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This was a last-minute addition to this next weekend's John Williams pops.
They're moving from their typical venue to the "civic auditorium" because they'll be showing accompanying videos.
I'd predict a bunch of ticket sales, per typical John Williams' pops.

I'm covering the 4th trombone part on F cimbasso and then moving to tuba on this piece (as well as playing F tuba on "Jaws" - so three (count 'em) THREE *apparati.
(In a past concert, I did the same thing on "Summon The Heroes"...actually, when I came up with my "Shallowberger" mouthpiece, as the 4th trombone parts in this Williams pieces - up to F or G, etc. - are just too much unnecessary effort (playable, but more work than necessary, and - truth be told - less focus) with a typical "F tuba" mouthpiece.)

...so I'm playing cimbasso through 85, and then switching to tuba to finish it out.
There's a section (4th trombone part - maybe around m. 121 and onward...?? - page 2 in both parts) where the 3rd and 4th trombone parts clash in semitones (which seems important to me), but the maestro tells me the same clashing pitches are covered in a couple of other parts, and to just stay on tuba and hit the buttons in the tuba part...OK...fine with me.

comment: It's fun - occasionally - to be able to cover to cover the MELODY (particularly a WELL-KNOWN and fun melody) to a piece of orchestral music.




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*yeah...I know...You don't need to tell me...Just laugh with the joke.

So, ya got a wagon to tote all that stuff in?

Mary Ann wrote: Thu Apr 23, 2026 10:10 am So, ya got a wagon to tote all that stuff in?

Toyota Matrix with the back seats down.

It's going to be tight on Friday, because I will also have a 3/4 in its case, a marching baritone in its case, a Bach trumpet in its case, and a fixed bell French horn in its case (to drop off for various schools and individual and school customers to live and work along Interstate 22).

Time is valuable to everyone, and gasoline has become a slightly larger portion of everyone's budget. I believe we all need to help each other whenever we can.
(Digressing wildly per usual, I have a good friend who is recovering from a spousal death as well as building a house from scratch - along with the top down engineered economic shutdown through which we all suffered and continue to suffer. A friend of a friend needed an affordable large bore F attachment tenor trombone for their kid. Rather than selling them the economy line JP trombone, my friend had a shiny nice intermediate used model Yamaha, and I sold it for my friend and didn't keep any of the money. My friend does things for me, and I do things for him. He has repaired some of these ridiculously high tech kitchen appliances that came with this house that no one else would be able to figure out how to repair, and just doing that stuff "as a friend". (You can't discount a friend's invaluable help, and then turn right around and ignore when they can use some help.)

Admittedly, Fat Bastard's hard case takes up a very large percentage of available space, and my F tuba case is actually larger than it needs to be, as it's more of a 186-or-so (maybe even five quarter) size case. ($150 used for something that works and protects is better than $950 new for something that fits very nicely.)

LOL...
I just encountered a Facebook post left there by the wonderful bass trombonist who plays in this particular orchestra, having downloaded the practice PDFs and seeing the repertoire, he described himself as "giddy".

Unquestionably, all of us enjoy playing Williams' movie music, particularly when it's not watered down nor medleyised.

Horn players also love John Williams stuff, even if it is always a chop killer. Being in a blasting horn section is pretty much the height of fun.

My Sax tech does the repair work for all of the schools around me. He had to buy a large van to carry it all. So his lovely wife stops at my house when I have a need for his expert touch. It is nice to not have to run to his shop.

Lucky me, CCC

Gas out west here has gotten really expensive (pushing $6/gal.) so with the road salt gone, I've brought the old Mercedes diesel out of hybrination early this year. It uses 1/3 as much fuel at my Suburban. Last evening I was able to load the Mammoth in its gig bag, with stand, in the trunk and the bell strapped into the passenger seat. My Stuff Bag had to go on the back seat. I was a little later than usual but there were several people who helped lug stuff out of the car. I wasn't at all sure that the horn,even less bell, would fit in the trunk but it and but that's about all.

At Christmas I had to use two horns but one of them was a trumpet so even now it wouldn't be a problem. But using the Willson and the Mammoth in the same show would require the Suburban. Even not towing, in cold weather it only gets 8.5 MPG, which is what it gets towing after warmup. It doesn't look like we'll take a long road trip this summer; at least not with the Suburban.

There's some gasoline along Interstate 22 that's probably going to be only about $3.45 per gallon (which is of course where I will be buying it), but of course we would all prefer that gasoline be free of charge. (I certainly would... assuming those who pump it out of the ground and refine it would be willing to give it to us. Maybe we can convince those who are paying so much for petroleum futures that they need to sell quickly or else they're going to lose big time... That would certainly accomplish a price drop, though it would probably take a couple of months or so. European-esque gas prices... There are a bunch of reasons why I don't visit those states, though "consistently crazy high gas prices" is probably pretty low on the list.

I have a full size Chevy work van that could easily carry everything and probably sixty more instruments, but I'm going to see about getting everything in the Toyota Matrix.

Admittedly, my father's cars were bigger than a Toyota Matrix, but I recall him bringing home pieces of furniture from our grandparents' homes in those cars. I learned packing skills from my father. I believe I'll get everything in there.

The orchestra read through all the charts very well - even with time for some fine-tuning in the reading rehearsal.
The cimbasso didn't let me down on "Raiders."
I worked some more on "Jaws" before the first rehearsal last night.
(Any practice time I put in these days takes away from repair work earnings... precarious balance.)

After we read through "Jaws", the music director said "horns: blah blah blah. tuba: good" and the second time through I did even better, so I think it'll be fine. The trombones liked it.

There's an assistant conductor with this orchestra. He's pretty young and I wonder how much stick time he's actually had.
The second half opens with the Star Wars main title. He was probably a little bit nervous so he gave us some comments ahead of time about how he was going to conduct certain things (things we didn't need to know). At the end, his eyes were as big as saucers. (This orchestra has a very good brass section.)

Those of us who play the tuba and think we've got this "tuning thing" licked...

When we are playing an instrument with a narrower type of sound (like a contrabass trombone) - and playing it in a trombone section with some very fine players, we realize that (whether or not our pitch is superb playing the tuba) it had damn well better be superb when playing in a trombone section.

If you buy a cimbasso, don't buy one that sucks.

I was down on the floor of the stage in a "hole", but (all for the best) with three instruments to juggle.
Being a J. Williams concert (unlike most of the others) I seriously doubt that it will be put up on youtube, but it was remarkably good, remarkably well-executed by all, and remarkably musical.

"hole": I was bumped off the riser, due to an extra trumpet and (possibly?) an extra horn.

This trombone section is remarkably good (a major university professor, a community college professor, and a private college professor).
Without mentioning specific ensembles, I'd rate them above another (so-called) "full-time" orchestra's trombone section in a much larger city.
- tuning
- timing
- proficiency
- blend
- unified phrasing

I couldn't see them breathing (being below them and at about 7:00 on the clockface), so the micro-second articulation timing with them was a bit more challenging, but still possible.

The principal trumpet is a very modest virtuoso-level middle-aged player - Dr. John Schuesselin - teaches at Ole Miss, received a performer certificate (special award to the most remarkable students) when at Eastman.
His son (very fine player - not sure of his age, but it seems like he was in middle school "yesterday" - when repairing his trumpets) was covering the additional trumpet part. I heard NO clams from them the entire night, and trumpet pitch was "iron". John himself could use a new trumpet (piston tolerances from decades of constant playing), but he doesn't sound as though he needs one.

Intermission (rather than 15 minutes) was more like a half-hour.
Though a large venue (for the size of the town) it was just about sold out, and available restrooms were strained.

as known: lots of fast notes and lots of solos for everyone in all these pieces, as well as extreme ranges...
' interesting how WELL "freelance" musicians play difficult music when (well...) they really LIKE it.
It's also interesting how remarkable fine (with the epic glut of "classical" musicians cranked out in numbers probably quadrupling demand - other than fiddles) "freelance" players are playing, these days...possibly better than "big" orchestras back in the 1960's (based on old recordings).
...This is in a city-town whereby the "greater" population is around 140,000, the city-town's population itself is only about 40,000, and the closest large cities are 100 - 200 miles away (95 miles from blokeplace).

Again, with the majority of these pieces having been played with Fat Bastard, FB LOVED this music...' right up his alley.

I still have the PDFs (cough-cough)...I suppose I should delete them...