Welcome, and dust off your horn!

I'm Hal Brenner, and I have the privilege of standing in front of the Tuesday Night Winds every week. We are a 45-piece adult community band. Some of us play professionally, some of us teach, and a good many of us hadn't touched an instrument between high school graduation and the day somebody talked us into coming to a rehearsal. That's the whole idea. If you played in a band once, you can play in one again.

This page is for our members (rehearsal news, the concert program, the calendar) and for anybody in the area who has a clarinet in a closet and a Tuesday night free. Read on.

Every Tuesday, 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., in the band room at the high school. Come in the music wing entrance on the parking-lot side; the front doors are locked after 6. We set up starting at 7:15, and we tune at 7:30 sharp. If you arrive after the downbeat, slip in quietly and find your section. Nobody minds. We all have jobs and families.

We rehearse from the first Tuesday after Labor Day right through the week before the concert, then take December off and start again the second Tuesday in January. Bring your own instrument, a pencil (a pencil, not a pen), and a folding stand if you have one. The school lets us borrow stands but there are never quite enough.

Percussion: the school's equipment is available to us Tuesday nights only. Please don't take anything home, even a triangle. We had a talk about this last spring.

Fall 1999 rehearsal dates: Sept. 7, 14, 21, 28; Oct. 5, 12, 19, 26; Nov. 2, 9, 16. Dress rehearsal Thursday, Nov. 18, at 7:30 in the auditorium.

High school auditorium. Admission is free; we pass the hat for the music fund. Bring the kids, bring your neighbors, bring anybody who thinks a band concert is boring, and we'll change their mind by the second march.

The program as it stands (subject to what we can actually play by November):

Concert dress is black bottoms, white tops, and the band's red bow tie or scarf. If you've lost yours, see me at a rehearsal; we have a box of spares.

There is no audition. I mean that. Here is the whole process:

1. Show up on a Tuesday at 7:15 with your instrument.
2. Tell me what you play. I'll hand you a folder and point you at a chair.
3. Play along. Fake the hard parts. Everybody does the first month.
4. Come back the next Tuesday.

Dues are $20 a year, payable to the band treasurer any time in the fall. That covers music, the concert program printing, and the coffee. If $20 is a hardship, talk to me privately and we'll work it out; we have never turned away a player over dues and we're not going to start.

You must be out of high school. (High school players have their own excellent band, and their director would like to keep them.) There's no upper limit. Our oldest member has been playing trombone since the Truman administration and he is still the loudest thing in the room.

Been away from your horn a long time? Good news: it comes back faster than you think. Your fingers remember more than your head does. The first two weeks your lip will give out halfway through rehearsal, and that's normal. Get your instrument looked at by a repair shop before you come (pads dry out, valves stick, corks crumble) so you're not fighting the horn on top of everything else. Then just come. Nobody in this band is judging you. We were all the new person once.

Where we stand as of the September 21 rehearsal:

The short version: low brass, low brass, low brass. A band with no bottom is a kazoo choir. If you know anybody who played tuba in college and now sells insurance, send him our way.

Sept. 21: Good rehearsal. The Chaconne is starting to sound like music instead of a math problem. Trumpets, measures 40 through 48 of the Holst march: the dotted rhythm is dotted, not a triplet. Listen to the clarinets; they have it right. Clarinets, don't let it go to your heads.

Sept. 14: Welcome to four new members, including a bass clarinet, which we haven't had in two years. Stars and Stripes read-through: the piccolo obbligato is in the folder now. Piccolos, the audience will be looking at you. Practice it.

Sept. 7: First rehearsal of the season, 41 in chairs. The room still smells like summer floor wax. Handed out folders, tuned, played through the Washington Post twice and called it a night. It's good to be back.

Y2K note: Several members have asked. The band will, to the best of my knowledge, continue to function on January 1, 2000. Sousa did not use a computer.

Other music people here on GeoCities.us that I've enjoyed: The Community String Quartet, Hometown Pickers Bluegrass Jam, The Amateur Cellist and The Organ Loft. Amateur music is alive and well.