Friday, March 16, 2007

Ouch to the infinity

It felt like I was experiencing a break-up all over again. No, really, it really hurts.

This...this is something with the lack of practice.

But hey, we practised.

You may not know it, but (probably) even passionate tuba players feel deprived sometimes. What are we deprived of? Beautiful melodies.

And at NUSWS, we have a few, but one was prominent. The soli with lower woodwinds and double basses at the beginning of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

It's not that I'm sick of being backup, I know that tubas really do matter. But it is simply because we don't get to play melodies almost ALL the time that's why we treasured this so much. It was like the only time that tubas can rise up above and play like stars. Alas, we didn't play like we were required to, and we were stripped of our precious chance.



What really happened? Perhaps we should've practised even more to master that part. It was just a matter of more than three bars. We didn't perfect it at all, though we practised and practised and practised. The slur from G to Eb didn't work for us, and in addition my G to Bb sounded garbage-y.

So the conductor took that part away from us.

There's a sense of disappointment that I don't know how to describe to you. The shudder that I got when I realised what Mr Tan was talking about when he said tubas come in from bar 6 onwards, I counted and counted then realised he was ordering us to start playing after the soli. Meaning, to hell with tubas opening for InTempo 2007.

We were in no position to get that few bars back from us, since we couldn't promise that we could perfect it by Sunday. No way. But it was an extreme discouragement. The time that we spent to practise it...whose fault is it? All of our fault! The disappointment is there, I felt it. That shudder that I told you about. It was like going through a break-up when the person you were so mad about left you. Though I may smile and smile and smile, I could still feel the pain inside.

That few bars mattered so, so much.

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