Last night I played trombone duets for hours until about 2:30am and then today I played trombone quartets for about an hour, I played trombone octets for an hour and a half, brass quintets for an hour, and then more brass quintets for another couple hours... by far the most chamber music I've played in one day... but some interesting things have been noted.
Either the music we played was somewhat simple or we've gotten better as a whole and I have gotten better as an individual musician. I think it might have been a tiny bit of the former and a lot of the latter. I played a whole lot of fun music that we really enjoyed playing and anybody walking by would love to listen to, brass musician or not! It's an amazing thing that doesn't happen anymore. When classical musicians hear the idea of Beatles songs arranged for brass quintet, they assume they'll be corny and easy... These were an extreme case, but they were really very demanding arrangements and we had a ton of fun playing.
Point being this is the way to get people to hear music... this is the way to make brass chamber music relevant in modern culture... not by just doing the same thing we've been doing for 50 years.
Can't wait to see where this goes! Everyone was in a really good mood today, hope this lasts! :D
-CSB
