Why study music?

Yesterday was not really a good day and I arrived at my lesson feeling rather fraught and frazzled.  I was not really in the frame of mind for learning.  We pressed on anyway.... through a slow Ferling study that needed quietness and calmness and controlled breathing, onto the Hindemith second movement with long, sweeping slow phrases followed by a chance to really go for it with fortissimos and accented notes.  Then a sense of spaciousness and elegance with the start of Telemann's Fantasia no 7.

By the end of the lesson I felt like a different person and was ready to face  "real life" again.

On a forum that I read, someone  recently posed the question "Why Study Music?" 

For me, this is why: it soothes my soul.

Term finally begins

The new term is now underway.  I was more than a little excited about starting orchestra again, and finding out what we would be playing for the next concert.  Everyone is usually a little rusty at the first rehearsal of the year, and also a little over excited.  There is a lot of catching up to do.  I have kept playing over the summer so thought I'd find it easy to get back into it.  In some respects that was true, but I particularly noticed that my playing had become much quieter over the summer. I  think it is the practice room effect - what sounds loud when I am playing at home suddenly seems very quiet indeed when I am in a large rehearsal room playing along with a full orchestra.  Hopefully that will remedy itself over the next few weeks.

The music for this session will be enjoyable:
Debussy - Petite Suite (which I think has some nice oboe bits in)
Mozart - Magic Flute Overture
Smetana - Vltava (a simpler arrangement of the original)

We are also going to be doing a Symphony but we will get the music for that next week.

I also had my first lesson of the term.  We spent time on Luft Study 23, Telemann 4 and Orientale - all of which I was working on over summer. 

for next time I will start working on  Telemann Fantasia number 7, Luft Study 24, Ferling Study 41.
Also continue Orientale focussing on phrasing, rubato, expression and we will look at the Hindemith.

Next lesson will be in 2 weeks time.