{"id":11555,"date":"2019-12-18T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T16:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=11555"},"modified":"2019-12-17T01:29:44","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T07:29:44","slug":"my-seasonal-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2019\/12\/my-seasonal-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"My seasonal challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By the time I found out about the <a href=\"https:\/\/marioncommunitybands.us\/\">Marion Community Band<\/a>, I had <em>not<\/em>\u00a0officially played for more years than I <em>had<\/em>. But, thanks to all those early years of practicing, I was able to wobble my way back on the bicycle for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamstime.com\/royalty-free-stock-photo-lady-playing-clarinet-image8439765\">Ye Mo\u0192t Noble and E\u0192teemed Woodwind.*<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That led to being in the &#8220;small but mighty&#8221; Rockwell Collins (now Collins Aerospace) Band, which mostly plays for company employees and nursing homes but is basically my only non-road-trip activity.<\/p>\n<p>This year (in today&#8217;s concert), the band has an extra challenge \u2014 the &#8220;Hallelujah Chorus&#8221;. You know the music. I love the music. Mr. Shay challenged the high school chorus to do it when I was a freshman. I can sing both the soprano and bass lines cold.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/15OVHwWznmM\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The band version does not follow the vocals<em> at ALL<\/em>. The high winds act more as strings and bells. There are only 32 notes in the whole thing below middle B, where the finger-register divide is. It has notes I never learned until this summer, when I got shown up by a Linn-Mar student who later made All-State.\u00a0It is one of the most challenging pieces I have ever played, or more accurately attempted.<\/p>\n<p>However, &#8220;Hallelujah Chorus&#8221; does not rise to the annual exhaustion that is &#8220;Sleigh Ride.&#8221;\u00a0(If a trivia question ever starts along the lines\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/parkersymphony.org\/facts-about-sleigh-ride\">&#8220;written during a heat wave&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0this song is likely the answer.) It has a section in A major (three sharps), the line never stops moving, the notes soar <em>way<\/em> into the beyond-high-C stratosphere, and <a href=\"https:\/\/music.stackexchange.com\/questions\/33774\/b-c-and-e-f-no-sharp\">THERE ARE E SHARPS IN HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xTMc-WAjL-I\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I will die, but I will die valiantly.<\/p>\n<h5>*nobody holds it that way what are you doing<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the time I found out about the Marion Community Band, I had not\u00a0officially played for more years than I had. But, thanks to all those early years of practicing, I was able to wobble my way back on the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2019\/12\/my-seasonal-challenge\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11555"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11685,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11555\/revisions\/11685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}