French Horns.

So last week I just started attending wind orchestra! It was an absolutely amazing experience... playing in a band... how every note is different yet in harmony... how all the instruments weave together to produce that Music...

Except this was slightly dampened by the fact that I had three french horns blasting out behind me.

Literally.

We arrived a little late, so I found myself with the second flutes on an extra chair placed at the end of the row... which meant I had the horns plonked directly behind my back.

What made it worse, was that with all the rush of things, I was sweetly unaware of this fact.
Therefore, when, in the middle of tuning, as I was sitting contentedly (and... maybe also rather smugly as the conductor had pronounced that my tuning was perfect and I had no need to adjust my flute; he's a very nice conductor!) - I almost suffered a heart attack when a deep and extremely loud HONK blared out a few centimetres away from my head.

I like french horns, as a rule. They are extremely... uh... nice... instruments! They have a very lovely resonant tone. No wind band would work without them.

But I do object to having one played a handspan away from my head! (No offence to all my friends who play french horns. I'm a flautist. I'm allowed to debase you!)

Anyway, when we started playing I was too busy sight-reading to notice.
That was another thing...
Our Dear Conductor seems to have a thing about speed. I am positive that if he drove his car as fast as he set the tempo for us, he would have lost his licence and have written off any poor vehicle he happened to be driving within a hair's breadth of writing off himself.

That kind of speed is... not good for sight-reading.

I managed to start on the right note, I did! Then I got lost somewhere in the third bar, floundered between a few phrases, tried a note here and there (and subsided because my fellow flautist was giving me odd looks) and ended up pretending to finger the keys and hoping that nobody behind me had noticed that my fingers were doing something utterly different to the flautists next to me.
They were probably too busy sight-reading themselves, so I think I got away with it... just.

I adore this picture! That is a real mouse! With a real french horn!

Anyway, well this week was un upgrade! We now have six flautists and a new trumpet, which meant that the layout had to undergo drastic changes so as to fit everyone into the room (conductor tearing out his hair).
Now we second flutes are in the corner behind the firsts... and the horns are in the other corner!!

I am not complaining.

This week was also an upgrade in that I had been practising feverishly all week, and barely made any mistakes!

I like upgrades.

'There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.'
- Lady Catherine de Bourgh.