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Any progress or glimmers of hope towards summer bands for anyone?

I got an email survey over the weekend for a band that I've previously played in. There are a few options being considered: masks/bell covers, possibly rehearsing outdoors, possibly even being a "reading band" with no performances (because what if nobody shows up anyway)?

Anyway, I'm glad to see some movement! I'd probably only do it if there were real performances and no bell covers needed -- I'm fine if all of it is outdoors. A "reading band" sounds like misery, even worse if bell covers are needed. I'm being choosy... ... I'll make an actual decision when the group decides how they are operating this summer.

Hope that most or everyone has some real options for real playing this summer!

Hard pass on Bell covers and such. Reading band, well...if that's the worst thing about it that ain't too bad for now. Hopefully by the fall things will change. I heard of a reboot with one of my community groups in September. What that looks like and if it will actually happen who knows. Until then, I'll wait until all the oogie-boogie measures for scared folks are gone to play again. I don't feel I should modify MY life to be happy because of someone else's fears. But we all know how society feels about fellers who believe that way.

We are planning to start up our community band soon. Definite on a July 4th concert, but hope to start up sooner - maybe sometime in April. A poll was taken, and a majority of the band wants to start up. Now it depends on the church that provides our rehearsal hall.

I find a reading ensemble well worth the time. I now play exclusively horn. For about 3 years, I had the pleasure and privilege of playing 3rd horn for the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia (OSP), a reading orchestra that met every Friday night year around at Temple University. There was different repertoire every week being rehearsed by a different conductor. At the end of the rehearsal, the conductor ran the rehearsed repertoire start to finish as if it were a performance. This familiarized me with a wide range of symphonic repertoire and sharpened my sight reading if the work/s were not available through public domain. Professional free-lance players played regularly to keep their symphonic repertoire sharpened. OSP was a wonderful experience for me. I became a more competent hornist, experienced many conductor's styles, played much repertoire that was new to me and got to play with some very fine, high level players. Consider a reading band! It has many GREAT advantages.

hbcrandy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:29 pm I find a reading ensemble well worth the time. I now play exclusively horn. For about 3 years, I had the pleasure and privilege of playing 3rd horn for the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia (OSP), a reading orchestra that met every Friday night year around at Temple University. There was different repertoire every week being rehearsed by a different conductor. At the end of the rehearsal, the conductor ran the rehearsed repertoire start to finish as if it were a performance. This familiarized me with a wide range of symphonic repertoire and sharpened my sight reading if the work/s were not available through public domain. Professional free-lance players played regularly to keep their symphonic repertoire sharpened. OSP was a wonderful experience for me. I became a more competent hornist, experienced many conductor's styles, played much repertoire that was new to me and got to play with some very fine, high level players. Consider a reading band! It has many GREAT advantages.

A reading *orchestra* would be a lot of fun. But for a reading *band*, I think I'm less excited. I'm generally a little sour about the music that gets played already... so I question if doing more of that is something I want to do. I'm sure it'd be okay, and hey, actually even a great place for me to learn more about my Alex... but it'll be a tougher sell on the family for a reason to be out for a whole night each week for a rehearsal... of nothing. When I was single or before kids, this stuff would have been an easy "yes." But these days, a full night each week in the summer for my own possible personal betterment as a tuba player... doesn't seem so important or likely.

bort2.0 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:48 pm

hbcrandy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:29 pm I find a reading ensemble well worth the time. I now play exclusively horn. For about 3 years, I had the pleasure and privilege of playing 3rd horn for the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia (OSP), a reading orchestra that met every Friday night year around at Temple University. There was different repertoire every week being rehearsed by a different conductor. At the end of the rehearsal, the conductor ran the rehearsed repertoire start to finish as if it were a performance. This familiarized me with a wide range of symphonic repertoire and sharpened my sight reading if the work/s were not available through public domain. Professional free-lance players played regularly to keep their symphonic repertoire sharpened. OSP was a wonderful experience for me. I became a more competent hornist, experienced many conductor's styles, played much repertoire that was new to me and got to play with some very fine, high level players. Consider a reading band! It has many GREAT advantages.

A reading *orchestra* would be a lot of fun. But for a reading *band*, I think I'm less excited. I'm generally a little sour about the music that gets played already... so I question if doing more of that is something I want to do. I'm sure it'd be okay, and hey, actually even a great place for me to learn more about my Alex... but it'll be a tougher sell on the family for a reason to be out for a whole night each week for a rehearsal... of nothing. When I was single or before kids, this stuff would have been an easy "yes." But these days, a full night each week in the summer for my own possible personal betterment as a tuba player... doesn't seem so important or likely.

Tell her you have to justify and get your money's worth out of the Alex and you can only make that determination based on the once per week rehearsal.

I've never played with a bell cover, and wouldn't have guessed that it makes any difference at all the player? Assuming reasonably permeable stretch fabric.

But for the same reason, I wouldn't have guessed that there's any risk of contagion emanating from the bell. I mean, not only does your breath have to go through 18 feet of brass tubing, the cross section of that tubing expands by a factor of a couple hundred, and the velocity decreases correspondingly. So it isn't exactly an aerosol hose like the flutes reportedly are, it's more like a very complicated mouth-only face mask. I haven't seen any serious consideration of the subject since last spring when (as I remember it) a US military band organization did some videos, no tuba there.

There are plenty of kids making due with bell covers and getting decent results.

Just saying, if a bell cover is what gets you back to playing music again, is it that much of a penalty?

' probably sounds snotty...but if I'm required to play with a bell cover, there needs to be both remuneration and a bell cover (one which doesn't scratch or stress my instrument) supplied by the contractor/employer. I don't mind playing only for the sake of fellowship, but fellowship playing needs to be under conditions which suit me (ie. are enjoyable to me, as - again - the purpose of it would be singly for fellowship).

I'm not commenting whether bell covers are silly, but - were someone to make one that they were requiring me to use - perhaps it would feature a round piece of speaker cloth (hopefully, nearly acoustically transparent, and my requirement would be that the disc of speaker cloth itself would be small enough to not contact my instrument (when set in position - perhaps two inches smaller than the outer bell diameter) sewn to a band of VERY soft outer fabric fitted with elastic.

bloke "I might even consider painting a Mr. Yuk face on the front of my tuba, were the remuneration attractive enough."

donn wrote:I've never played with a bell cover, and wouldn't have guessed that it makes any difference at all the player? Assuming reasonably permeable stretch fabric.

Bell covers do make a difference. Some notes are difficult to make speak/resonate, and it definitely changes the tone quality of the sound produced.

Are the woodwind players are going to put covers on all of the holes on their instruments... Are the flute players going to do something, since half of their air isn't going into the instrument at all... Or do something about everyone emptying out their spit valves and swabbing out their instrument everywhere... I'm really supposed to believe that bell covers are going to do anything to keep us safe?

Don't get me wrong, I follow the mask stuff and distancing rules as well as anyone. I'll do what I have to do, but I'm not going to volunteer for more than that. I'll play outside with no mask. Beyond that... I may just prefer to wait it out. I'm plenty happy and busy enough without it.

hbcrandy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:29 pm I find a reading ensemble well worth the time. I now play exclusively horn. For about 3 years, I had the pleasure and privilege of playing 3rd horn for the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia (OSP), a reading orchestra that met every Friday night year around at Temple University. There was different repertoire every week being rehearsed by a different conductor. At the end of the rehearsal, the conductor ran the rehearsed repertoire start to finish as if it were a performance. This familiarized me with a wide range of symphonic repertoire and sharpened my sight reading if the work/s were not available through public domain. Professional free-lance players played regularly to keep their symphonic repertoire sharpened. OSP was a wonderful experience for me. I became a more competent hornist, experienced many conductor's styles, played much repertoire that was new to me and got to play with some very fine, high level players. Consider a reading band! It has many GREAT advantages.

I agree with Randy (hbcrandy). I did a lot of professional free lance playing and know that the only way to stay sharp is to sight read, sight read sight read and sight read more! A lot of my jobs were like reading ensembles only you played for an audience (Randy calls this type of job "put them up and play them down") and if you cannot do this they find someone who can. Fredrick Fennel used to say "you only get one chance to play a piece for the first time". I always found reading ensembles to be fun and there is a lot of orchestra, band, jazz, quintet, etc. literature that can be explored in reading ensembles.

Best,
Mark

We played indoors, distanced, with no covers or masks while playing late September thru Thanksgiving of 2020. No one got Rona’d

bort2.0 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 2:24 pm Are the flute players going to do something, since half of their air isn't going into the instrument at all...

I don't really get it myself, but the story as I remember it is that their fatal exhaust shoots out the end of the flute. I wouldn't have guessed there was much air coming out that way - thought it was more like playing a bottle neck and the air flow through the instrument would be negligible. (And I somehow managed to play the flute for a while in my youth despite this misunderstanding.) The air volume is certainly greater than reed woodwinds in the same range, like clarinet and oboe.

I think the solution the military band organization came up with was a bunch of clear shields, one in front of each player, so you can't spray the next row, or I suppose the audience. Like any kind of gathering, though, time and ventilation are critical parameters; outdoors should be significantly better, but still it will be hard to draw an audience to packed seating for a lengthy show.

Honestly, while I completely go with the word of our medical experts (they are the experts, after all), I question the sincerity of the results of the way the rehearsals are being handled based on a single study. I found that article (way back in like September/October) shortly after the recommendations of the AFM:

• Wear a mask when not playing. Non-wind musicians wear a mask at all times.

• Keep a distance of twelve feet from each individual wind player.

• Use plexiglass shielding.

This is on top of all other common sense.

I saw this way back in October about the study, and I had tons of questions that were not in the article. Basically, throw something over your bell, and you'll be safer. This did not add up, and there were potential issues that were not addressed in the article. The article seemed written to just get band directors to justify the ability to get back to rehearsals ASAP, and did not touch on anything else except for bell covers. My issues were:

• What about keyed instruments/flute?

• Why aren't they talking about the extra social distancing?

• What about the plexi shields as recommended by AFM?

• What about the weaker brass students, whose embouchures sometimes leak? Surely there's aerosol coming from there, too!

I made these points on a Reddit post, and someone comes along and says "I'm a band director, and you obviously don't understand how wind instruments work."

Upon looking up the study again after seeing this thread, I found this page.

So first of all, it became abundantly clear that the purpose of the article was to just push the bell covers to get students back into rehearsals. We can get them back in pile them together, but it's okay as long as you cover your bells! The article definitely talks about the other points from the AFM notice I read, but these points were not in the article that was linked.

(I wish I could find the article; but that was too long ago to find it in an acceptable amount of time.)

Still, my issues with the study are thus:

• It wasn't for the purpose to see how dangerous it is, but to see how we can make people feel safer.

• It was conducted by a single college music department (small sample size).

• It didn't consider different levels of ability re: embouchures.

• Because of this small sample size, there could be similar issues (or lack thereof) in techniques that could cause more or less aerosol, due to using musicians studying with the same teacher. And this is still collegiate-level musicians, so we're not really looking at novice or professional musicians to see any other differences?

• In the video, it doesn't look like they even bothered to look at the other exit points for sound on woodwinds.

• Were tubas even sampled? I'm sure we have issues with smaller wind instruments, but I can't imagine there's a ton of aerosols being launched through 12-20 feet of brass tubing.

Sorry for the long rant. I just can't stand that we're taking all these precautions, but now there's this general "it's okay of you have a bell cover."

As for summer bands, I'm more on the optimistic side. The numbers are improving, and I feel like this summer is going to be a start of some normalcy.

And I live in Florida, where most everything is open...except for brass gigs.

Unfortunately, advice/dictum from "scientists" and "experts" makes little real-world sense. After all, these "experts" have been wrong on just about every aspect of this flu, so why do we expect them to nail it when it comes to musicians? Or, maybe they are also "expert" musicians? Use common sense and just play.
One band of mine has played almost weekly since last summer, indoors and outdoors; no one has contracted covid, even the more nervous members. We use sensible measures, installed filtration and air-moving stuff and our rehearsal space is probably the safest place around. As business manager, I actually have people starting to book!

bloke "I might even consider painting a Mr. Yuk face on the front of my tuba, were the remuneration attractive enough."

When I was studying tuba with Paul Krzywicki at school in the 1970's, Paul had 5/4 Hirsbrunner rotary valve CC tuba as his main instrument in the Philadelphia Orchestra. I was rather surprised the first time I was allowed to play it to find that he had a Mr. Yuk face sticker on the back of his bell not too far above the leadpipe.

A couple of my groups are making tentative plans to play this summer, including one that has reading band as one possibility. I’d do it, just to be able to play with other people again.

scottw wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 7:05 pm We use sensible measures....

In my neck of the woods (between Duluth and Fargo) I know the community band that rehearses at Central Lakes College in Brainerd is starting already. They require bell covers (but not for tubas and F Horns) and masks. I've been asked, but am electing not to play there. Haven't heard re: the Park Rapids band; the Detroit Lakes band will begin sometime soon, no date has been announced. The Bemidji Orchestra and the Heartland Symphony (I have subbed with them) are going.
The best news is our little Dixieland band will meet a time or 3 in May and we have summer outdoor performances booked in June and August, certainly hoping for more.
*** On a separate but related note, have any of you declined to play with a group because of the conductor? A certain professional I have played with picks enjoyable and challenging music and the band is pretty good; however, his personality, presentation, and style take all the joy out of the experience for me, and after 6 months I've decided that I can't stand it and will not participate. It's too bad, because the guy keeps asking me to join and says good and appreciative things about my playing, but it's the first group where I find myself constantly watching the clock to see when I can get outta' there. End of rant.
Tim