Gods care through the Band Tune Book

We break for something different. This is not my normal IT/agile/lean post. It's about God and his care for me

Happy that you continued to read.

I've been having some hard days at work. I was very angry and it affected not only me but also those around me. Also I was being affected physically with dizziness and head ache. For the first time in my life I found it better to go home and cool off a couple of days.

I felt so tired and was beginning to doubt if I'm really doing the right thing. In the right place.

So I did things that pick me up. Playing hymns on my euphonium is one of those things. My playing is closely related to my faith, since I've made most religious experiences with my instrument in hand, playing in the most cases.

What happened this time was Gods way of saying: I got you, man. Keep going. I've got you.

My light and song

In a few weeks the Vasa Band will do a music festival at the corps. I will play an euphonium solo and was looking for something that isn’t played were often.

For a long time, several years actually, I have had the solo part for My Light and Song (FS 228) in my “collection”, but never dared try to it.

I have actually never heard it played (actually Patrik Randefalk did play it with the Vasa Band in the 90th-ies) or recorded.

I’ll try to post a recording here… after 25 march.

[UPDATED]

This is so sick! This book contains all music (kinda) that is available for euphonium. And who has recorded it! Including a reference to recordings by my father.

And My Light and Song is recorded. By a mr John Butler.

The internet is amazing…

Multi-gifted - Glyn Williams

I can't keep this clip from you - it's golden. The clip shows one of my favorite band, the Fodens Richardsons band, in their best party-mode. The "main" soloist is an excellent euphonium player named Glyn Williams, but here he tries out some other instruments also.

The new grandfathers clock

First stop for euphonist on the web

This guy, David Werden, has been around on the net for quite a while. But now he has expanded his site with a blog and some other great stuff.

If you want to really dive into euphonium stuff then this is the place to be. And I want to, sometime.

Presentations

Today is kind of a special day at work. After the normal work day we have invited my customer to Avega for an evening of some, hopefully interesting and fun presentation.

Why I am hoping this is because I am doing the presentations, and the "fun" part.

The first part is a SOA-presentation together with a colleague - Robert Södergren. Here we will try to answer the not-so-easy-answered-question "What is SOA?".

For the fun is something even more nerve-wrecking; I often take the opportunity to play my euphonium and tell people little about the Salvation Army. Nothing special there. But this time I have chosen to end the session by playing the infamous Carnival of Venice, by Arban.

I know - it's my own choice and all that - but it was a bit harder than I expected to get it up to "wow"-factor. I am not quite sure I am there yet - to be honest. I'll get back to you.

Recording of Priority - DONE!

OK - the weekend has now come to an end. We are all very tired - but also happy. We made it - and most of it sounded very good also.

I think the CD will be very nice to listen to and with a strong message built into it. We have prayed for the message to be clear and for any listener to be blessed by the tone from God.

The highlight of the weekend was probably the recording of the title track Priority which came of very good. An excellent piece by Anders Beijer based on the hymn tune "Slane". It is associated with the lyrics "Be thou my vision".

On a personal note the last day of the recording sessions were nerve-wrecking. The only piece left to record was the euphonium solo, Journey into Peace. Things got under way very late (about 2 hours) and we had people in the band needed to leave a certain time, which gave us only 2 hours to record.

As we recorded time flew and all of the sudden we had arrived to the lip-tiring part of the piece with only 30 minutes left, and no room for a break. We had to do a lot of takes of that part which made me even more tired. Well, to make a long story short, with the final take of the weekend the hardest (and highest) part of the piece fell into place.

Scary though that we only have one take on that part - i haven't heard it yet. I hope (and pray) that it will sound OK. For the rest of the piece i feel quite comfortable with what we got - not perfect but nothing to be ashamed of either.

Thank you band for a great weekend!
Thank you Andreas for some excellent work (what an ear!) during the recording!
Thank you God for blessing us all through the hard work we did!

Recording session II

Yesterday evening was the last rehearsal before the second and last recording session with my band, the Vasa Band.

We are really in a flow right now; we feel blessed and that God is with us in our efforts and the playing standard is on very high level.

I am really looking forward to the weekend which will be great fun and a lot of hard work. The pieces we are going to record are:

• I Surrender All - a cornet solo by Andreas Holmlund
• Priority - a "major" piece by Anders Beijer
• Swing the pearly gates - swing piece (duh!) by Andreas Holmlund
• Kan Kristus räkna med dig - another swing piece by Andreas Holmlund
• Journey into Peace - euphonium solo by William Himes
• Hawthorne march - a march from the 1920's

I am really proud of the band and i am sure that this will be great.

Great new euphonium work

Steven Mead has premiered a new work for euphonium and symphony orchestra that seems to become a classic.

You can read about it here and also download it (1, 2 and 3 movements) and hear some contemporary euphonium playing at its best. I am humbled and will stay in my "neighbourhood" (Salvation Army music, Brass Band) for quite some time. It would be great fun to try something a bit easier with symphony orchestra...

Thank you Steven - very, very good indeed.

New euphonium sales site

Oh la la - this is a "dangerous" place for euphonium-players. A whole site with stuff to buy for euphonium-players.... http://www.justforbrass.com

Me like... Money gone... ;)

Recommended listening

Just wanted to drop a few CD recommendations for the summer. I don't (actually) buy that many brass band Cd's which make me be the more concerned with the ones I actually buy.

The first one is Vienna Nights with Black Dyke Band. This is really something extra for us who like serious music for brass. Mr Philip Wilby (who has composed all tracks) has been one of the new and major voices in the brass band movement. His test pieces are loved by many and here is a small collection of four of them.
The highlights for me (so far, i might add, since the pieces tend to grow on you) are Dove Descending... which is a absolutely fantastic piece.

The other CD is by the Black Dyke solo euphonium David Thornton - what a player! When he first started to play with Dyke i thought he was a bit too young and inexperience for such a prestigious position. How wrong i was! He rules! And on this CD - Devils duel -he really proves himself over and over. I can just bow my head in humble admiration - great playing, great sound and great music (favorite on this one is the Benediction and Requiem Paraphrases)

Tuba Circus - don't try this at home kids

OK - found this on a site and it just blew my mind!

I've actually heard that piece with Øystein Baadsvik before but it still amazing.

For all non-brass players - this is more or less impossible stuff. Imagine a footballer doing a tripple-salkov and kicking a basketball into the top corner of a goal from 200 meters - and you are close in how hard this is.

Hospital caroling

When I wrote the list over weird things to do this weekend i forgot the most heartwarming thing; yesterday i went to the St Görans Hospital with Elin and a friend. Elins father works there as a hospital priest. We went around about 5 floors and sung carols and some euphoniumplaying sneaked it's way in there too :)

It was very rewarding although not too many people had the strength to come out - which you can understand. But I could almost feel their appreciation out the place where we stood.

Back from the road

Returned to Stockholm from a small tour... exhausted of course.

Funny how playing and spending so much time together bonds you and makes new friends. I really had a great time with the band.

The playing from the band also took of, and became better and better. For me too, even though a major split spoiled the very last note of the encore. Really embarrassing, but hey - that's life.

Gave (swedish expression) blood on my tooth though. More. More practice!

Applause

Played a concert last night....

The sound of applause is so nice. The term rewarding has never been more appropriate.

And yet the act in itself is very basic, almost childish. I wonder when that was invented. Or if it's still different from different parts of the world. I've heard that deaf people don't clap their hands but wiggle them instead, that might be used in other parts of the world also.

I recorded the concert on my IRiver (love it) and today I will try to get hold of a program that splits Mp3's.

New Besson Euphonium

Phew! After some turbulent times for Besson they are now back.... with some new euphonium models too.

That would be something to dream of http://www.euphonium.net/articles/besson/besson.html

Pretty cool that a new Sovereign models is released. I always thought that Besson had abandonded them for Prestige. The Prestige is just to expensive for hobby-players like myself... maybe when I am a millionaire..