[MusicTlk] Scrambling to Learn Music for Community Orchestra

[Chela Robles]

Not sure if you’re the only trumpet player, but if you’re not have the other trumpet player record your part for you and send it to you
Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 8, 2024, at 12:55 PM, Catherine Getchell via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'd love your collective wisdom on this. I'm just an amateur musician, but
> I'm very active in a community band, orchestra, and brass quintet. Lately,
> the orchestra conductor has been choosing a lot of rental music rather than
> music we already have in our pretty vast library. Since it's a community
> orchestra, they don't like to order the music until a few weeks before the
> first rehearsal, and often it doesn't arrive until a week or two beforehand.
> I'm a one-on-a-part player (trumpet), so I don't have the option of taking
> my time to learn the music while the rest of the section plays it. It's got
> to be ready by the first rehearsal.  Music Braille isn't really an option
> for me in real-time because the trumpet requires both hands. And I'm faster
> at learning it by ear anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> This is proving more and more challenging as there is more and more rental
> music. The timeframe also often coincides with new music distributed by the
> other groups I play with, so my ability to stop everything and focus just on
> orchestra music for a couple weeks is limited.
> 
> 
> 
> I have asked the librarian to work with the publishers to at least get my
> part ahead of time, or to order all the parts a little early, but I don't
> get a response to my emails to him. I've let the conductor know about the
> situation. The question I have for the group is: What is a reasonable ask in
> terms of getting music ahead of time? Ideally I'd like to have it all a
> couple months ahead so that I can "put it in the queue" so-to-speak, instead
> of having to drop everything and focus on orchestra music. I'm thinking of
> telling the group that if I don't have all the music a month ahead of time
> minimum, they should find a sub for me for that show. But I'm afraid that if
> I do this, they may decide that it's just easier to find a sighted player,
> even if they're not as strong. Has anyone had success in advocating for
> getting music ahead of time? Any tips and tricks? And what amount of lead
> time is reasonable to ask for? Thanks!
> 
> Catherine
> 
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