could scrape through and hopefully week on week i'll get back to normal again!