taz_39 | Entries tagged with trombone

The shop is run by Miles O'Malley, no direct relation although the last name does imply that we're probably some sort of distant cousins or whatever. Obviously I am interested in his trombones because they say "O'Malley" on them! But also because Miles is an excellent craftsman and I was curious to try his instruments.

You guys gotta understand: Miles makes his horns entirely in-house, by hand, which is so incredibly rare.

We caught up for a bit--Miles and I worked at BAC Music in Kansas City together for a time and a lot has happened since then--and then I got to try some of his horns. He had two large tenors for me, one in gold brass and one in yellow brass.

Some details of the F attachment tubing and rotors, and the intricate bell engraving which is done entirely by hand by a guy named Adam.

Some points of interest for you non-trombonists are the braces, which are the parts that look like a rod or bar ending in silver tubes. The silver parts are shaped kind of like fish vertebrae, and the entry points of the tuning slides (which are the topmost curves in the left picture) are somewhat flared, both unique features that to my knowledge are not found on other trombones. Miles says he's also put a lot of thought into the brace points between the bell and the F attachment tubing in order to allow for more resonance while still providing structural support.

(This brace point is the primary one and is standard on all trombones, but he's used his own logo-shape-design-thing so I wanted to show it.)

Miles's years of experience and his skills aside, my expectations were pretty low. I mean, most major instrument manufacturers have been around for decades. They have factories, and the highest-tech equipment, and budgets to hire loads of workers. Miles has himself, a fellow creator/designer, a bell maker/engraver, a machinist, an assembly/repair guy, and a buffer. That's six people, plus a few seasonal kids that he hires for misc smaller tasks. In addition to trombones his shop also makes trumpets, individual parts for both trumpets and trombone, and some French horn parts.

Naturally he has produced very few trombones so far, and most of those were on preorder. I'm assuming that the two I tried are kept as floor models. Floor models get handled and beat up a lot. So again, my expectations were low. I don't doubt the quality or Miles's abilities, but he's just starting out and can't possibly be producing excellent horns just yet.

Right?

Actually...............

As I played, moving up and down the range of the instrument, paying attention to response and tone and slide quality and balance and a whole slew of other things....I found myself becoming more and more impressed. This was a REALLY good trombone. The biggest surprise came when I tried jumping octaves, and found it incredibly easy compared to other trombones I've played...even including my rare and legendary Earl Williams trombone.

Like, I tried to play a high E, and it came right out. No fighting or squeezing or twitching the slide millimeters to try and find the microscopic sweet spot that would allow the note to sound. It was just...there. I'm sure that this all sounds like gibberish to you, but know that to trombonists it is a BIG DEAL. Traditionally some notes do not sound as good/come out as easily as others on certain instruments. On trombones those notes are usually E natural and B natural, especially the high ones. To have them just pop out loudly and proudly and easy as apple pie is a DREAM.

I "can" play a high E natural on my Williams, but it's not pleasant. I have to fight for it.
Evidence video (the high E occurs at the 00:11 mark):

Watch on YouTube

But it comes right out on this big ol' O'Malley tenor! I was VERY impressed! Too bad I just bought a bass trombone and totally won't be able to afford an O'Malley trombone until AT LEAST next year. But in the meantime, damn, it is SO COOL to see my surname proudly displayed on such a fine, handmade instrument!! Great job, Miles!!

After that Miles and Adam gave me a tour of their workshop. I recognized many of the same tools and machinery that I've seen at Warburton Music, Shires, BAC, and other manufacturers over the years. I won't bore you with talk of mandrels or dent rollers or buffing compounds; just assume it was all Really Cool Stuff. There were huge rolls of raw sheeted brass, and bells in various stages of shaping, and rotors waiting to be assembled, and all kinds of mysterious (to me) tools and gadgets.

Partway through, Yuexin (machinist) came through and introduced herself, and through her I answered some questions about my musical background and current activities. We chatted a bit more, I played the horns one more time, and as I was leaving Miles graciously gave me a logo shirt! I will wear it proudly. And start saving for one of these trombones!

From there I Ubered to the really awesome local grocery that had the tasty-looking hot bar.
This was my treat to myself for NOT blowing loads of money these past several days :)

Look, they had chicharrones! I've always wanted to try these but the fact that they're basically pure fat continues to deter me. But they look so crunchy and amazing! Ah, maybe next time.

So, so glad I went back for this hot bar. It was SO GOOD.
I got a big salmon filet, and some brisket burnt ends (they threw the burnt ends right in with the main slices, and they were all caramelized and crunchy/chewy...AMAZING.) I got a pork rib that was so tender I could easily crack the bones to get marrow, and some Cajun shrimp rice that made my nose run from the heat but was so tasty, full of plump shrimp. And on the side I had sliced grilled veggies, asparagus, and a big chunk of spiced roasted sweet potato.

I am very jealous of people who can eat here every day!!

After a little break to digest I practiced bass, then made plans with a former My Fair Lady company manager who is in Chicago and wanted to grab lunch. That'll be something to look forward to in addition to the opening night party :)

The rest of the night was chill, typing this post and packing for the move downtown tomorrow.
Jameson messaged to remind me that LEGO Masters was on, and that's how I found out the TV in my room doesn't work. ARGH. It's ok, I'll watch it when it's streaming tomorrow.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TUESDAY

Had a lousy final sleep at this motel because the AC decided to go haywire in the night. I had set it at 75 and woke up freezing at 66! Argh. I'd better not get sick.

Blew the morning doing car insurance research (I'm having a coworker drive my car on layoffs) and typing this whole post up. At 10:30 I checked out and Ubered to the downtown hotel. 11am is generally too early to check in anywhere, and this was no exception. But they will always hold your luggage for you, so I dropped it all except for my purse and grocery tote and took myself to Whole Paycheck for lunch. The hot bar is priced by weight, and that makes it very affordable for someone like me who doesn't eat big meals. $11 later I was full. Walked to a nearby park to enjoy fresh air and kill time.

I started to walk to Navy Pier but only got partway before realizing that I'd probably be able to check in soon. Back to Whole Paycheck for groceries for the week. I was very well-behaved but accidentally bought double protein when I picked up tofu, decided against it, went to put it back but found an associate restocking/blocking that area, and then I wandered elsewhere and COMPLETELY forgot about it at checkout. Argh. My plan is to not open it at all, and leave a note for housekeeping hoping that one of them might enjoy it.

This hotel room is a mite different from the motel. But you know, I feel comfortable in both.

I unpacked and ate dinner and felt very tired indeed. A nice hot shower, chatting with Jameson, and some lavender tea was helpful. I skipped practice entirely but that's all right. Wrote the motel a good review to help bolster their business.

While I was doing all of that, the company truck was pulling up to the Cadillac Palace to begin load in.

(photo courtesy someone in our group chat)

I'm happy to be here for the party...I'm LUCKY to be able to AFFORD to be here, and that my plans had already included time in Chicago such that I only needed to alter those plans a bit to attend. Our violinist is not so lucky. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't still hurt, that another trombonist is in rehearsal right now with the rest of the band. And that the show will go on without me for a MONTH. That's not to say I think I'm important to the show, but that I'm feeling left out :/ But I knew that this layoff was coming. And ALL of the horns/winds/strings will be laid off for all of the other union cities, so it's not like I'm alone in these feelings. It's mainly because we've just started and this is the opening week. That makes it more emotional, and a lot harder to be cut out.

All right, now that's off my chest...I'm just glad to be here! To watch the show, spend time with friends, and celebrate the start of tour with everyone! It'll be a fun and exciting 48 hours in Chicago!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday: Meeting some My Fair Lady friends for lunch, otherwise no plans. Practice at the hotel, practice walking in heels and using the fabric tape for that revealing top. Would be nice to go for a walk.

Thursday: Daytime is free, then at night it's seeing our show followed by the company party! Yay!

**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer. DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers the weekend.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

FRIDAY (4th of July)

Was up too early and not sure why but perhaps because I'm on my own for the next week I felt anxious to get going.

Got to the airport WAY too early. So early that there were still mice running around looking for crumbs.

Watch on YouTube

Flight boarded on time and was mostly smooth. Getting into Chicago was slightly rough, but that's always the case due to the lake. We taxied forever, and then at the gate they couldn't get our cabin door open! We were trapped on the plane for an additional 30 minutes!! Luckily no one lost their temper; I think those on connecting flights were resigned to their fate. By the 20 minute mark I was starting to feel anxious, thinking about my poor trombone circling the luggage belt endlessly, or someone snatching it up...

When they finally got the door open and let us out, I rushed straight to the luggage belt without even stopping to pee.

Phew.

I opened it right there on the airport floor, checking for damage. Thank, thank, THANKFULLY, the foam cushioning did the job. One down, three more flights to go.

Grabbed my big suitcase and hustled out to get an Uber. That ALSO took forever because I got ditched by drivers TWICE. C'mon Chicago, help a girl out!! But maybe it was a sign from the universe because on the third try I got annoyed and switched to Lyft, and rates were $30 cheaper!!

While waiting (and waiting, and waiting) I admired my collection of gel luggage tags. I am pretty sure that the gel luggage tag industry is kept alive solely by touring shows. Every single production company in the United States throws a handful of these at you at the start of tour. Hence I've got at least one for each show I've been on, and they represent THREE different production companies. That's quite the flex!

A half hour later I was at the motel. Yes, I'm staying in a m-o-t-e-l to save costs. I admit to feeling apprehensive because it looked seedy on the outside, but the place had good reviews across all of the major platforms so I figured it couldn't be all that bad.

And it was nice! The cleanest motel I've ever stayed in...and cleaner than a lot of HOTELS I've stayed in, too. It's an old building but the owners have taken great care to updated the furniture and fixtures. The country-style furniture makes it feel like a beach cottage or something. My only complaint is that the AC is blowing bad-smelling air, meaning there's probably mildew/mold in the vents, and that makes me worried but there's nothing I can do except rely on my immune system to buck up and deal with it. Other than that, it's perfect for a solo girly looking to lay low and practice trombone :D

Unpacked a bit and went to find groceries. There was a local one and it was awesome! Like if you took a Publix and smooshed it together with a big Hispanic market. There were hot churros in the bakery section, tortas and bolillos too. A full hot bar that looked amazing, lots of fish and tamales and nopales and grilled meats and I am definitely coming back to eat there before I leave. For now I just got 3-4 days worth of food, then had to hit a drugstore because I'd forgotten the motel doesn't provide toiletries.

Then a shower and a very late dinner. People were setting fireworks off outside before it even got dark.
I could think of nothing more patriotic to do than watch anime and go to bed :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

SATURDAY

The neighborhood sounded like a war zone for much of Friday night. As I was still on Eastern Time I wanted to sleep at 10:30pm, but of course fireworks were just starting to ramp up around that time. And everyone saved the best for last...can you tell when the "grand finale" took place by my sleep chart?

The police did come by to enforce noise ordinances/shut it down, but they must do that at the same time every year because people seemed to know exactly how long they could get away with fireworks.

I was awake Saturday at 7:30 (which is 8:30 EST.) I am tired but Independence Day is only once a year after all.

Because I am a mindful human being, I waited to practice the trombone until after lunch. It's a holiday weekend. Most of the people staying in the rooms and apartments around me probably stayed up late to enjoy fireworks and fun last night. Most of those people will not want to wake up to a bass trombone at 9am.

With time to kill and nothing really to do, I typed up this post and then practiced walking in my gigantic golden stripper sandals so that I'll have less chance of snapping my ankle at the opening night party.

I walked back and forth in the room a bit (careful not to CLOMP so as not to wake up whoever is below me) then took this project outside to go up and down the stairs a few times and back and forth on the upper walkway (which is concrete and doesn't transmit clomps.) I must have looked a sight, in sweatpants and a t-shirt and 4-inch shining golden heels...but I don't care. Nobody here knows me, and lord knows this motel has seen stranger things.

Ate lunch a bit early to preserve my east coast timing, then trombone practice. Even though it was afternoon I used a practice mute. Trombones are loud.

After that...there really wasn't a lot to do. I worked on foodie finds, called the brass shop to confirm our meeting on Monday, read my book with a cup of tea, went for a short walk to scope out a nearby laundromat, and ate dinner.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUNDAY

Pretty much same as Saturday. Up at 8, breakfast and misc anime and Chicago research, then walked to the laundromat. It was very busy in there but it's the weekend after all. Back home, put away my clean clothes and practiced the bass.

Around the middle of my practice session the housekeeper came in to change my towels (I tried to refuse this service yesterday but she wouldn't take no for an answer so I am resigned to new towels every day.) She doesn't speak much English and was rather horrified by the trombone, asking if I was going to play it HERE? I told her that I've been playing it every day since arriving, and that just about blew her mind. I showed her the practice mute and tried to explain what it does and I think she got it, but still had a doubtful face. Maybe tomorrow if she shows up around the same time and is less freaked out, I'll demonstrate it for her.

She left and I finished practicing. Walked to a UPS store to do a return, then to an Amazon Fresh grocery nearby. Yes I'm avoiding capitalism but spoke strictly to myself before I left about looking, not buying. Amazon Fresh is different than Amazon GO; it seems to be just a regular grocery store with normal checkout. The prices were pretty good. There was nothing especially interesting about it but hey, my curiosity was satisfied and I got some steps in.

And that was pretty much the day.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday: Visiting O'Malley Brass Instruments. Eating dinner at that local grocery with the awesome hot bar. Prepping to move to the downtown hotel.

Tuesday: Moving to a hotel downtown, probably fetching a new small batch of groceries. More practice walking in stripper heels lol

Then down to the basement to practice. I only played for 30-40 minutes, then back upstairs to steal leftover bagels from the crew breakfast and back outside to pick up lunch from Simone's Kitchen, a Mediterranean place down the street. Chicken shwarma bowl, yum!

Then I took a short nap, waking up when the front desk called to let me know a package had arrived. It was my cheap-o gold Amazon sandals for the opening night party. I tried them on and they ARE comfortable and DO fit, but they are quite higher and heavier than I'd thought. But wearing them means I won't have to get the pants hemmed so there's that.

A little more chilling out and then to the theater for the employees-only merch sale!!
I was there early...convenient, because they ended up opening early!
Intention was to get a collectible pin and a t-shirt, but the night before they had sent a list of all the stuff that would be available and I was also interested in a zip-front hoodie. They are leftover merch from Australia and will not be replenished once they are sold, therefore it's a limited availability item. It's pretty expensive, but the salesperson brought one for me to look at and the quality was impressive (a weird thing to say about a hoodie I guess.)

So the FOMO won out and I bought it. After getting it home and trying it on I was doubly impressed by the quality again; it's thicker than most hoodies I've owned, and all of the text on it is embroidered, not printed. That right there would explain the cost. And the zipper has an interesting claw-hook mechanism at the bottom, I think it's supposed to line up the teeth properly each time? I tried searching for it and haven't found anything like it yet. And ultimately, it's just PRETTY and I like it!

The hoodie in question:

(I'm almost afraid to wear it tbh)

The collectible pin is just a miniature of the main graphic for the show. It's very heavy for it's size and is a real Disney collectible/trading pin, with the little Mickey head backing.

I immediately added it to the collection that lives on my bag.
I have a pin for all of the touring shows I've been on, except Elf.

After that, dinner and getting ready for the show and walking to the theater as usual. Here is me in my pit blacks and with my backstage ID in the hotel hallway (I was doing a DITL for Instagram which is why this photo exists.)

The show went normally, and afterward the rest of the band wanted to take Ryu (violin) and I out for drinks since we are the only two getting laid off in Chicago. The rest of the band is Chicago-local so they are allowed to work. We each enjoyed a drink of our choice and chatted with everyone. Partway through the night we were offered "green tea shots" which funnily enough do not contain any green tea :p but are called that because of the resulting color, which is similar to that of green tea. I was a good sport for once and accepted the extra drink. Pretty tasty!

For the rest of the night I mostly geeked out with the ladies over anime (turns out we ALL watch it), helped our drummer try to book a hotel in Chicago because somehow he'd forgotten to take the buyout, and commiserated with Ryu about having to go a month unpaid. It was actually the best time I've had in a large group social setting in a long while :)

Finally at midnight we called it quits and went to bed. After all, tomorrow was our final matinee in Schenectady!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY

I slept poorly (common for me after drinking) but was up at 8 for breakfast, typing this blog up, and a little packing.

My new instrument insurance policy went through, so now I feel a bit better about all of those upcoming flights. Not great, but better.

Very soon it was time for the 1:30pm matinee. It was well attended and a good audience. I thought we played pretty well. Before we knew it it was time to pack up and say goodbye to Schenectady! Wow...it feels both like we've been here forever, but also like we just got here. I am happy to leave, but also sad to be laid off for the entire month of July (the Chicago run.)

It took me a long time to pack up, but that's not really surprising with such a small pit and twice the equipment I'm used to touring with. I got the tenor, mutes, and stands put away and took the bass with me to the hotel where I packed it carefully for flying. Packed some more stuff in my suitcase and was surprised to find it was overweight. I should have had the new shoes sent to Chicago...and perhaps should not have bought so much clothing this week! I had to choose some items to leave behind, but nothing important...I went with some heavier sweatpants, a roll of cling wrap (which is amazingly heavy), and some spice blend jars that had been gifted to me in the first place. That fixed it.

Rehearsals are over. This tour has officially begun.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday: Flying to Chicago, probably just going to get groceries and crash at the hotel assuming everything goes smoothly.

Saturday & Sunday: Lying low to save money. Practicing bass trombone (assuming it arrives intact.) Possibly visiting O'Malley Brass Instruments, but since it's a holiday weekend that may wait until Monday.

**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers Monday and Tuesday.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

MONDAY

A day off!
I was up way too early, my back hurting (ok grandma.)

It is annoying but not unexpected. The bass trombone weighs between 8-10 pounds (4 kg), and because this pit is small the bass has to sit slightly behind and to the left of my chair so I don't hit it with my elbow or with the tenor trombone. I have to twist to the left to pick up the bass left-handed, and twist back holding it or while raising it horizontally to my face to play.

Additionally, my mutes are lined up on the floor next to my chair on the right. This is my normal setup, but again due to the tight space, some of the mutes have to live slightly behind my chair in this pit. Normally I'd just lean slightly right and grab a mute, then straighten back up. But with mutes behind me, I have to not only lean but also twist to the right and lean BACK to grab the mute I need--while holding a trombone in my left hand, basically using just my abs to hold my body at that angle since both hands are occupied--and then twist back left and upright to put the mute in and continue playing.

This might be difficult to picture so TL;DR it's like doing a Russian twist but in a chair.

I'm in "ok" shape so this isn't difficult, but try repeating that motion umpteen times over the course of a 2.5-hour show, while holding a 10-pound weight in your left hand and also blowing into that 10-pound weight very frequently. And that's why it's not surprising that I woke up with the muscles at the left-middle of my back complaining loudly. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Breakfast and then ended up hitting a craft store for foam because I'm scared that my bass trombone will be damaged. I did the math and it's gonna fly roughly 10 times before the end of this year :( In addition to the foam I got a box cutter and a $2 plain crafting t-shirt to cut up and wrap around misc parts of the trombone.

Walked to a nearby mall and once again shopped for clothes, this time for an outfit for the opening night party. I was having pretty poor luck until after lunch when I found not one but several extremely comfortable pairs of pants in an H&M, and then some promising two-piece sets in a store called ZARA. I've got ZERO fashion sense and usually do not dress up unless I'm being paid or might embarrass Jameson if I don't. Jameson himself has seen me in a dress only a handful of times. However this is gonna be a very special event, and I want to be more formal while also still being true to myself.

Cue this outfit:

(courtesy ZARA)

It's giving Dune/Star Wars cosplay. It was very comfortable and fit very well, although the top is more revealing/cleavage than what I'd normally want (I'm flat but not as flat as this model.) It looked good enough that I was willing to step outside my comfort zone and get it despite that. I will try some fabric tape, and alternatively have a cream cami to wear underneath if I chicken out at the last minute. I will also need to get shoes for it, something more dressy than what the model is wearing. Gold sandals should do it. I tried looking for shoes at the mall but had minimal success so went home and ordered some cheap crappy ones on Amazon.

I'd hoped to faux-pack my trombone for flying today, but by the time I got back it was nearly dinnertime and I was too tired. Instead I sorted my clothes into separate packing cubes, one to go in my trunk while I'm laid off and the other to travel with me. Chatted with Jameson ate dinner and relaxed and internally moaned about having spent money again.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TUESDAY

Didn't sleep great, whatever.

Walked to the theater around 10am, bringing my 19-quart tupperware container full of conveniences to put in my trunk. I then went downstairs to figure out how to prep my bass trombone for flying.

Here's what I ended up with:

I removed the bell so it wouldn't be pressed against the edge of the case (this is how most bells get crushed in transport) but then there was the problem of protecting the separated bell. First I put a fabric-wrapped hard foam cone into the bell throat (the grey thing in the picture) and put a slice of foam under and around the end of that to keep it from moving in the case. I added another piece of foam between the rotor mechanisms and bell to keep them from hitting each other. These two pieces of foam also overlap onto the bell, cushioning it and keeping it in place.

The bell was still exposed on one side so I used a different type of material that was more like blanket filler, cramming it between the bell and the case and squishing it all around the bell. When the case lid is closed it pushes on the fluff and keeps everything in place.

But to be absolutely certain, I did my own controlled shock test:

As you can see, I closed the case and jerked it back and forth, rolled it over several times, and dropped it on the hard concrete floor several times from a few inches up. I recorded the first test, then checked the horn. Nothing had moved. I did two more similar jerking/rolling/dropping several tests in as many directions as I could think of. This was to simulate what I'd consider "basic" luggage handling: someone throwing it onto a conveyor, or setting it down hard on it's end or side or bottom. Or the case rolling uncontrolled down a loading ramp. Everything inside the case stayed put and protected, so I have to be satisfied. If airline employees decide to THROW my instrument, or drop it several FEET, there is sadly nothing that I can do about it. At least now I know I tried everything that I could, short of buying it a seat next to me on the plane.

I had meant to practice as well but wasted a lot of time looking for a screwdriver (apparently you need to ASSEMBLE box cutters, who knew) and then had to move twice because my project was in the crew's way. By the time I finished it was noon so I walked back to the hotel for lunch-and-chill. We had a "safety meeting" at 3:30, so I walked back early and practiced a bit before that.

The "safety meeting" was an active shooter presentation by a member of Disney Global Security and also the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Interestingly, you will not find any wiki articles or webpages for "Disney Global Security"....but it is DEFINITELY a thing. There are job postings for it on the Disney site, and employee bios.

And most of those employees are former FBI.

The gentleman representing Disney today had worked for the FBI for 28 years, which included work overseas and in combat zones. He was thin and soft-spoken...and frankly that was scarier than if he'd been a hulking dudebro. He and DHS guy explained that most of their job is intelligence...gathering crime statistics and safety data far in advance of a tour's arrival, and keeping watch on things that occur within an x-mile radius of where we'll be working and living.

They assured us that they're not watching when we come and go or anything to that extent.
But they ARE watching.
Yeeeeek! (And also, COOL)

They talked about options during an active shooter situation and things/behavior to look out for, and lots more...I won't bore you with it, if you're a millennial or younger you've already heard all of it in school or at work. It was fairly interesting and useful, but the biggest takeaway for me was that Mickey don't mess around when it comes to securing his assets...which in this case is all of US.

After that, back to the hotel to get ready for the show and eat dinner.
The hotel had hung bags on all of our doors, "Visit Schenectady" goodie bags with some misc items inside as an apology for the fire alarms going off during our stay.

I guess it's a nice gesture, though tbh it felt like they were maybe trying to offload some things. IMO if they had foregone all of the junk and just stuck with the card, that would have been a good gesture.

The evening show went fairly well, no complaints or drama.

And now I'm back at the hotel room feeling a bit surprised that I'm flying to Chicago in two days!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday: One evening show. Jameson returns home from his cruise ship producer work. The BATB merch stand is doing an employees-only discounted sale!! Otherwise, a normal day of practicing and preparing for travel to Chicago.

Thursday: A final 1:30pm show in Schenectady. Gotta check in for my flight and be ready to go with everything I need for the long layoff. Let's do this!

**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers the weekend.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

FRIDAY

I was up somewhat early to do laundry, then buckled down to figure out what insane travel logistics will allow me to attend the BATB opening night show and party.

Besides, I'd had other plans for the layoff which included

- Visiting a brass shop west of Chicago, which I'd planned months ago
- Now including the BATB party in downtown Chicago
- Flying to PA the day after the party to visit with family
- Driving from Philly airport to my hometown, a 2.5-hour drive + renting a car for the entire visit
- Sharing a hotel room with one sister to help her save costs while in PA
- Driving 2.5 hours back to the airport and flying to Orlando

I had already booked some of this travel, but had only booked the Chicago hotel through the 8th originally. The party is on the 10th so I had to figure out whether/how to change my hotel bookings, and also change my flight to PA from the 8th to the 11th. To compound all of this, I won't have access to a car for the entire time in Chicago, will have to rent a car for the entire time in PA, and will be bringing both my large tour suitcase and bass trombone (both of which will need to be checked for every flight.) Ultimately it's three flights, three hotels, a rental car, and a mysterious number of Ubers and train rides.

All this is to say that it took me several hours to figure out the logistics of this insane plan, because it was not so simple as booking any old hotel room; I also needed to make sure hotels were walkable to/from train stations with large heavy luggage, OR that they were within reasonable Ubering distance of things, plus figuring out how to reach the brass shop which is out in the 'burbs.

Here's what I ultimately came up with:

July 4 through 7: Flying to ORD. I booked a hotel in Alsip because it's close to the brass shop I want to visit. Spending one day visiting the brass shop, and for the rest of the time I'll be lying low to save money (hotel was booked using points so it's not costing me anything.) Figure I'll practice bass trombone, go for walks, possibly pick up a transcription job if I think I can finish it before the party.

July 8: Checking out of Alsip hotel and somehow getting myself and my luggage/trombone to a downtown hotel so I can be close to the Cadillac Theater. This will involve at least one Uber and maybe a train as well, carrying all of my crap. I booked the hotel through Disney and was able to get a decent discount.

July 8 and 9: Enjoying downtown Chicago! Hopefully I'll get to do at least one Foodie Find. If nothing else it'll just be nice to walk around and experience this great city for a day and a half.

July 10: Opening night performance of BATB, followed by the opening night party :)

July 11: Early morning train or Uber to ORD (1 hour.) Flying to Philly, picking up a rental car and driving 2.5 hours to my hometown in Central PA. Checking into hotel with my sister. I used points for the cost of this hotel as well, and the rental car through Disney was 30% off which is an absolute lifesaver.

July 12: My nephew's birthday party! Most of our family will be there. OHMYGOSH I need to buy a present!!

July 13 through 15: Visiting with family, helping out where needed, managing misc family dramas that will be coming out when we're all together. Might have to practice bass trombone on one of these days.

July 16: Driving back to Philly, returning the rental car, flying to Orlando, and being laid off through August 3rd or so. My Aunt may come to visit during this time as well!

It's going to be a bit crazy, but I'd like to think every part of this is worth it. Even with all of the discounts I've scrounged up it's very expensive...but this is the only chance. Life is too short and money's not everything.

While I was working all of that out, Jameson was boarding the Magic to start overseeing his first band!
Here is the ship as he was getting ready to board!

And here is the view from his room!

He got emotional after boarding, and I don't blame him. I have watched him work for years to earn this job, and to be recognized for his skills and experience and all that he has poured into Disney as a company. I watched him get rejected over and over again, and get back up each time even though it hurt. He's been AMAZING. And finally he gets to see that all of that effort was not for nothing. So proud of him right now!!!

The rest of my day was incredibly boring. The weather is better but I just do not feel motivated to walk around here with no end goal in mind. I read a little bit, researched things to do in Chicago, snacked, and rested until close to showtime.

View from the pit:

While we were performing through the first act, Jameson started sending me pictures.
He was having dinner at Lumiere's, a Beauty and the Beast-themed restaurant on the Magic!!

thumbnail_77276278571__FD183BF4-9D20-48F5-8D86-0CBB55EB000E.jpg

Some of the chandeliers contained an enchanted rose!

thumbnail_77276312127__CECB9F7E-50A1-494F-BEC4-BFF92AE7983A.jpg

General view of the space. You can see the characters from the movie in the background/on the walls.

thumbnail_77276372406__BF8CF791-5246-46F3-ABA4-2421A3B0B1DA.jpg

I was so touched and wonderstruck that we were simultaneously having this Disney/Beauty and the Beast career moment, thousands of miles apart. Life is wild and wonderful.

After the show, Koz (a VERY notable Disney producer/composer and Alan Menken's right hand man who is overseeing music on this show) came down to the pit and congratulated us, saying that we sounded "fantastic" and that he'd see us again in a few months when the tour has gotten underway.

I was ELATED! First of all, to have someone of his standing with Disney give a musical compliment is a big deal to me! And secondly, with those words he was signing off on us/what we are doing musically on this show. THIS was what I needed to hear...the final piece of my personal insecurity puzzle. Getting past tech rehearsals, and essentially getting Disney's approval and endorsement for our playing. YES!!!

The upcoming Chicago layoff had also been a point of insecurity for me because that's a time when, if they wanted to find alternative musicians, they could. But my company housing and travel for the next three cities has been confirmed, and they wouldn't be booking that stuff if they planned to ditch me.

I got to go home tonight finally feeling that this is MY gig.
I can stay. I am wanted.
It's such a relief, after months of tension in my heart.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SATURDAY

Got up fairly late. Tired!

Typed up this post and chatted with Jameson. His ship had just docked at Disney's Castaway Cay.

He'll oversee rehearsals today so won't get to explore, but might get a chance tomorrow.

Meanwhile today was our first two-show day!
I was just kind of chilling before the show when my friend Jacob messaged. I'd gotten him house seats (well he paid for them but I reserved them) and he wanted to thank me by taking me to a nearby Italian bakery. Yay cannoli!

I got ready a little early and walked to the bakery to meet Jacob. We each got a cannoli (weeeell I imposed on his generosity and got two, a chocolate and a regular), and he very generously gave me a gift card for Whole Paycheck! My goodness! I want to repay him, but on this tour we're pretty limited as far as sneak peeks and haven't had access to the merch yet either. I'll owe him one :p

We chatted, mostly about theater things because Jacob seems to know everything there is to know about theater industry stuff! For example I found out that Disney has built a permanent office here in Schenectady for one of their directors(?) after Frozen was in the city for a very long period of time. He even showed me the office later as we were walking to pick up his tickets! I'll have to take a closer look when the lobby isn't crammed with patrons.

The cannoli was excellent, by the way :)

The matinee went generally well, I made some weird note mistakes but as my boss on the circus used to say, "You'll miss every note in your book at least once." I can attest that that is very true. Jacob said he had a great time, and added, "When this is packaged on a season with a few non-equity tours, no competition, this is the pick of the season." Awesome!!

After the show we stuck around a bit to receive compliments from some audience members, then we shoved our instrument cases into the road cases to see how they'd fit. For the moment we seem to have LOADS of room, but looks can be deceiving. Still, now we know where to put our stuff when the show moves.

Between shows I ate dinner and rested. The evening show was crazy-packed, with the line for the box office double-looped and stretching in both directions down the arcade/lobby!! Not to mention the queues for the photo ops and the merch stand, all of these lines overlapping and bumping into each other making it hard to get through. And there were SO MANY little girls dressed as Belle! And some adults too. It took me a solid 3-5 minutes to fight my way to the stage door.

This tour...is really going to be unlike any I've ever been on. I need to prepare myself for this.

Turns out I had several friends in the audience including Brittany (audio friend from TOOTSIE) and Jackie Anne (a circus friend and her family.) The show went well/normally, and the audience was so incredibly into it :) After the show my friends all came to the pit wall to say hi. I prioritized Jackie Anne since she had kids and Brittany said she'd wait for me at the stage door. Jackie's daughter was dressed as Belle so I made sure to compliment her dress. We might go get lunch together sometime this week.

For the second time this weekend the band was asked to autograph programs! This is a very new thing...normally musicians are ignored or assumed to be a part of crew. But both at the pit wall after the show, and again at the stage door yesterday and today, kids came up with programs and pens in hand, asking for the musicians and with the page open to the orchestra credits. They are actually specifically looking for us. On other tours this would happen maybe 2-3 times for an entire run. Band and theater kids. If this is gonna be a regular thing...I'm shy about the attention, but it is wonderful to think that young people might be inspired by the live music!! I remember watching pit musicians and feeling jealous of them :p and I was never brave enough to ask for autographs. Anyway, now that it's happened twice it felt worth mentioning.

I found Brittany at the stage door and we caught up a bit, it was great to see her! We only had a brief chat before I had to get to bed and she had to get back on the road. I crashed at the hotel, tired but happy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUNDAY

Woke up with puffy lips, but that is normal as one adjusts to a full playing schedule :)

Had a nice breakfast and was able to relax and chat with Jameson before the matinee. The ship is in Nassau now.

The first show was fine, I want to do better but have got to be patient with myself. Between shows nothing exciting happened, just dinner and chatting with Jameson. Second show I DID do better and was pleased. Not perfect, just better all around. Patience will be rewarded.

After the show DAR (our MD) had a little champagne toast for us, and gave a little speech about how wonderful we've been to work with...but of course HE'S been wonderful to work with as well! I am SO GLAD he's on this tour, he's awesome human being and an excellent, no-nonsense, bada$$ conductor. Overall I think we've got a great group of people here and hopefully that continues for a long time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday: A day off! I was going to go for a walk in the woods but it's supposed to be 90°F (32°C) again, so instead I might try to find foam for packing my bass trombone. I'm very worried that I'm going to have to fly with it three times in July :( Not sure what I'll do with the rest of the day.

Tuesday: If it cools down I'll do that walk in the woods, then we have one show in the evening.

After that back to the hotel for lunch and chill. Because the band's afternoon rehearsals keep getting canceled I've ended up with more time than I know what to do with (that's not a complaint!) On one hand I'm getting some very enjoyable reading done, and doing a good job of planning for the upcoming July layoff including booking doctor and dentist appointments, booking all the flights and hotels and rental cars involved in visiting family, and trying to line up work for that period of down time. On the other hand, the heat wave is a huge deterrent to spending any more than an hour at a time outdoors.

I did go back to the theater later to put decorative stickers on my trombone cases. Some of these stickers are new, others I've had for a while. I'm generally putting memento stickers on the tenor case, and vintage flight stickers on the bass case. Still need a Delta sticker.

Dinner and time for the evening show, which was our first official preview show (unlike the invited dress rehearsal last night, these people actually had to buy tickets.) I guess I should have been expecting crowds but DANG. The lobby of the Proctors was absolutely packed. I fought through the crowd to get to the stage door, noting along the way that the line for the merch stand extended halfway across the arcade (which is a big long hallway so it was QUITE a long line.)

Backstage we discovered two lovely "opening night" gifts: chocolate roses from a keyboardist on Wicked who is a friend of our MD's, and a congratulations card from the cast of MJ the Musical!

The show went pretty well, with the only obvious snafu being Lefou missing the cue for his line and causing us to have to scramble to line up with him again. Since these are still considered "preview shows" I think no one stageside is surprised; it's a tough entrance for him, too. We all recovered quickly enough, and the audience absolutely loved the show from what I could tell, so it's all good.

But our producer(?), Michael "Koz" Kosarin, was there last night, so a lot of us were RATHER nervous. *I* think that we did well, but I'm just the trombonist. What did Koz think? He's someone very high up there in the Disney Entertainment food chain, so his opinion means an awful lot. We didn't receive any notes immediately after the show so I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

----------------------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY

I slept kinda poorly and was up early. Oh well. The heat wave seems to have broken at least.

Breakfast, and we got paid today which should have made me feel all Moneybags McGee but since I bought a new bass trombone all it did was make me cringe. The choice to buy that thing has set me back, but hopefully it was a good and right choice. Money isn't everything (is what I'm chanting to myself right now.)

For the same reasons I hesitated to call an Uber to go to the mall today. But ultimately it's either spend the $$ on the Uber to do two hours of shopping today, or use my own car and spend 90 minutes in Orlando traffic plus the two hours of shopping for the exact same items. In other words it would even out and it didn't matter WHAT I chose.

And so a short Uber later I was in Marshalls and had found the underwear that I prefer (no seams so it never shows under any type of clothing) as well as dry-roasted edamame which is a wonderful travel snack but has been hard to find lately. Then to a small mall which had a Boscov's and Macy's and other department stores, and after visiting each and every single one I still only found ONE pair of wide leg black pants. But hey, they were only $15!! That right there made the trip worthwhile. Then to Whole Paycheck for lunch at the hot bar ($10 which really isn't bad) and proteins for the week because I always underestimate that need when buying groceries.

Back at the hotel I got a text that the orchestra would have a "continuity rehearsal," which isn't "bad" per se but we probably did get some notes from the music producer. This made me feel pretty anxious, but I tried to soothe myself with a nap, reading my book, hot tea, and an apple.

Then right before dinner, I received the RSVP for the company party!
It'll be in Chicago. Because although we are doing 8 live shows here in Schenectady, they are all considered "preview shows."
And since Chicago is a Rule 24 city, some members of the band (myself included) will not get to perform on opening night, and we will be on a layoff and therefore not traveling with the company either.

(image of our Beast and Belle, courtesy Disney Theatrical Group)

Quick recap: not being able to perform for the opening night of the greatest show of my career, AND not being able to attend the company party (which is not only fun but also where a lot of important networking happens) is more than disappointing, it's UPSETTING. I've been unsuccessfully trying to apply a silver lining to this since we started rehearsals.

And then they sent the RSVP...which includes a ticket to the opening night show if you're one of the unluckies who is not performing!!

That made the choice for me. I GOTTA GO.
This whole tour is once-in-a-lifetime. This edition of Beauty and the Beast will only premiere ONCE in the US.
If it's within my power to go, I should go.

I'll have to make some flight changes and spend 2 days extra on hotels. I don't care.
Hey, look at that. Money really ISN'T everything after all.

Before the evening show we had a rather rushed "continuity rehearsal" with Koz (mentioned earlier in this post.) This guy is a LEGEND. He's been Alan Menken's music director for 25 years, and has won or been nominated for Grammys and Emmys for his work on all the classic Disney animated films. I knew he'd been at our show last night but didn't expect to actually be AUDITED by him today! I was both horrified and excited, and did my best to play as-usual around those feelings. It went "ok." I think. Who knows.

The evening show was very good. No snafus, everyone did their best, very enthusiastic audience. I'm not sure "enthusiastic" is the right word; for both paid shows so far, the audience ROARS with applause and cheers. I've done a lot of tours, and aside from the 30,000-person arenas where the circus played, I've never heard an audience make this much noise or show such...I guess you could describe it as raw enjoyment. It's very, very cool.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday: Another one-show day. I plan to do laundry and practice, and work on rearranging my travel plans so I can attend the company party.

Saturday & Sunday: Two shows each day, which will probably feel like a lot but it'll help us to feel more comfortable with the show.

We were around the back of the building. A fire truck must have pulled up to the front pretty quickly, because only 20 minutes later the truck looped around the building and left. The firemen waved at us as they drove past. We all shuffled back up the stairs. In my room the bathroom light was on and the sink was running...I suppose that means the firemen/hotel staff had checked it? Nothing else in my room was out of place.

I read my book for a while and managed to doze for an hour, then gave up and got up.
Made my overnight oats fun today by adding little marshmallows :)

Then I spent quite a while working on notations in my Beauty and the Beast music because there will be another trombonist playing the show in Chicago (per Rule 24.) There are changes to articulations that we've decided on, or parts where the conductor is cuing us in in a specific way, or parts where tempos change suddenly. Leaving little notes in the music about these things is helpful to all the musicians who will see the part after you.

When that was done I wanted to go for a walk before it became unbearably hot (east coast United States is in a heat wave) so grabbed a water and wandered around nearby Union College campus.

I appreciated these big old trees which provided relief from the oppressive heat.

There is an interesting building near the rugby field called Nott Memorial, a 16-sided structure used as a sort of museum and lecture hall. It wasn't open for visitors, but was pretty to look at.

Equally if not more beautiful was this adorable cluster of mushrooms along one of the walking paths.

I'd wanted to spend more time investigating, but it was 96 degrees (35.5 C) and I'd been out in the sun for 30 minutes already, so headed back downtown. It was nice to get out in the fresh air at least.

On the way back I swung by The Whistling Kettle for a "sconewich." I've had one of these before while on tour with Tootsie.
Different flavor this time: cheddar herb scone, ham, Swiss cheese, and apricot jam. Delicious!

Not wanting to go back out in the blazing heat again, I ate lunch and had a cool shower and mostly chilled. I wiped down the flat surfaces in my room, played some games on my phone, read my book, chatted with Jameson, and hydrated. I put new corks on my cup mute because the new trombone has a bigger bell; I'll have to file the corks down tomorrow when the theater is open to us again.

For dinner I braved the heat once more to hit a NY-style pizza place just a few blocks away.
With all of the New Yorkers who snowbird down to Florida, you'd think we'd have better pizza...but no, we've lived near Orlando for 7 years and have never found authentic New York pizza near us.

I got one slice and a salad. Aaaaah so good!!

Watched LEGO Masters with Jameson and that was pretty much my day.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

TUESDAY

The fire alarm went off AGAIN around 2am.
I don't like this trend.

It was shut off pretty quickly though, and it was easier to go back to sleep. I was up at 8 for breakfast and to fix my Chicago foodie finds, which I hadn't updated for the hotel this company will be staying in. Around 10 I went to the theater to practice and also to fix the cork on my bass trombone mute. I'd shaved the original cork down to fit the other bass's bell, and turns out that's too small for this bass. The added cork looks messy but it works and gives a much better sound, so hopefully that'll be an improvement until I can get the 3D-printed mutes out here.

On the way out I saw yet another photo op being set up. It's not complete yet, they are adding some kind of LED lighting and even MORE roses if you can believe it, lol.

Back at the hotel they had not cleaned my room yet so I thought I'd missed cleaning staff's pass. Ate lunch and was generally bored because it is still horrifically hot outside and I didn't want to go running around out there getting all sweaty. Cleaning staff came by right as I was finished eating so I hung out in the lobby for about 30 minutes to give them space. She did an excellent job on my room, and since we only have 10 more days in Schenectady it'll probably be the last time I get it serviced. Took a short nap, read my book, and was generally lazy.

After dinner I went to the theater early, dressed in blacks because we have an invited audience for this dress rehearsal. The band's road cases have been built, which will house all of our instruments and work-related equipment for this tour (instrument stands, mutes, cleaning supplies, etc.) Sometime this week we will get together and Tetris all of our stuff in there.

Before the show tonight, Josh (Key 1) handed us each a program.
Our first programs from this show, this tour!

I've had my name in a LOT of programs over the years. But I don't think any have been as meaningful to me as this one.
Every day I'm still digesting the fact that I'm here and doing this. I'm the trombonist for a Disney Broadway show.
It's still unbelievable and will be for a while.
I stared and stared at this program until it was time to play.

The show went "ok," although we had to stop during Be Our Guest because one of the ensemble women was hurt (either her knee or ankle, it was unclear.) From what I've heard she's all right, but the show had to continue with one of the swings jumping in to cover her spot.

Personally this was not one of my better shows; I felt low energy and unfocused. But that's ok...sometimes it happens, and I'd rather it happen during a rehearsal. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Ryu (violinist) and I walked out the stage door together and were startled when the huge mob of people waiting outside cheered and applauded as soon as we appeared! Usually the musicians go unnoticed. It was nice :) The actors probably got MOBBED.

And now I'm going the heck to sleep. With earplugs in, and if there's a fire I guess I'll burn to death!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday & Thursday: Our first preview shows at night, possible rehearsals during the day. We are now more or less finished with "tech," and I guess this is a sort of "soft launch" in Schenectady with our official opening being in Chicago (which I'm annoyed about as I won't get to be there, but what can ya do)

**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers the weekend.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

FRIDAY

I got to sleep in just a little, but was nervous about playing my bass with the group for the first time.
Walked over a bit early to assemble it, take pictures, warm up, and tune up.

Here's the new kid!

Details of the wraps, and the cut bell (also called a screw bell or bell flare.)

It was a very short rehearsal, only two hours.
During the break, three different musicians approached unsolicited to tell me, "This one [new trombone] sounds warmer."
Being the insecure, self-critical person that I am, rather than taking this as a compliment, I immediately started second-guessing the purchase.

Was it TOO warm?
Is the difference THAT noticeable?
Should I have tried the version with the YELLOW bell instead of gold brass?
Was this a mistake?

All because of compliments. Yep, I'm one of THESE. Sigh.

But at least I'm conscious of it. I said thanks, added that I'm still getting used to the horn and that I hope it'll be a good fit for this show. Everyone had nice things to say. If I write about this now I can look back in a month or two and roll my eyes at how absolutely ridiculous I was for feeling insecure today.

The rest of the day was chill, I received a bunch of stuff I'd ordered to put in my trunk including a 3-quart Instapot, lap desk for my laptop, a small coffee grinder, and a box of Mezcla bars which are my favorite and aren't available in some cities. For now, that and a packing cube of clothes should be plenty. I can add more things as the tour goes on. I decided to do laundry before bed as well because we've got some busy days coming up.

One more thing: our merch stand is almost set up! It is so beautiful!

I saw fleece blankets, water bottles, mugs, a Belle tiara, a fuzzy Beast keychain, and what looked like magnets. The purple coffee mug is heat-activated and rose petals appear when you add hot water. My favorite was a HUGE Gaston beer tankard! There will also certainly be t-shirts and sweaters.

They did a fantastic job with this logo.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SATURDAY

I made sure to sleep in. I needed it.

Packed my meals and walked to the theater carrying my Instapot to put in my trunk.
Passed the merch stand on the way. They've added more stuff! Shirts and sweaters, a Belle doll, and I see the iconic plates from the animated movie (I want two of them!) among other things. I'm very curious about the little mirror with the black face....maybe it's a toy?

There was also this photo op near the box office that wasn't there before. It's a little hard to tell from this pic but it's a booth, you can walk inside it so that you'll be framed with the rose.

While putting the Instapot in my trunk I noticed that there were loads of these little name tags scattered all over the bottom of it.

They were different shapes and sizes, rectangles and squares big and small. Our violinist was nearby putting things in her trunk too, and she didn't have any of these tags. Looking more closely, I realized that most of them did not have my apostrophe. Aha! That would (sort of) explain it! They probably started printing my name without the apostrophe, but in Disney's system I have it, so they had to re-print with it added back in, but had already cut and laminated the other sheet without the apostrophe and then didn't know what to do with those. Lol! The poor person who probably panic-dumped these labels! I will check with other musicians in case we're supposed to have a bunch of tags for some reason, but I doubt it. I will stick one on my trombone case for sure...

I warmed up in the trap room. To alleviate my insecurity about how I sound on bass trombone, I decided to be a sneaky snoop. I went to the pit to look at where people had set my audio levels on their Avioms. Hate to say it, but you can tell that someone sucks when half the pit has them turned way down or off. But no, in the majority of mixes I was at a completely normal volume. Yay! Only the trumpet and French horn had me turned significantly down, but that is normal because we are all right next to each other. This made me feel a lot better :)

And then when I was finishing my warm up, the Reed 2 musician came in. We said hello and all that, then he mentioned he'd overheard people telling me that my new trombone sounds "warm." He said, "I'm a reed player so I don't know anything about that, but I know that this one sounds better to ME." Double yay!

So now I'm going to stop worrying about it. I'm sure in a week everyone will have forgotten what my first bass trombone sounded like. It is not worth the stress.

Today was wandelprobe, and as such, our first time rehearsing with the actors!
A mic was passed around the pit so we could introduce ourselves, and we waved from our little hole in the ground. Then we got started with rehearsal. It was awesome!! Everyone sounds AMAZING. And I can see a lot from my spot near the pit wall, I'm so excited to watch when people are in full costume at the run through tonight!

For dinner break I walked back to the hotel, chatting with Jameson about his day. He's getting ready to go on his work-related cruise as a Disney producer! Still so incredibly proud of him and hope he has an absolute BLAST.

Took this picture while waiting excitedly for our first full show run through tonight.
It's the stage screen, and the pit net, reflected in my trombone bell.

The run through went very well. Considering that it was our very first one, everyone did an amazing job! There were mistakes, but I would have been more surprised if it had been perfect on the first try. And the effects in this show are ASTOUNDING. The way the set pieces move, and the way lighting and high-tech screens and illusions are incorporated...I can only see about 1/3 of the stage from my spot, but what I could see was mind-boggling. People are going to LOVE this show!!

Afterward the band unanimously decided to have a celebratory drink at a bar across from our hotel. This was our first hang all together, and although I'd only planned to stay for one drink, turns out my coworkers were VERY curious about my circus background and wanted to hear all about it! So I stayed for a solid 4 hours, mostly drinking water and trying not to lose my voice describing what traveling year-round on a 1950s passenger train and performing 400 shows per year had been like! I did get to ask a few questions of my own, and learned a lot about our drummer and a little about our reed 2, and played the "guess my age game" with the other two ladies of the pit :p

Overall this seems like a wonderful group of people, and I hope that we'll have lots of time to get to know each other.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUNDAY

The band had been scheduled for a TBD rehearsal in the afternoon but it was canceled! Yay!
My whole day was free up until 7:30pm!

I was up way too early, but made the most of it by making a grocery list and Ubering to Target (I can't wait to be in a city where there are grocery stores within walking distance!!) and then swinging by the theater essentially just to steal bagels from the green room :p I wanted to go to the farmer's market again but was headachy and tired, only had one drink last night so it's probably the weather + allergies + not enough sleep. Had a restful day doing a lot of nothing, then after dinner went to the theater early to warm up on the bass and hit some spots I'd had trouble with last night.

I should perhaps mention that the availability request for the EPCOT Candlelight Processional was sent out yesterday! Once again I am bookmarking the ONE Monday rehearsal, which I will have to attend or risk losing my cast member status. I've now done this twice before while on tour, it's always harrowing and crazy, but also a reminder that few people have the privilege to do this or are even capable of doing this even given the opportunity. I'll be cranky for 48 hours, but also will have lots of fun and will be very grateful :)

Anyway, tonight Josh (our Key 1) brought in real apple cider and fresh apple cider donuts he'd gotten at the farmers market. They were delicious and gave me nostalgia for my hometown; every year at the Fair you could get apple cider freshly pressed in front of you and it was amazing. This was just like that :)

I thought today's full run was better than yesterday's overall. Still some intonation problems but a lot of that is because the pit is very cold. We also had to stop again during the Gaston/Beast fight scene, but I couldn't tell why; they took it as an opportunity to practice what happens on stage when whatever-it-was goes wrong ("technical difficulties" announcement, opening screen comes down until they're ready to move on.) Otherwise, fine show. Now I am looking forward to a full day off (though no idea what I will do with myself!)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday: A day off! The only things I have planned are to eat out for lunch and dinner as a special treat, and I'd also like to go for a walk (not much else to do in Schenectady I'm afraid)

Tuesday: Possible afternoon rehearsal followed by a show run.

**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers Wednesday and Thursday.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

WEDNESDAY

Up early for rehearsal. Breakfast, walking to the theater, and warming up.

Today I received my first paycheck from the tour.
Good enough for me: I officially work here now!! :) :) :)

Rehearsal was much the same as yesterday, we played through a number and then stopped so that keycomp personnel could adjust their levels. The Assistant Music Directors (our keyboardists) also took turns conducting us for one number each, and this also allowed our rehearsal keyboardist to move around and play the parts he's covering. Knowing multiple parts and/or being able to conduct the show is a LOT of extra work...but rest assured, these guys are getting paid extra for it (as well they should be!) And they did a fantastic job. Our MD sat in the audience and said we sounded "incredible." In the pit it's very hard to tell how we sound as a group, so it's good to get audience perspective.

Before we knew it rehearsal was over. I packed up all of my things since we'll be off for a whole day, and brought my bass trombone and music to the hotel with me. Tomorrow I'm driving to Dillon Music to try bass trombones, and I'll want to compare them with the one I've currently got.

After lunch I took care of some business like ticket requests from friends, booking a hotel with my sister for a family visit in PA, and making arrangements with a coworker at Epic for her to drive my car while I'm on tour (a great solution for both of us because I don't want to sell it yet but also don't want it sitting around becoming a mouse nest like it did last time.)

Then I walked to Hertz to rent a car. It was a 2-mile walk, that's my exercise for the day.
Once I had the car I treated myself to Whole Paycheck where I got my usual favorite things.
Back at the hotel, dinner and relaxation time because although tomorrow is a day off, it'll be a long day for me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY

Awake at 5am, eew. Some "day off!"

Breakfast, packed up some snacks and a phone charger and my bass trombone, and off I went for a 3-hour drive to Dillon Music.

Traffic was "New Jersey normal" and having lived in NJ for two years, I did a good job with timing and got there right at 10am. They were a bit late opening up, and there was a small queue of nervous high schoolers wanting to try out college level instruments.

A word on instrument testing.
( CLICK HERE for Nerd Stuuuuffff )

Anyway. The entryway at Dillon Music is full of photographs, programs, and memorabilia of the many many MANY brass musicians who have patronized the shop.

The store was incorporated in 1992, but the Steve Dillon has been selling instruments since the 80s. He and his wife Lynn have come out to see my shows, and always come by the pit to say hello! Lynn was actually right at the door, but I only gave her an enthusiastic "hello" and then let her handle the people in line ahead of me (I've worked retail before!)

Behind the counter, these supercool and rare brass instruments from bygone days.

And then we get to the good stuff.

This is the tuba/trumpet room. Pretty cool, huh? So few stores have a selection like this.
And here is the trombone wall (drool!) They have many more instruments in storage in the basement as well.

Watch on YouTube

One of the kids ahead of me was a clarinetist (The Dillon family men served as fifers during the Revolutionary and Civil wars, and as such they keep a collection of reed instruments too.) The other was a trombonist who'd just been accepted to the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony! A sales associate led them to practice rooms and got them started with a few instruments to try based on what they were looking for. He then brought me to a third room and hooked me up with a YBL-835GD, which was the model I'd asked to try ahead of time. He also brought me a Shires Q, saying that a lot of bass trombonists preferred it.

I had brought my Duo Gravis for comparison. One important thing to watch out for when trying new instruments is that you're not lying to yourself just because you want something new and shiny :p It's very important to be as sure as you can that the new horn will be an improvement, and/or give you something that your horn currently doesn't have.

On the left, my Duo Gravis. On the right, the Yamaha 835.

For the next two hours, I played and played, and played some more.
I carefully, painstakingly compared all three instruments by playing the same passages on them over and over, to hear the differences and pay attention to whether something was caused by me as a player, or the horn.

The first time I came to Dillon Music as a high school student, I spent FOUR HOURS testing horns. That's because I'd never done it before; I had very little clue what to look for, and I was scared because I didn't have a lot of money to spend and didn't want to make the wrong choice. Now I'm a lot more experienced and know what to listen for, and also know that if I find out I've made a terrible mistake, I can just return it and get my old horn back!

It was immediately clear that both new horns were an improvement over the Duo Gravis sound-wise, at least for what I need. I wanted a horn that was easier to play and had a more centered, responsive sound, and both fit the bill. But the Shires did not respond as quickly as the Yamaha, and although I could get more volume on it and it sounded wonderful, I still felt like it was fighting me more than the Yamaha. It was also significantly harder to hold comfortably. A lot of trombones are apparently designed for big MAN-BEAR MANLY MEN or something because the grips are ridiculously big, even for men. Yamahas in general tend to be designed with ASIAN men in mind, which means they are more comfortable to hold for ME. But that aside, the Yamaha won; overall it gave me what I wanted. It was direct and clean, and easier to play. It has a few quirks and as such may not be a "lifer" horn for me, but it is a great improvement and I believe it is worth the investment.

Even with a trade-in it was $$$$ expensive! But I have my dream gig now, and I need to bring my absolute best, and right now that means upgrading my equipment.

While waiting for my salesperson I chatted with the other trombonist's mom, which is how I found out he's doing the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony. She's not a musician at all, and the salespeople were too busy to stop by and give advice, so when her son came out I introduced myself and offered to listen and give feedback on the different horns that he was trying. He agreed and then told me what he was looking for in a horn. I listened carefully while he played the same passage across five different trombones, being careful not to look so I could judge blindly. There were two that sounded especially strong and projected well (that's what he was looking for), one was a Bach and the other a Getzen. I have played both brands before and love them both for different reasons. I gave the best advice that I could and told him what I'd heard from each horn. Ultimately it'll be up to him and his preferences. Instruments are a very personal choice, and what works for me may not work for him. I really hope he found a wonderful trombone today!

--- --- --- --- --- ---

Kind of a sidenote + perspective for readers:

The first time I came to Dillon Music to buy a college-level trombone, I was alone. I had driven all the way from Bloomsburg, PA, where I'd just had a fight with my dad. He had tried to stop me from buying a new trombone. He couldn't understand what was wrong with the one I already had, and lectured me for over an hour about how I was wasting my money, and on something that wasn't realistic as a career. I hate conflict and was afraid of him, and did not say a word to argue back. I sat trembling while he got in my face and paced angrily in front of me, arguing his case for why I shouldn't be buying a trombone. When he finally yelled at me to "Speak up!" and say something, I said, "I'm driving to New Jersey to get a trombone. I should be back before midnight."

Luckily he didn't physically try to stop me, just stormed out of the room instead. And then didn't talk to me for the next 48 hours.

Under that level of stress, I drove to New Jersey. Being from a small town, driving in NJ was absolutely terrifying at the time. When I arrived there were lots of adult musicians, all men, trying horns. I was a little girl just barely getting started in music, having just endured a lot of stresses before coming there, and I was deeply intimidated and ashamed of how I sounded compared to them on top of everything else. But I HAD to get a trombone for school. So I played all the way up until closing time, to the great annoyance of the sales staff. And I traded my student Getzen for a Bach 42A.

That Bach 42A is here with me for Beauty and the Beast.

And now, with that perspective, you can imagine how nice it was for me today, to go back to Dillon Music and not only confidently choose a trombone for myself, but also encourage a young musician in finding a horn that was right for him.

And seeing his mom there with him, watching proudly and supporting him, was absolutely worth 6 hours in New Jersey traffic :)

--- --- --- --- --- ---

Once the sale was complete I had to drive back right away because the day had taken much longer than I'd planned and the rental car place closed at 5pm. Ate a hasty lunch in the car while driving and got back just in time. At the hotel I gently washed the new trombone slide (it was already squeaky clean but you never know), lubed it with my preferred goop, and checked it over to make sure it's ready for tomorrow's rehearsal.

I'm so very excited to play it for this tour! My new li'l buddy!

I will take more pictures of it once it's in the pit.

Ate dinner, had a much-needed glass of wine, typed up this post, and crashed for the rest of the evening.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday: A rather short rehearsal from 10am to noon, and then we are hoping to watch a full run-through of the show with costumes and everything!!

Saturday and Sunday: Both are long rehearsal days, and Sunday is a dress rehearsal. Wow, we're almost at previews!! How exciting!

**YE OLDE TOUR DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer. (get used to seeing this at the top of any tour-related posts.)

Jameson did too, tossing and turning next to me.
But eventually I did get some sort of sleep and my alarm went off at 5am.
I got up that early so I could have quiet time alone to drink coffee, eat breakfast, and FREAK OUT.

This is happening. This is happening!!

WEDNESDAY - TRAVEL DAY

Jameson got up around 6:30 and drove me to the airport. He dragged my bass trombone and I dragged my janky suitcase (it has taken a lot of hits in life.) Fortunately the airport was very chill, which is rare in Orlando let me tell ya. Checked both bags and they kindly slapped some bright orange FRAGILE stickers onto the bass case.

Jameson walked me to my gate, and we hugged goodbye.
Always the hardest part. We squeeze really hard.
At least this time I know he won't be totally miserable at home! He's got his exciting new job, too!

No line at all at security either...what an auspicious day!...so I had about 45 minutes to kill.
Spent most of it reading my book and checking that I'm not dreaming.

(The hideous MCO carpet)

The flight was very smooth and uneventful.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

CHECKING IN

Took a company Uber to the hotel...
...and LO, my trombone and accessories arrived right as I was checking in!

I had worried for nothing this time. But next time, I will make sure that there is a BUFFER DAY. Geez.
Used a luggage trolley to get everything upstairs and checked on both trombones. Both were completely unharmed!

My two trombones pictured with their respective foam cones, which are put inside the bells to absorb impact. The cases are also some of the best currently available for transporting trombones. Because if I don't invest in my gear no one else will.

My accessories also got here safely though the box was barely a box any more and had clearly been handled badly. But I'd packaged everything carefully, so no damage.

I fell right back into my tour routine: checked that the fridge felt cold, dug an aquarium thermometer out of my suitcase and threw it in there, grabbed some tote bags, and hoofed it to a grocery store! Well, this time I had to Uber because there aren't any within reasonable walking distance. I first went to Niskayuna Co-op because I remembered it being really good with lots of local products, but was disappointed to see that their selection has dwindled. Maybe the local stuff hasn't been selling well. But I got a bar of raspberry and cracked pepper dark chocolate which I'm very intrigued to try, and some house-made pretzel rolls.

Next, Market 32 down the street which is really just a fancy version of Price Chopper. Got everything else I needed there. I actually got more than usual because we're gonna be here through July! But the hotel only has a little box fridge so I still have to be careful about how much refrigerated stuff I get. That means mostly canned or shelf stable veggies this week.

Got back to the hotel, put the food away, and unpacked.
It is so weird...it feels like I never left. Unpacking and putting stuff where I like it is like riding a bike.

There's thankfully a lot of counter space here, so all the food is gonna live under the TV. There's a microwave so I won't need the Itaki this time. The collapsible silicone kettle is at the far end because there's an outlet there. That'll be my morning coffee or evening tea. And no, I don't use hotel coffee makers generally because have you ever looked inside one? They never clean them. Nope nope nope.

In the little box fridge I've crammed as much Greek yogurt as will fit, some cooked chicken, boiled eggs, pickled beets, and berries. I've left some room so that I can pack and refrigerate a lunch.
Choice shelf-stable foods include oats, tuna pouches, single-serve canned green beans, roasted hazelnuts, canned pumpkin, PB Fit, Core Power shakes, rice, and misc fruit. And of course I have brought Snack Pod loaded with roasted edamame, dark chocolate chips, Cheerios, Mike & Ike's, and peanut butter M&M's!

After unpacking everything else I lubricated and otherwise prepared my trombones for work tomorrow, and put my accessories and everything I'll need into a pile ready to go. Then a shower, and then we FINALLY GOT ONBOARDING PAPERWORK. MY GOD. Turns out we were supposed to get it a long time ago. I think someone forgot about us. It'll definitely get worked out, but will be keeping an eye on the progress of it.

----------------------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY - FIRST REHEARSAL

Reminder: PLEASE DO NOT SHARE OR REPOST ANYTHING. Thanks!

I was awake early, nervous. Made breakfast in the hotel room (oatmeal with Core Power for milk, Fage Greek yogurt, blackberries) and packed my lunch. Since I don't know about our fridge situation at the theater I'm mostly packing nonperishables today, and will adjust as needed if there's a fridge. And I'm not packing dinner because we're supposed to be done rehearsing by 5pm, and since this is a union gig we WILL be done by 5pm.

Around 8:30am I loaded myself up with the two trombones, two trombone stands, bag-o-mutes, and my backpack with lunch and iPad and pedal...and realized that I needed to call an Uber. It's a short walk to the theatre but the combined weight of the trombones in their cases is about 50 pounds, plus all the equipment and my backpack...I would have been a sweaty mess. So I used the company Uber and just hoped they'd be ok with it.

I've played at Proctor's Theater before. It's small and old, but beautiful.
There's a sort of promenade just inside the entrance. To the right I immediately saw the stage door, and next to it this big poster.

We had been instructed to go up a marble staircase and make a few turns to get to our rehearsal space.
I found the stairs.

As I was staring at them and hyping myself up for dragging all of my equipment up there, a theater associate saw me and kindly directed me to an elevator. Which was also covered in a huge Beauty and the Beast decal, and which I couldn't photograph because my hands were full of trombones. Good lord, Disney does go hard on the marketing!

The rehearsal room was like every other tech rehearsal room I've ever been in. It's always either a hallway, or a conference room, or a black box. The MD, keys, drums, and something called keycomp have already been rehearsing here, so everything was set up and ready to go.

I quickly found my spot right on the end, and got set up.

They made us that HUGE and beautiful book of music, all printed on exquisitely thick cardstock, all lovingly bound in that heavy black folder. I felt like a poo-head, but picked it up and plopped it right on the floor next to my chair. We received PDF parts about a week ago, and I know that they match the paper parts (it's ALWAYS important to check that before ditching the printed part.) Plus, the digital part has all of my notes and I don't want to have to rewrite them, especially not if it's gonna mar these beautiful paper parts.

Anyway, here's the setup I'm going with for now.

The bass is at my left elbow since I use it the most and since it's the heaviest.
The tenor is at my right-front, so that I can grab it cross-body with my left hand once I've put the bass down. This is normally where my Aviom would go but I should be able to put that kinda behind my stand when we start using mixes (we don't need them for rehearsals.)
My mutes are lined up on the floor to the right of my chair because I prefer to grab them with my right hand. Water bottle goes over there too.
...that's pretty much it. Mute bag will eventually live under my chair and/or to the right of the mutes when I'm ready to pack up.

The other musicians filtered in gradually, and we introduced ourselves and chatted while rearranging our gear and tuning up. When the MD came in, he rushed right over to me and we hugged excitedly. I am so glad he's here! So glad that someone I KNOW is here! And he had a big big BIG hand in getting me this job. I feel that I owe him a lot. Michael, our rehearsal keyboardist, is also a good friend from My Fair Lady national tour, and we hugged and exclaimed excitedly about this tour for a bit.

Then it was time to rehearse.

We "ran it down," meaning we ran the show from top to bottom, only pausing afterward for the MD to give us notes or for us to ask questions about our parts. When we broke for lunch I went to the management office to rustle up a backstage pass. I met some of our management team, and received not only the pass but also this very cool nalgene bottle and the ubiquitous gel luggage tags!

Here is a better picture of the bottle after I took the protective plastic off, front and back.

On the way out of the office I saw this red arrow that said "TRUNKS" and decided to check it out.

Musicians are supposed to get trunks too. Sure enough, I quickly found mine! Luggage tag for scale.

You guys, this is a BIG DEAL.
Normally on tour (or at least all the tours I've done to this point) you get two 50 pound suitcases for your personal stuff, your "band box" which is a shared road case for carrying work-related gear and instruments...and that's it. Personally I don't care to drag 100 pounds of suitcase with me everywhere, so I usually opt for one large suitcase or that plus a carry-on at most. But this trunk means that I can bring lots more stuff! I'm actually a bit overwhelmed thinking about what I could bring. A full-sized Instapot! A bigger selection of clothes! And...I honestly don't even know what else! I'll have to think about it. But this is so exciting for someone used to living out of a 29-inch suitcase!

Our rehearsal ended 30 minutes early, so we must be doing something right :)
I felt that it went well and hope that others felt the same way. Everyone was so professional, and SUCH excellent musicians. When everyone in the room has that kind of focus, we can sound GREAT and be very productive.

Someone had sent a picture of the new tour truck, so I went outside to see it in person.
I've done lots of tours but never one with it's own truck like this. A very big deal!!

Watch on YouTube

Selfie in front of the truck. I am so grateful to be here.

I walked back to the hotel, and Jameson and I sent each other audio messages about how our days had gone.
I ate dinner and typed up this post for y'all.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

Welp. I'm exhausted. And still can't believe that I get to do this.

To be honest, all day today I was freaking out inside. Absolute raging Imposter Syndrome.
It felt like any minute someone was gonna say, "You know what...it's just not working out," and kick me out in favor of some better trombonist (there are plenty.) I was terrified of making mistakes; of disappointing or embarrassing the MD, who advocated for me to be here; of committing some shadowy faux pas that would offend someone in management.

Mainly, though, I am afraid that I haven't done a passable job on the bass trombone. It still does not feel very comfortable to me.

Now, that said, NO ONE has given any indication that I'm doing a bad job. I got many compliments today from the other musicians and the MD. The MD even said to me, "This is your gig." But I have also been there on other gigs, when a musician was not a good fit for the group, and everyone was all smiles and compliments and then she was gone.

Ultimately, all I can do is my best. And whatever the outcome may be...if they keep me for years, or if they approach me after a week and say, "Yeah, sorry but..."...either way there is very little that I can do about it, other than give them my best and hope it's enough.

The problem is that the more you care about something--the more you value it--the more terrifying it is to think about losing that thing. And that is what I'm experiencing now. It was the same while i was on the circus. For the first 3 months or so I was a nervous wreck on the inside, constantly terrified that any day could be my last on the best gig I'd ever had. That day never came, and I eventually felt like I belonged. I will probably be a nervous wreck for at least a month or two on this gig...definitely until we get past the Chicago layoff. But it is my deepest hope that I'll get to stay, and that I'll get to belong here, too.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday and Saturday: Same schedule as today, rehearsing from 10am-5pm both days.

Sunday: Same schedule but after rehearsal we'll move to the pit!

Questions: If you have any questions about tour, tech rehearsals, music, etc, feel free to ask! Just please make sure your answer wasn't already given in the post, it'll save me having to repeat myself. Thanks and welcome along on this amazing adventure!!

This post is only covering Monday and Tuesday, because Wednesday I fly out to join Beauty and the Beast!!!

I am SO NERVOUS.

I've done many tours before, but this one is different in a lot of ways.
The things I'm most worried about are whether I'll be a good fit; whether I've prepared enough on bass trombone; whether my tenor trombone will make it there safely; whether it's possibly troublesome that I'm blogging this experience (in the past other tours have been ok with it, but this one is more high profile, so...)

...I think that's it haha. I'm certainly worried about other things but the main gist is that this is my dream job, and I do not want to lose it because they don't like my playing, I'm not skilled enough, or I unknowingly commit some faux pas.

I am always telling others not to worry about stuff that they can't help or control, but of course here I am doing it myself. Womp wooooomp.

Anyway.

--- --- --- --- ---

MONDAY

Jameson and I were both up early, him for Disney corporate and me because my friend Ilan said my mutes were ready and although he wouldn't be home to give them to me, I could come pick them up. I had planned to shop and run errands rather far from home anyway today so it was good timing. After breakfast I drove out to his house and got the mutes, and probably annoyed the neighbors by trying them out briefly in the driveway.

They fit a lot better and sounded just fine, so thankfully I think this is the last time I'll have to trek an hour from home for this project. It's too late to get them to tech rehearsal, so I'll just swap them in after July when I come home for a layoff.

In these pics you can see the little handle on the straight mute (left).
The cup mute (right) is not smaller, I was just holding the horn farther from the camera.

Next I drove to The Loop which is a shopping plaza in Kissimmee.

- Went to several stores for sweatpants/pajama pants and wide leg black pants, did not find any.
- To Yankee Candle and got Jameson a vanilla candle because ours is almost finished.
- To a pharmacy for misc things that we need (Band-Aids and Ibuprofen) and travel-sized stuff.
- To Target where I found two pairs of sweatpants but still no wide leg black pants, so gave up and went home.

Back home I ate lunch, then

- Packed misc things like toiletries, trombone gear, charging cables, and clothes.
- Descaled the hot water kettle.
- Dusted, mopped the tile, and vacuumed.
- Did a load of laundry and packed stuff from that.
- Made appointments with misc brass instrument shops in Chicago since I'll be visiting in July, may as well maximize the time.
- Typed up this post.

By the time I got all that done I was pretty beat, so just tried to chill until Jameson got home.
We had leftovers for dinner.

And I realized with a shock that my trombone and equipment will not arrive until the 11th, which is the day before I need them. Which isn't "horrible," but I don't normally cut it so close and am angry with myself for not leaving a buffer day. If there's even ONE delay I won't have my trombone for the start of rehearsals, and will have to find one in less than 24 hours. Now I've got something else to be worried about :(

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

TUESDAY

Jameson had to get up at 7:30am so I got up with him.

After he left it was time for my Last Day At Home chores:

- Checked in for flight to Schenectady.
- Bought ingredients for dinner.
- Practiced bass trombone one last time.
- Washed the bass and let it dry for a while.
- While the bass was drying, finished packing my suitcase and cleaning up the guest bedroom.
- Weighed suitcase (46lbs, perfect)
- Lunch.
- Cleaned both bathrooms + scrubbed the shower.
- Vacuumed the car and put bait blocks under the hood.
- Took recycling out to curb.
- Packed the bass trombone for tomorrow's flight.
- Called the Music & Arts nearest Schenectady to confirm that they've got at least one professional-level tenor trombone in stock, and that it has a return policy, in case mine is delayed in shipping. This did put me at least somewhat at ease.
- Made coleslaw and got the root beer-braised chicken going in the crock pot (for BBQ sliders for dinner)

...and made a cup of tea, and sat the heck down.

I've been on many tours and have done all this Last Day At Home stuff many times. But this time is different. For one thing, I'll be back in less than a month thanks to the musicians' layoff in Chicago. This means I don't actually HAVE to bring everything that I'd need for months at a time on tour.

For another, this tour means a LOT to me. No offense to any other tour I've been on, but this is my first-ever ACTUAL Broadway tour. That's why I'm so upset that my trombone might be delayed in shipping, and why my Impostor Syndrome is absolutely rampant today. Like, odds are that everything will be totally fine...but because I've put so much weight and importance on this tour, it blows everything out of perspective. I know this, yet can't seem to stop it from happening.

What to do, then? Do my prep as usual, make a cup of tea, watch some anime, and ignore it.
Well, write about it to get it off my chest and THEN ignore it.
No point humoring my idiot brain.

Later on when Jameson said he was en route, I boiled some sweet corn and toasted some Hawaiian rolls.
We had root beer-braised BBQ chicken sliders with coleslaw and pickles, sweet corn, and watermelon.
Very summery and delicious :)

I want to mention that over the past several days, I have caught Jameson looking at me with the sweetest look :) :)
I can tell that he is proud of me. And that means SO MUCH.
And he has said so, too, to his friends and his parents over the phone.

I feel the same way about him. We have both been trying and trying and trying and trying, so hard, to reach our career dreams. We have watched each other struggle for about eight years. And that is why this year feels so monumental; it's not just that we've both achieved something amazing. It's that we both know what the other has had to go through to achieve the amazing thing. It wasn't handed to us. That said, there was luck involved, and connections (in our industry that's a given.) But there was also a LOT of work, a lot of uncertainty and rejection, and years of working other jobs that had little do do with our goals without knowing if it would be worth it.

And here we are. It was worth it.

After dinner we had a massive thunderstorm, kinda scary, with hail even!
The guy who was tailoring my shirt chose that moment to say I could come get my finished shirt...at 7pm in the middle of a huge storm...sigh. I wrote that I'd wait an hour to see if it'd let up. It did not let up. So I guess I'm not getting my shirt until the layoff. Sigh again. Whatever, sucks for him that he'll have to hang onto it for that long.

Jameson did orientation for a class while I waited out the storm, then we had our final evening together, just chilling.

Cannot believe that this is finally happening.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday: Flying to Schenectady. Praying to god that my tenor trombone and other equipment shows up on time. Argh. We might have some onboarding or paperwork, I hope?

Thursday: First day of tech rehearsal for Beauty and the Beast!!

When I was younger I could sleep until NOON.
What happened? Argh.

Up at 7, breakfast, and started organizing the guest bedroom. It's still chaos but now the chaos is in piles: stuff I'm still using to practice, stuff to bring to Epic this week, and stuff mounded into the big suitcase for bringing on tour.

I tried the new mutes and encountered a problem: they're too big!!
I was not expecting that, and don't remember it being an issue when I tried them at Will's house. Anyway, there wasn't much I could do but feel disappointed and send pictures to Ilan and try to coordinate with him for a return visit. He's going to try printing me some smaller ones, but either way I've got to return these, and now I'm out $200 and have NO mutes :(
Disappointed and annoyed with myself for not bringing my trombone to the initial visit to check that they'd fit. It never occurred to me that they might not.

Frustrated, I decided to take myself shopping for a new black shirt to bring on tour, but after driving 40 minutes to the nearest Macy's (in a plaza with an Old Navy, Ross, and Target) I failed to find a single black button-up shirt, between all of those stores.

Even MORE frustrated now, I went to World Market and found a few nice Snack Pod options and didn't even have to pay for them because I had a gift card. I used the HP from that to try visiting a tailor to see if they could shorten the strap on my crossbody bag, but they looked at me like I was insane and said they couldn't do it. So ultimately despite the World Market goodies I still went home annoyed and feeling like I didn't accomplish diddly poo.

Back home I did more packing and planning, ordered dinner for us when it was time, and tried to schedule myself a more productive day for tomorrow. Jameson had a frustrating day at work too. Today felt like we were spinning our wheels, but some days are like that and there's nothing for it but to learn from it and then keep on keepin' on.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, I managed to sleep in until 8:30 which is great because Wednesday will be a LONG day.

The usual routine, breakfast and when Jameson went to the gym I practiced. When he came back I went to the grocery for dinner ingredients, packed my meals for Epic tomorrow, and cleaned the bathrooms. Rested for a bit after that, then visited a different tailor about shortening my bag strap and he was able to do it while we chatted. My hero.

Back home I made dinner (Half-Baked Harvest sweet potato skins filled with spicy turkey, white cheddar, spinach, avocado) and chilled as much as I could.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday was the Grand Opening at Epic Universe.

If you missed the livestream, here it is:

Watch on YouTube

Up at 5am, started driving at 6:45, got good parking at 7:30.
Past security is the countdown clock. Here I am in front of it back in March:

...and here it is today. One day left. Wow!

Got into makeup and warmed up with the boys. Our first set was supposed to be at 9:30, but at 8:30 management came RUSHING in saying they needed us in costume and out there NOW.

So off we went. The cart had already been placed for us so we got into position for our first number and played it as a sound check. Then a short wait, then the media showed up so we launched into the top of our set.

We’d been asked to just play the first song again, but at the end of it we looked up and saw both stage manager and cameraman making the “keep rolling” gesture, so we kept going. And going, and going, until we’d finished a set. And then we restarted and played the top again! But after that they were done with us.

Later on we found out they’d only used about 8 seconds of footage, and it was all dialogue, no playing. Here it is (please excuse Mariah screaming in the background, she caught the footage and was excited)

Watch on YouTube

Entertainment is so weird :p

It was, overall, a media day. No guests, just news outlets and streamers and influencers. Therefore when we went out for sets, it was a sea of cameras. Not just phone cameras: big expensive news cameras on stabilizers, high-fidelity cameras with huge $15,000 Canon lenses, fancy mics…one guy even got a boom mic over our heads during dialogue!

During the percussion number the media SWARMED Plume. Our poor handlers had to jump in and politely but firmly force people back. We are behind the cart during that bit and can’t really help. But no one was excessively rude and the excitement was understandable. Overall I think we handled it really well. I’m especially proud of myself for not having a panic attack (very common for me when lots of eyes are on me.)

We had two large breaks. I used the first one to practice bass, and the second to type this post and listen to music for the upcoming Chicago gig I’m dreading. And read my book :)

(The stairwell where I practice sometimes, when the warm-up room is occupied. Do not repost.)

I guess there were celebrities around, including the actors who played the Weasley twins and Professor Flitwick. I heard that Danny Elfman and Gerard Butler were around, and a retired basketball player of some notoriety. I don’t keep up on pop culture so didn’t much care, but it’s nice that the park is getting a high-profile opening.

2025_universal_orlando_epic_universe_grand_opening_james_and_oliver_phelps_warwick_davis_1.jpg

(photo courtesy disneyfoodblog)

The evening sets were nice because the sun wasn't beating down and there was a breeze, but it was still very hot and humid. We had a few logistics snafus because this was the "gala" portion of the evening, and several food stalls were set up in our performance space that had to be moved. Still, this is all standard special event chaos. We did our set, and mostly got polite applause, but at that point people were too busy eating, drinking, and taking footage to actually interact with us.

We finished up just ahead of the fireworks, which was good because our land was in the fallout zone and they wanted us either out of the building or on lockdown by 9:45. I packed up quickly and got out of there, but enjoyed watching the Stardust Racers looping gracefully around each other, all lit up.

Here is the opening ceremony from the ground:

Watch on YouTube

And I wanted to share what the lighting looks like with an aerial view as well. It's truly incredible!!
This person got test footage while staying in one of the hotels.

Watch on YouTube

Whew. Long day! But it was an exciting privilege to be a part of a WHOLE NEW theme park's grand opening!
I was here from (almost) the beginning. We saw the Wizarding World being built around us. We have already spent more time in our part of the park than most people will in their lifetimes. Although my own experience is, frankly, overshadowed by the work I've found with Disney, it is still an incredibly special thing to be here in this moment. I have memories here that are an absolute treasure.

Although I couldn't find much footage of our trio by the end of the day, I'm sure it'll be forthcoming in the next few days. And tomorrow is the true Opening Day, when guests have full access to the fully open park for the first time. This park will change the theme park scene in Orlando--and possibly across the country--forever.

(youtube screenshot)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday: Day off. I'm returning my trombone mutes, resting, and preparing for a VERY CHAOTIC DAY at Epic Universe on Friday.

Friday: Work at Epic. Thoughts and prayers because it'll probably be batsh*t insane.

Saturday: Orlando Fringe with Jameson and friends!!

Sunday: Day off and I suspect I'll need it.

Thursday, working at Epic.

It was quite hot and no cloud cover at all. High of I think 92, with a heat index of 96 (33-34°C.)
And it is still MAY. By the time we hit July the heat index will be triple digits every day (41°C and up.)

All of our sets went just fine, we were sweating buckets and I drank a whole electrolyte drink which I don't normally do but it seemed a good idea. Not surprisingly most of the talk backstage is about the park opening, and the special event on the 21st. It's all very exciting but I'll be happy when the publicity part is over. They hype is well deserved of course...just speaking on a personal (introvert) level :p

Adrian (clarinet) has a garden which has produced a surplus of veggies. He gave me some!
The little tomatoes are called everglades tomatoes and are the size of blueberries.
Not sure what I'll do with everything yet but the tomatoes will likely be a weekend snack!

Back home I caught up with Jameson and packed a small purse for Hollywood Studios tomorrow.
I'm very excited that we'll get to have a day just for us. For fun, for enjoying each other, for enjoying Disney, for celebrating having made it this far, and for the exciting job things that are hopefully to come.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday was an INCREDIBLE day at Hollywood Studios! Full post HERE.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday. I got up and did laundry, hydrated a lot to make up for yesterday, vacuumed, ran the dishwasher, and practiced bass and tenor trombone. Ran through all of my Disney music in anticipation of subbing in at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow.

After lunch I drove out to my new friend Ilan's house to pick up the 3D-printed bass trombone mutes I'd ordered from him a while ago. Ilan is the founder/owner of Morningstar Mutes, among other things. And he recently celebrated the birth of a little girl. He's not new to fatherhood, but even a childless schmuck like me knows that a newborn baby is just as much work as a full time job. Therefore I was pleased and grateful that he'd managed to get my mutes finished in the original time frame.

I got to his house and texted "I'm here" rather than ringing the doorbell and potentially waking any little ones. That was a good call: the baby was dozing and the toddler was having a quiet storytime, and Ilan was able to bring me into the house without disrupting either. He went to go get my mutes while I looked around the foyer. There were mutes EVERYWHERE, and a 3D printer quietly humming away in the corner. Ilan informed me that there were two more printing night and day in his garage.

Ilan just recently started producing these mutes after years of testing and collaboration with other professional trombonists (he's a bass trombonist himself.) While trombone mutes are important for creating colorful sound changes (hear some samples HERE), many mutes do not work well across the entire range. Some notes can sound distorted, out of tune, or may not even sound at all if the mute disagrees with your horn. And the design and structure of mutes has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years.

The options available up to this point have been Humes & Berg cardboard composite mutes (virtually unchanged design since 1935) and a variety of aluminum mutes, all shaped like wine bottles and perhaps sporting a copper base if you wanted to get boujee. There were also mutes introduced by jazz artists, such as the plunger, bucket, and hat mute, and you can guess from their names where all of those originated!

To counter the problems of imperfect mutes, musicians have done goofy things like drill holes in them, wrap tape around them, intentionally dent them to change the sound, etc. And mutes freefalling out of your bell in the middle of a concert has always been a common problem thanks to the use of cork to hold them in; cork wears and chips over time, dries out and crumbles, and even filing cork down to fit your bell doesn't guarantee a good fit (especially if you get a new horn later on, or want to sell your mute to someone with a different horn.) So as you can see, all sorts of problems exist.

If you've read this far, congratulations, you total nerd.

Anyway, Ilan's mutes address a lot of these issues. For the problems with distortion and tuning, he's made the mutes larger than traditional ones which results in less backpressure and adds more resonance. He can do this because carbon fiber-infused plastic is even lighter than aluminum, so the size of the mute can be increased without increasing the weight. Additionally, carbon fiber does not dent or rust, so the mutes are more resilient. And instead of cork, Ilian is using a sort of soft synthetic material attached to the mutes via velcro so that you can move them around and adjust them without permanently changing the shape of the mute, as would happen with cork.

And on top of all of these improvements, you can add metal bottoms to the mutes which improves the sound. Copper is very preferred for adding warmth to sound, but he also offers brass or aluminum bottoms which usually offer a sharpness/clearer resonance.

Here are my two mutes, a straight mute and a cup mute for bass trombone.

The cup portion of the cup mute is a flexible plastic, which makes it easier to store and less likely to crack on impacts.
The straight mute has a small handle printed into the body on one side to make it easier to grab and remove (another innovation you won't find on traditional mutes.) Both mutes have a copper bottom. It's been a long time since I could afford a copper-bottomed mute.

In addition to these, Ilan showed me a tenor cup mute that hadn't printed quite right and asked if I might like to buy it at half price. There was nothing wrong with it other than aesthetics (some visible glue + it went a little wibbly on the cup portion) so I took it. In fact, since the cup is removable it's exactly what I need for one specific mute change on this tour. Yay bonus mute! It was great to meet Ilan and do business with him. He's a bit in the weeds with orders right now but I really hope that he'll get his feet under him because he's got a great product with innovations that a lot of trombonists really do need.

On the way back home I stopped at a Walgreens to get some special Snack Pod treats for Jameson and I!
He wanted Nerd Clusters, Mike & Ikes, Reeses Pieces, and Combos. I also got PB M&Ms again, sesame stick snacks, and Gushers. We weren't sure that all of these would work, and we were right: Combos are too big, and Gushers are too sticky. I tossed some Gushers in corn starch and we'll see if that helps. This is a fun experiment!

The rest of the evening was pretty chill, I just packed my Disney meals and tried (and failed) to relax.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, up early for the Magic Kingdom.

sharing-statue-empty-reopening-preview-magic-kingdom-disney-world-bricker.jpg

(photo courtesy Disneytouristblog)

The Castle stage is under repairs right now, so they're having the band do more sets to provide more entertainment in the area. Five sets, one parade, and the flag retreat, which is seven sets total and two more than usual. It has still been very hot, mid-90s even without the heat index, and minimal cloud cover. Therefore I went into work bucking myself up for a long and sweaty day with shorter breaks between each set.

When I arrived, however, I was surprised to find Cory, another of Keith's subs, setting up. After conferring we realized that Keith must have double-booked us. This happens from time to time; Keith did book Cory first but neither of them remembered to tell our boss, and then Keith must have forgotten about it and asked me to cover later on.

Our boss walked in, looked at both of us, shrugged, and said, "Rehearsal day. You two work it out."
Translation: Neither of us needed to go home. We could both stay, get paid, and he'd just call it a rehearsal for one of us. Yay!!

We quickly decided to divide the sets evenly, and for the flag retreat Cory offered to play the 2nd trombone book so that Crash (2nd trombonist) could go home early. The result of this was that instead of doing 7 sets today, I only had to do 4! YAY!!

Needless to say I had a wonderful day and did not care one whit that it was hot and sticky work. I got to play all of my favorites including Be Our Guest, Hot Dog Dance, and the parade, had time to cool off and chat with the guys between sets, and did not feel overexerted. Truly lovely.

(Courtesy random IG account)

The tough thing about subbing right now is that I don't know which day will be my last before tour starts.

So, I treasured today. I noticed the smells of candy and popcorn and roasted nuts. I felt the little bubbles from the bubble wands pop on my cheek and hands as we danced with kids during our sets. I played "When You Wish Upon A Star" as we marched past the castle, and remembered how my heart had pounded and my eyes had welled up with tears the first time I'd gotten to do that, because it was a dream come true.

Things like that.

It was a good day. I'm sure there'll be more...just don't know when :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday and Tuesday: Days off. Now is the time to prep for tour. Practicing, packing, cleaning the guest bedroom, gathering supplies. Some cooking and cleaning too I think.

Wednesday: You guys. Can you believe it? Wednesday the 21st is the Epic Universe Grand Opening Celebration. I'll be at the park from 8am-9pm for this special event. The entire event will be livestreamed HERE if you'd like to watch (you do need to sign up.) Not sure if you will see me in the footage (or if you'd even want to) but there will certainly be lots of exciting stuff in store!

(random photo)

Thursday I was up at 8 which is late for me anymore.

Breakfast and finished timestamping my bootleg of the tour I'm gonna do this summer, then sort of rushed through breakfast because I am ITCHING to practice this music! I've been waiting for it for a long time. It would have been nice to get it from the actual touring company, but whatever, I'm sure they're super busy with all sorts of other logistics plus it's possible our arrangements aren't even finished yet.

That's right, the part I was given by the guy doing this show in Australia isn't even the part I'll be playing. It's a lot closer, but his version of the music is for a stationary show. A touring show will require changes to set pieces for easier breakdown, and changes to staging to accommodate many stage sizes, and changes to the choreo too. Likewise the music will have more cuts and reorchestrations based on all of these changes that happen on stage. Regardless, being able to practice the actual part is a HUGE leap forward from practicing the 1990s version part, which is what I've been doing up until now.

Anyway, I practiced most of the first act. Right before lunch I went to the bank to deposit some savings bonds that have been sitting around forever. Most of them are within the last 2-3 years of maturity, and I don't feel it's worth the few dollars to keep them lying around when our country is going down the toilet.

Back home, lunch and even more practice just because I am so pleased to have the part!
Then relaxing with Jameson for two hours before driving to my lesson with Will.

Meet Will, who like Jameson is a raging Cubs fan:

This is a "bad" picture of him, he'll be mad that I shared it :p
My lesson went ok, but it's clear that I need to actually get into a routine now that Will's given me all of these exercises to do. I've been kind of grab-bagging exercises, and need to play them daily and consistently instead. Decided that I'm gonna start with deep breathing and stacked breathing, followed by sustaining long tones with a stopwatch, then interval exercises and mouthpiece buzzing, then Rochut melodies, and THEN I can hit the tour music after doing all that.

Second half of the lesson was spent on gear. I need straight, cup, and plunger mutes for bass trombone, and Will has extras of all of these that he was able to let me borrow. He also let me try his new 3D-printed mutes, which I was skeptical of but they really do sound fantastic. Which is a shame because I'd rather save money and use free/cheap mutes! But now I'm tempted to get the new ones!

Here is a traditional aluminum trombone mute on the left, and a 3D-printed Morningstar mute on the right.

Jo-Ral-1A-Aluminum-Straight-Mute-Tenor-Trombone-1.1.jpg

To show the bottom of the Morningstar mute, which comes in several metal options (copper, aluminum, brass):

ca0e1a_04598eb8a4734926b21044383c78330d~mv2.png

They don't look very different, but there are some important differences. The Morningstar mute is significantly bigger, which isn't necessarily "better" but is probably one reason why they sound so good. It also won't dent during transport because it's 3D-printed. And it doesn't use cork, which dries out and breaks. Instead he uses a velcro system that is actually adjustable so you can move the mute further in or out to get the sound you want. I thought all of this was a gimmick until I tried it...it's not, it's actually very functional and an improvement over traditional mutes which have not seen much innovation since time immemorable. The creator is an actual trombonist too, so my trust level is high. He lives here in Orlando(!) and I'm gonna meet with him in April to try the other types of mutes, schedule permitting.

Will sent me home with his old mutes to play with, plus a gig bag! My monstrous road case is great, but for just getting my bass around town locally a gig bag will be very convenient. I might buy it from him.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday morning, I woke up to an email from our Australian Angel (the trombonist doing my show on the opposite side of the globe.) He'd sent me the French horn part! I quickly forwarded it to Sarah, the French hornist joining me on tour and who sent me frantic texts last week asking if I'd gotten any updates. She'll be thrilled! Super grateful that musicians are willing to help musicians, sort of regardless of any "consequences." This isn't some black market music smuggling ring; we just want to go into rehearsal at our absolute best for this show, and need to see the music in advance to do that.

I poked away online until Jameson got up, then had a rather productive day:

     - washed and seasoned our new saute pan which had shown up last night while I was at Will's
     - practiced bass for an hour
     - took old tax documents and void checks to UPS to be shredded
     - called my doctor to set up a regular checkup in May
     - called my bank to close an inactive checking account
     - dusted
     - trimmed the banana tree

...and went for a neighborhood walk.
The weather today was warm, breezy and 75F (23.8C) and there won't be many more days like this.

One of our neighbors has planted these gorgeous roses.

Back home lunch and a shower, Jameson had an afternoon meeting so I did quiet things like dumping transcription files to an external drive, looking for wallpapers for my new iPad, and researching getting a will. I'm not all that old and I don't have loads of assets, but there are things like my trombones that are rare and valuable and I'd like for those to be handled properly, and would like to leave as little work for my younger siblings as possible whenever I cack it.

While doing that I was surprised to see an email from Epic Universe land in my inbox...an invitation to queue up for PREVIEW TICKETS!!!

How-to-Train-Your-Dragon-–-Isle-of-Berk-01-Epic-Universe-TV-commercial-courtesy-of-Universal.png

(This girl from the Epic commercials is essentially my inner child right now)

Since we are not Universal employees, we have been barred from participating in several other Team Member events that have already taken place. None of us had our hopes up to be included in the park previews. Our third party employer must have advocated for us to get these. I was quick to write them an email GUSHING thanks, then jump into the queue!

Only a limited number of guests may preview the park each day, so just like a popular concert on TicketMaster, you've got to dive into the fray and get that reservation ASAP. It was lucky I'd been working and had my email open to see it come in. Even so, available tickets for the day we wanted were at 10% remaining when I got through just 10 minutes later!! Crazy.

But now, I WILL GET TO SEE ALL OF EPIC UNIVERSE!!!
I may bring one guest, and since I have no friends it's Jameson again. You can bet he doesn't mind!!
I will bring my wand, and we can zap everything we can in the Ministry of Magic!
And we will eat treats and drink drinks and ride rides! And, and...!!

Aaaaah!

Ok, ok, back to the present.

I got our tickets all set up, worked on my will a bit more, did a load of laundry, and when my iPad case arrived I installed that. Ate leftover meatballs with Jameson until he left for a party with friends. After he left I enjoyed several hours to myself to relax. Lit a candle, made tea, watched anime, researched what to check out at Epic Universe. I still have so much to do in coming days...but I also did a lot today, and gotta remind myself that it's ok to do nothing, too.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday, I had a new transcription job and got started on it. Jameson slept late so I was itching to practice trombone by the time he got up. Practiced, hit the grocery store for dinner ingredients, packed for Disney tomorrow.

More transcription in the afternoon, then made a chicken pot pie for dinner that tasted great but turned out runny, and it was supposed to have a puff pastry "crust" but it didn't work at all. I ended up having to scrape wet puff pastry off the top of the pie, and we were left with only the parts that hadn't touched the filling. Lame. Next time I'll have to par-bake the pastry separately I think.

I felt restless today overall. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, up at 5:30am to make coffee and put in an hour of transcription.
Stopped at 7am to hit Publix for croissants, which when heated in the air fryer become crispy enough that they can be used as a "crust" topping for the pot pie leftovers. More transcription, breakfast, off to Disney with tenor and bass trombone in tow.

It was a cloudy day, but it didn't rain and we didn't get out of anything :p
We did have a shortened second parade because it looked like rain, and the flag retreat was shortened as well because huge thunderheads were rolling toward us, lightning visible. No explorations today, I just practiced bass and tenor and shot the sh*t with the guys.
It was a good day.

Grocery store sushi on the way home, hot tea when I got home.
Jameson has begun putting together a LEGO Piano set that he got at a discount. It's huge and I've no idea where it will live, but maybe we'll figure that out by the time he's finished it!

21323-lego-ideas-grand-piano-review-hothbricks_14-1.jpg

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday & Tuesday: Days "off." Lots of transcription, probably gonna make us Chicago dogs.

Wednesday & Thursday: Epic Universe. Gosh, it's been forever, do I even remember the show? Lol

In closing: Did you know that ChatGPT can make any picture you give it into an anime version? I fed it two photos and they are adorable!

Right before bed, another spoiler sent via a facebook friend:

Finally @bioreconstruct and his helicopter have caught us in costume AND with our instruments!
We still did not have our prop, though, so that should still be a surprise for most people.

(I am still under the NDA, but at this point Universal has officially shared our existence and that we're a trio of musicians with a puffskein, plus I haven't had backlash for the other @bioreconstruct photos I've shared, so I will risk this and see what happens.)

Anyway, was up to do transcription. Finished one case and started another shorter case, which sadly had incredibly poor audio and was difficult to work through. This is why you can't judge a case by it's audio length; it may be a short clip, but the clip could be VERY complicated to transcribe. In fact I worked on it for the whole time that Jameson was at the gym, which was frustrating as I'd hoped to practice while he was gone, too. Ah well. Finished all of the transcription and now only have to review everything and ask my bosses some questions.

I also found a general store in Harrisburg, PA that was willing to ship me some church eggs!

(stock image of peanut butter filled "church eggs")

The name of the store is Zimmerman's, which has been around since 1915 and always carries multiple churches' chocolate filled Easter eggs. The eggs are on preorder at most churches during Lent, so I knew I'd better try to get them now or never. The buttercream are my favorite but the peanut butter are awesome too, coconut coming in third :p I got two of each kind of egg from the top two popular churches in the area. Now they just have to somehow not melt on their way here. We'll see how they do!

And then when Jameson got back from the gym, I whipped up the Quaker Maple Bacon Instant Oats to try.

Quaker-Instant-Oatmeal-with-Maple-Bacon-Flavor-9-8-oz-8-packets_a3a37f97-f546-445d-afa2-ba02bf882599.e6d6a45af9044fc1c633188c0b9ca10e.jpeg

They were surprisingly good! Weird, but good. No pieces of actual bacon or even fake bacon, just a sort of smoky aftertaste and smell. And the label says "made with MILK ingredients," so while it doesn't say what or how much, I have to assume that it's lactose or whey for sweetening purposes (many Quaker cereals are sweetened with whey concentrate.) Boo. Still, it was fun to try!

After that I went to the grocery for taco salad ingredients, and back home went for a walk. It was sunny and 70F with a brisk breeze and not a cloud in the sky. I'm surprised that we can still have days like this, this late in the spring in Central Florida. Usually by now I remember it being 10 degrees hotter. Not complaining. Didn't see anything special on the walk, it was just good to get some fresh air.

Finished transcription, got notification that the firefly petunias I'd ordered for family have shipped so I notified my fam and sent care instructions for when they arrive. Also ordered myself some vanilla lavender chai, a sample pack, because when I'm feeling anxious sometimes I buy myself small waste-of-money things online. I am anxious, btw, because I feel that I really ought to hear more about the upcoming summer tour, and am impatient to hear something and worried until I hear something. This is typical for me, and simply means that I'm impatient, not that anything is overdue or in jeopardy. Right.
..............right?

Taco salads were nice as usual. I had an Underberg afterward and that felt nice too.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Had stress dreams, so did Jameson. His were about his job interview today. Mine, weirdly, were about the pork roast I plan to make today. In the dream I had to make it for a huge group of people and only had enough ingredients for Jameson and I. I've always been very stressy about cooking/baking so this is no surprise.

Mariah (one of the other Epic female trombonists) had messaged sometime in the night to say that her grandpa had passed away, and could Andrea or I fill in for her today. Technically I was free, but by the time I woke up to read the message it was 7:30am which is when I'd usually be leaving for Epic. Fortunately Andrea had apparently been up and responded at 6:30am to say she could do it. Anyway, not to be selfish but I really needed today to finish this transcription job, so I'm glad Andrea could do it. (Obviously if she hadn't been able to I would have no matter the inconvenience to me.)

After reading through those messages and eating breakfast I got a late start on transcription review, but plugged away until Jameson went to the gym, then ran to the grocery for ingredients. Back home, switched over to practicing because I did not practice at all yesterday and felt guilty about it. I haven't been memorizing my Disney stuff either, entirely because I feel overwhelmed about it, and because it's not something I was asked or required to do, just something that I took upon myself in case I was needed with our 2nd trombonist out with an arm injury. But it doesn't seem like I AM needed, I haven't been called at all and his subs must be covering for him. There goes my motivation for memorizing the 2nd part.

Well, I got in a good hour of bass practice then went back to transcription until lunch time when I prepared and seared the pork tenderloins and got them going in the slow cooker with peach jam, bourbon, peach balsamic, a bit of soy, molasses, spices, onions, and garlic. This is a photo from the last time I made this but it looks just the same. Also, it was so good that I did an entire post just on this recipe, HERE.

After lunch I made the slaw and some iced tea, and set Hawaiian rolls out to thaw.
Am I getting a jump-start on summer with this meal? Lol.

While doing all that, Keith messaged to ask if I'd cover at the Magic Kingdom for the next two Sundays and I said yes before considering that Mariah might need one of those days for her grandpa's funeral. So I quickly texted back and forth with the Epic Trombone Ladies, and it seems like we should be all right. Phew. I am grateful for the additional work, but in this particular situation I'd waive "Disney Priority" and help Mariah first.

I went back to transcription around the same time that Jameson began his interview with DEG. He was using headphones and had the door shut so I couldn't totally tell how it went, but heard him laugh a few times and speaking passionately about his work at others. When he emerged he told me it had gone well, and that he should hear more by Thursday, and that if there's another interview it will likely be in person. Fingers and toes, fingers and toes. Crossing ALL of our fingers and toes.

Back to transcription review until it was finished (yay!). Now all I have to worry about tomorrow is getting the frankenbone cleaned, practicing, and packing for Epic.

Before bed, received a startling offer to join an Asian tour of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!
This is my first international tour offer. Something that I've hoped and dreamed for.
And I will have to turn it down, because I've already said yes to another equally-dream-job tour!

How strange life is. A few months ago I was scrubbing toilets and selling hats.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, barely slept at all because my mind was racing about what touring Asia would be like, and from angst about not having heard back from the tour I've accepted. Now that this other offer has appeared, I would REALLY like for the other tour to confirm with me, again, that I'm signed with them, A) because they've been silent for 3 months exactly, B) because they haven't sent any paperwork or info as yet, C) because it would be the worst thing in the world to decline a job for another job and then find out you don't have the other job, and D) because I am the type of person who really badly needs legitimate reassurances, or something more than a verbal agreement.

I mean, unless something has gone horribly wrong, I am still slated to head out with the tour I've accepted.
But waiting to know FOR SURE makes me feel like someone is twisting a knife in my stomach.
Just yes or no, guys. Please.

The MD, bless his patient heart, did get back to me to say as far as he knows everything is still a-go.
That is indeed reassuring, but I'd also like to hear it from the music coordinator if possible.

Anyway, was up too early, ate breakfast, drove out to Pat's with the frankenbone.
He went to work on it right away, and I started the drive out to Clermont to kill time but he called to say he was done before I got there. Drove back and we talked about trombone nerd stuff for a bit, thanked him for his work, and drove home.

Where I proceeded to eat lunch, pack for Epic tomorrow, and screw up my courage to call the music coordinator. He did not answer so I left a message. And then I did nothing for the rest of the day because I felt discouraged, annoyed, and put out. I HATE being in limbo, it drives me absolutely bonkers. This should be a set job. I should not be fretting to this extent. But three months of silence plus having to turn down another offer, while trying to patiently wait to hear from someone...it's really, really hard for me in ways and on levels that I can't describe. It makes me absolutely squirm inside.

Jameson was also in a bit of a funk probably for the same reason, as he's supposed to hear back about his job interview tomorrow. We binge-watched three episodes of Traitors and went to bed early, knowing it would be hard to fall asleep anxious.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday: Epic, followed by my bass trombone lesson. I hope Will isn't put out when I show up with my show makeup on lol.

Friday: Epic again...and Jameson will get to see the park, and my show!!! I am nervous and excited. He will get to see more of the park than I ever will, too, and I'm jealous of that.

Saturday: A day off. I'll have to do a lot of transcription.

Sunday: Filling in at the Magic Kingdom. I'm looking forward to it.

I woke to find that it has finally happened.
Our cover has been blown. In THIS article.

Aah, whoops. I forget that people don't read any more and I'm supposed to spoon-feed information.
TL;DR:

This is the first-ever official Universal mention of our band.

Next week are family and friends previews, and from what I've heard they're planning to drop the photo restrictions (NOT video, though if they allow the one I feel they can't prevent the other.) So, I will STILL not share any more details than this, because of the NDA and because spoilers are likely to start coming in a week or two.

UOR-Epic-Universe-Dark-Universe-Monster-Musician-Concept-Art.jpg

(Artistic rendering of a strolling violinist, who also tells scary stories, in Dark Universe. This was one of the events that we were taken to see during our rehearsal period...all of the musicians did a fantastic job, and I'm excited that they'll have real audiences soon too!)

Well, back to Thursday.
It was a day off and I hadn't really scheduled myself anything to do, just the lesson with Will and packing for Epic tomorrow. And I was feeling extra-tired. So, a nice slow breakfast and when Jameson went to the gym I watched anime, meal-planned, made a quick trip to Wawa to see if they had seasonal Irish potato candy (they didn't,) got bagels for the week (egg, rye, French toast, cinnamon raisin), and was practicing bass when Jameson got home. I also turned in my transcription work, worked on Foodie Finds, packed my food and clothes for Epic, and received a crappy trombone I'd gotten from Goodwill Auctions for us to use at Epic. With shipping and tax, it was only $186.

I bought it based on photos, obviously couldn't try it in advance when buying from an online auction. But I was lucky. It's not great, but has minimal damage and will be usable for our purposes. I gave it a bath and will bring it with me to Epic tomorrow. Talking with the other two trombone ladies, we'll probably have both junk trombones serviced in coming weeks. A bad, scrape-y slide makes them much harder to play, and dropping a little cash to help us sound slightly better seems reasonable.

After dinner I had my lesson with Will. Got to meet his wife this time, she's also a musician and happened to be on a gig during my last lesson. She seems awesome, I'm hoping that she and Will and Jameson and I can have a couples night of some sort, but with ALL of us musicians it's very unlikely!

The lesson went well again, I was once again flabbergasted at all that I do not know, but think I learned some more things about how I should be shaping my embouchure and moving air through the horn. Will gave me breathing and buzzing exercises to do, so I will try them tomorrow. Once again we went over by 30 minutes, neither of us complaining. There's a lot to learn and an hour honestly doesn't seem to cut it!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, up very early for Epic.

TMI warning:
my intestines have been a mess since yesterday, I don't know why but perhaps too much dairy lately, or something else indigestible. It happens from time to time but is very uncomfortable and stressful when you're trying to perform in front of people but are mildly nauseous and crampy and gassy.

Anyway, our prop is still broken meaning I could bring my own, good trombone to play as I wouldn't have to set it down on the prop. I also brought the Goodwill trombone, and ALSO kidnapped the frankenbone so that I can take it to be serviced and cleaned (as I mentioned wanting to do a few paragraphs above.) Also, to thank me for A) bringing trombones for us to use and B) volunteering to drive all the way out to Pat's to get one serviced (he lives an hour away), Andrea called Pat up and paid for the cleaning in advance! This is why I love working with these ladies! I get the sense that the men would NEVER be proactive like this for each other. Mariah has been at a wedding this week or I'm sure she'd have pitched in as well (she's also very young so I had zero expectations, let her save her money.)

The day went just fine, nothing to report except that my character's hairstyle was thrown into question because my hair has grown out a bit since I was given hair/makeup criteria. I am still amazed at how much scrutiny we are all under from day to day--is the length of my hair really going to contribute in any way to the success of the park?--but considering that all of us represent the Intellectual Property (IP) of high-value brands like Nintendo, JK Rowling, How to Train Your Dragon, etc., I suppose it's understandable.

After work, Whole Paycheck for shrimp to make po'boys and a few other ingredients.
It took over an hour to drive the 16 miles home. The tourist traffic around here is only going to get crazier.
Jameson and I caught up, I practiced bass, and received a new transcription job and set up the formatting so I can begin it easily tomorrow. We watched Traitors, went to bed. The usual.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday I slept poorly and was very anxious for some reason. Assuming it's because my guts are bothering me. Such things make me think of how my mom died, and I am her age, and sometimes my subconscious latches onto that and freaks out.

Coffee and transcription for an hour.
Jameson woke up to find he'd been offered an interview with DEG (Disney Event Group) on Tuesday, so we will begin crossing our fingers and toes for him right now.

When Jameson went to his massage I took a break from trancsription to make tartar sauce, go get po'boy hoagie rolls (for some reason Whole Paycheck has stopped selling demi baguettes), and practice bass until lunch. Then more transcription and a small break before whipping up dinner. I make grilled shrimp po'boys about twice a year, they're easy and tasty and failsafe.

We watched Traitors and Severance, and I binged Beastars for a while (should I be embarrassed about that? Unsure.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday I was able to sleep a little better. It was very gusty, the tornado-filled storm system that's been moving across the Southeast US has reached us. It's passing north of Florida but will clip us a bit.

Transcription. A little about that for those interested below the cut.

( Transcribing immigration cases )

Well, so, I did transcription for most of the morning until I was nearly done. The sooner I finish the more free time I can have for other things. After lunch I practiced trombone until Jameson left for Universal, he's seeing a concert there tonight with a friend. After practice I washed and changed our bedsheets, took myself to a new pho place for summer rolls for dinner, stopped at a hardware store for a pipe joint for trombone breathing exercises (someone is ABSOLUTELY going to think it's a bong), then hit a liquor store for no reason other than it's a new one and I've never been in it before. They didn't have much that I was interested in, but did have Underberg which I've thought about often since trying it in Salt Lake City. So I got some of that to enjoy, and some mini bottles of peanut butter whiskey for Jameson.

Back home, much chilling. I felt very lazy, but maybe that's what's needed.
Summer rolls and leftover tofu and veg, peanut butter whiskey and a carrot cake muffin for dessert.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday thru Wednesday: more days off! (From Epic lol.) I don't really know what to do with myself. Goals include practice, sweeping the pool deck, walks, cooking meals, depositing savings bonds, transcribing, and catching up on sleep. Oh, and taking the frankenbone to be cleaned.

I was up at 7 and finishing my transcription, submitting it, and planning dinners by the time Jameson got up. When he went to the gym I cleaned the bathrooms and briefly practiced bass...my first lesson is tonight and it's an hour long, so I don't want to overdo it. Then lunch and to the grocery for dinner ingredients.

I did a lot of cleaning last week on my day off, and it felt strange to not have a laundry list of To-Do's.
I felt restless without something demanding my attention. That, and I was nervous for the lesson later in the evening.

For dinner Jameson wanted to treat himself to Taco Bell, so I said ya know what, I'll treat myself to Chinese!
(I don't like Taco Bell, and Jameson can't eat Chinese because the MSG makes him sick.)
I enjoyed steamed seafood with veggies and char siu ribs. There seemed like enough food for like eight people so I'll be eating that for the next 3-4 lunches.

Then it was time for my lesson. I drove to Will's house and was greeted by his 5-year-old Italian greyhound whose name is Baci because that means "lots of kisses" in Italian, and Baci loves to give lots of kisses! We started with Will examining my bass trombone. I think it's a good horn, but wanted a REAL bass trombonist's opinion. He absolutely loved it, especially the slide (which to be fair any trombonist bass or not would agree that it's a good one.) He'd never played a Minick-modified horn, so now I think he understands why they're so sought after. That guy knew what he was doing. (Read about Larry Minick HERE if you like. It's his obit, but it does explain why his work was/is so prized.)

That done, we started with some basic warm-ups and exercises so Will could see where I'm at. I was nervous and internally cringing at how poor I sound compared to Will...but also, that's why I'm taking lessons, you know? To learn and to improve, on an instrument that I don't normally play. There's no need to be embarrassed about that.

I learned a great deal from Will in that short hour. About how tenor players need to have a faster airstream, but to play bass you have to slow it down and spread it out...like fogging up a window with your breath, as opposed to blowing out a candle. I learned that I've been playing some of the pedal note positions in the wrong spot, not knowing any better. It was actually fascinating and exciting, finding out all of the stuff that I didn't know. We will have another lesson in a week, which is excellent because it'll hold me accountable. I can tell right away that taking lessons was the right thing to do, and am excited for the progress that I could make with Will's guidance!

We went overtime but he still only charged me for an hour, so next time I'll bring him some Dragon's Milk beer.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, I managed to sleep a bit later but was still up before 8.

Missions accomplished:
     - Load of laundry.
     - Mixed up some garlic butter for garlic bread later.
     - Practiced the new materials on bass. I can tell a difference already just from the one lesson!
     - Clothing donation drop at a thrift store.
     - Food donation drop at a food bank.
     - Back home for leftover Chinese lunch.
     - Ran the dishwasher.
     - Ingredients list for tomorrow's dinner.
     - Dug through my storage bins for stickers to put on my bass trombone case.
     - Worked on Foodie Finds.
     - Finally washed and vacuumed my car. Ever since the mouse invasion there have been remnants of nest materials, dried droppings, and that faint yet distinctive Small Animal Smell floating around in there, plus I've been eating meals while driving for over a month. Now it's nice and clean.
     - Small impromptu funeral for my beautiful firefly petunia. RIP. This little plant brought me so much joy, and I hope to own another in the future when I'm not tearing around the country every few months.

At it's brightest:

And now, the poor thing is completely dead. The green things are weeds.
I am sorry, dear flower, but we'll meet again.

For dinner I had planned to make us this upscale chicken parm sandwich...but Jameson had recently shared with me a TikTok of someone making dino nugget chicken parm, with each little dinosaur draped in it's own little blanket of provolone...and it was just so cute and fun. And he's been struggling mentally this week, so I thought, let's be kids tonight. Let's pretend we have no worries other than imagining our vegetables are trees while biting the heads off our dinosaurs and watching junk TV.

Chickie parm NUGGOSAURS with "trees" and a garlic "land."

Some dinos had provolone blankets, some had mozzarella pillows, and some had both. All had marinara and a sprinkle of parm and herbs. The garlic butter is homemade, on store-bought ciabatta.

Fun and delicious. What's not to love?

Right before bed I received a new transcription job, this one is 3 hours instead of 2.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Up around 7 on Saturday for coffee and transcription, breakfast, and when Jameson left for the gym I made "Big Mac sauce" for our burgers and formed the burger patties.

Then packed lunch and clothes for Epic, ate lunch, and procrastinated on practicing because I didn't feel like it but did ultimately get 1/2 hour in. Some is better than none. More transcription, then had Jameson show me how to start the grill so I'll know how to operate it without help in the future. Working with open flame scares the eff out of me, but like anything else it just takes safety precautions and getting used to. Sadly our burgers crumbled on the grill, but I was able to salvage them by bringing them inside and cooking them in a pan. The flavors were great but mine was essentially a sloppy joe!

Calm night of watching Severance, gaming, watching anime, working on Foodie Finds.
There are people in the vacation rental next door making a huge racket at time of this writing, but I'm gonna hope they quiet down by midnight.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, up super early for Epic.
I was startled by the oven clock reading 4:30am...and then remembered that it was daylight savings. No wonder I felt extra tired.

It was a hot day so we did not have to wear our costume jackets, thank goodness.
There were about 5,000 people in the park, we were told (throughout all five worlds, not just ours) so we had decent crowds. It felt close to what it might feel like when the park is open, with people waving and asking us questions and actually gathering around to watch us perform (usually they just keep walking.) All in all a very good performance day, aside from being very sweaty!

I tried to do transcription between sets but they've changed our schedule. We now leave earlier, but our breaks are a bit shorter and too short to get actual work done. I don't mind, but I will have to plan for more transcription on non-Epic days from now on.

Getting out earlier meant I had time to actually pick up dinner for Jameson and I! Whole Paycheck for sushi and a few small things. Back home Jameson was feeling nervous; he got called to do jury duty on Monday, and he's afraid it'll interfere with his physical therapy. He will find out more tomorrow morning, hopefully.

I wanted to practice but Jameson seemed to need company, so instead we ate dinner together and watched two episodes of Traitors. I am annoyed that I didn't get any transcription OR practice done today...but have to remember that making plans doesn't guarantee they'll happen, and that life sometimes directs one to do other things like be there for one's partner, and that's ok.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday & Tuesday: Days off. Lots of transcription, more chores, a visit to the bank and listing items that I don't use for sale online.

Wednesday: Epic rehearsal/performances.

Thursday at Epic Universe again.

Today we had Warner Bros. "audits," which only meant that a lot of execs were at our first show specifically to review it and give feedback. Some of us were likely quivering in our boots, but ultimately only three of us would perform, and they of course chose Mariah (trombone), Adam (trumpet), and Adrian (clarinet). They're the preferred group, so we call them "the PR trio."

This was our first time seeing Mariah in costume and she ROCKED it. Especially the hat, now that I've worked at a hat shop I can see that the shape of it suits her face shape very well. Mariah is black, and the color of the suit is flattering against her skin tone. I was a bit jealous but costumes can't suit everyone who wears them, and this one is totally meant for her!

The PR Trio did all of the shows, all day. Which makes sense...why make costumes drag ALL of our costumes out, or put us ALL in makeup? But the rest of us sadly ended up doing nearly nothing all day. Yes we were paid, but it felt awkward that three of us were doing all the work and six of us were just sort of sitting around reviewing lines and blocking. I should appreciate the down time; we will get our turn.
(Fun fact: this happens in orchestra/theater pits as well, usually during rehearsals when actors and lighting/techs get bogged down in rehearsing stuff and forget that there are ten people below the stage who have done nothing for four hours. So it isn't uncommon or exclusive to Universal, performance arts just be that way sometimes.)

Watch on YouTube

(The Epic Universe ad that aired during the Super Bowl)

After lunch we had a really exciting event: we got to see the stage show, Le Cirque Arcanus!!

2024-uo-universal-epic-universe-wizarding-world-of-harry-potter-ministry-of-magic-Le-Cirque-Arcanus-Exterior.jpg

(photo courtesy allears.net)

It was INCREDIBLE. I mean...here is where Disney is going to be strapped to come up with something that can compete. As usual I daren't share details, but the technology and staging and animatronics and puppetry and visuals and live performers, all coming together in this show, are STUNNING. I've never seen anything like it. You could actually believe you were watching wizarding magic being performed right in front of you. Really REALLY grateful that they let us see it today. Once the park is open we probably won't get another chance.

After that there was one more show, and we were pretty much done for the day.
I hadn't gotten to play my frankenbone other than to warm up, but Andrea is willing to use it as well since she also doesn't want her personal trombone to be used with our prop. Therefore I left Frankenbone in the green room tucked in a corner, and it will live there for any of us to use as needed, with our own mouthpieces of course and cleaning it regularly.

Before leaving today Mariah and I made a point to have a little photoshoot at the Epic Universe countdown clock.
We were denied a full-cast photo here last week, but Universal has since backtracked on that decision and started allowing pics here. It looks like it's too late for a full-cast photo now since too many people will be missing, so we figured at least we could get individual shots.

Just me, with the timeclock and wearing my Epic badge.

Mariah and I cheesing together:

Back home I packed meals as usual, practiced bass trombone, did a load of laundry, then got a bug up my butt to do more since Jameson was out watching our friend Lea perform in a show. After laundry I washed and changed our bedsheets, memorized some Disney music, and scrubbed the shower with a horrifically smelly bleach-based cleaner that Reddit says is the absolute best but warned me to ventilate to the extreme. Even with the vent fan on in the bathroom my eyes and throat were burning, so I had to open the door out to the pool deck and hold my breath while scrubbing away. Florida is very humid and mold and mildew reappear so quickly no matter how hard I scrub. When I was finished it really did look better, but I can only handle suffocating like that maybe 2-3 times a year. So it had better keep the mold away for a long time.

When Jameson got home I told him of my doings and we went right to bed.

Almost forgot, Andrea, the third female trombonist at Epic, got me an Easter gig! Usually I do the cathedral downtown in Orlando but they haven't asked yet. I'm grateful that she asked me :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday and another day at Epic. This time I was the one in costume and performing sets, which is good because I want the practice and also PR trio needs a break after they did all of the shows yesterday!

Our first set was canceled partly because @bioreconstruct was back, circling in his chartered helicopter. Now that previews are happening the park and everyone in it are behaving as though it's open for business, so there are people in costume and interactives and performances happening all over. There are still a lot of things that Universal wants to keep secret until the big reveal, and we are one of those things. So we ducked under an archway and waited, and waited. Additionally, there was a malfunction with our entrance door that probably ultimately led to the cancellation.

The rest of our sets went very well. We are getting used to working with our prop, interacting, and even the new changes that we've just learned in the past few days. I am getting used to how the costume feels, and learning how long it takes to get in and out of costume/makeup each day. And my "frankenbone," although it's not as fun to play as my own horn, will work for this show.

You know, I think we might be ready to do real shows! It feels like just yesterday we were panicking about memorizing our music. Time flies.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Before our last set of the day, we were given something really special.
Our 3rd party boss had us get out of costume, then took us into the park.
He took us to our performance spot.
I wasn't sure what was happening, but he looked SO EXCITED.

Cosme Acajor's wand shop is right next to our performance space...

(Image from Harry Potter Fandom Wiki)

With a huge smile, he opened the door to the wand shop and said, "Go on in....pick out your wands!"

That's right: they bought us our very own wands today!!!!

Harry-Potter-official-facebook-page-new-wands-epic-universe-1.jpg

(The nine never-before-released wand options at Cosme Acajor.)

It was overwhelming, suddenly faced with the very personal choice of which wand is "meant" for you! And there were so many to choose from. Cosme's new-release wands are displayed beautifully in the shop, each one on an ornate stand and bearing a description of materials and personal characteristics that may be a good match for the wand. In addition to these, there are character wands "imported" from Ollivander's (Harry's wand, Newt Scamander's, Snape's, Dumbledore's, Death Eater wands, etc) available for purchase. The Ollivander's wands are sold in rectangular boxes, and the Cosme wands in triangles ("prisms.")

After gawking like a tourist I just started popping open boxes to see what the wands looked like, because there were at least 20 different Ollivander's wands to choose from. I was tempted by Skender's wand as it's circus-related, but he was a bad guy known for chaining up animals so decided against. Tempted also by the Cosme black-and-silver Deco wand (the one that I'd thought suited my show character) but it had ultimately been designated to the clarinets' character, so I passed on that too. My character's wand, incidentally, was nowhere to be seen in the shop, but if I want to go get it I've got a gift receipt and could do an exchange.

In the moment and a little overwhelmed by choice, I decided to a) look for a wand that suited me as opposed to my park character, and b) strongly consider the Cosme wands as they are the ones that are actually from the "world" where I'm working. I did in fact end up with a Cosme wand, and although I felt a little dubious about it at the time, the more I look at it the more appropriate it seems.

Can you guess which of the nine Cosme wands I chose?

When we had all checked out we thanked our boss profusely. These wands are not cheap, and they are beautiful, and the fact that he was able to arrange for us to own one even though we are 3rd party is incredibly generous and kind. I am not a Wizarding World fan, but very much appreciate the gesture and having a memento of my time here at Epic Universe, however long that turns out to be.

With that, we performed our final set, got out of costume, and headed home.
On the way out we took a group photo in front of the time clock. Not everyone was present but it was still really nice.
Congrats on making it to Preview Week, everyone!

Some folks went to Top Golf for a fun night out, but I have so much to do that I had to pass.
Instead, Whole Paycheck for salmon dinner ingredients, then home to unpack and tell Jameson about my exciting day.
Practicing trombone, receiving a new transcription job, and making plans for my days off before going to bed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Up early but spent a lot of time responding to social media messages, as I've just shared that I'm working at Epic publicly for the first time. Everyone has a zillion questions about the new park, which isn't surprising but is a bit annoying when anyone could google the basic info....well anyway.

After that I had my tax meeting, and found out that I'll be breaking even this year, which is just fine by me.

Then made the dill sauce for salmon tonight, and decided to make some carrot cake muffins using leftover matchstick carrots. I used Half-Baked Harvest's recipe, which is semi-healthy and she has you drop a cube of cream cheese into the center of each muffin which should be lovely. I made them today because Jameson is going to a Savannah Bananas baseball game tomorrow with his friend Hannah, and they have to leave early, and I figure they could take some muffins with them to enjoy on the drive :)

Then lunch, and cleaning up from that took a little while so by the time I sat down to do more transcription it was already 2pm. For dinner I made sous vide salmon with dill sauce, creamy lemon orzo, and roasted asparagus. It turned out quite good.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, up early after a crummy sleep to do transcription.

Jameson got up shortly after, and his friend Hannah came to the house so they could leave for the Savannah Bananas game in Miami together. It's 8 hours round-trip driving, so I packed them some muffins to go with their other snacks and they left around 10am.

After they were gone I had quite the productive Alone Day:

     - About 2 hours of transcription
     - 1 hour trombone practice
     - Packing meals, clothes, and equipment for Epic tomorrow
     - Vacuumed, dusted, and mopped, which took quite a long time as I haven't done it in a while and was very thorough about it
     - Shopped for misc things like Tupperware to replace ones that broke recently, new underwear, and random household supplies
     - Shopped for crummy trombones on Goodwill so we'd have more than one at Epic (why I'm the one who has to do this is beyond me, but whatever)

By the time all of that was done it was 5pm, so made myself leftovers and a cup of tea and enjoyed typing this post and a little down time.

Tomorrow will be a very early Epic day, but Dwight is gone again so I think it'll just be our sets and hopefully ending at 4pm instead of 6pm. Also, I'm going to start bass trombone lessons this week! Excited and nervous, but looking forward to getting better at the bass trombone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: An Epic-Disney sandwich, with two Epic days flanking a Disney day. I'll be bringing my transcription work with me too.

Thursday: The first of FOUR WHOLE DAYS OFF IN A ROW. I'll finish transcription, do more household stuff, take my first bass trombone lessons, and cook us some nice meals.

Enjoyed Monday very much, because it was a weekend for me :)

Woke up early to do transcription, but it was raining heavily outside, and with a lovely cup of coffee and an easy case it was very relaxing. Jameson was up early as well for physical therapy for his arm. It's going well but is of course painful.

Other events-of-the-day:

- It ended up raining all day. It was wonderful.
- In addition to transcription, I practiced bass and went to the grocery for lasagna ingredients.
- Enjoyed writing and chatting with misc friends throughout the day.
- Cooked us teriyaki chicken kabobs, Mila chicken soup dumplings, and steamed edamame for dinner. It was "ok" but the teriyaki sauce needed something, it was kinda boring.

- I got a gig! It's not until April and it's just a one-nighter. BUT I get to wear a costume and play 1920s stuffs!
Not confirmed but I'm pretty sure it's this band:

Watch on YouTube

Now I've got another fun thing to look forward to!

Hmm. Somehow I thought I did more than this today, but I guess not. Oh well! :p

----------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday was another glorious day off but wasn't very relaxing. A lot to do!

First was transcription early in the morning. I submitted one job and will hold the other hostage until the day before it's due so they don't send me new work during the back-to-back Epic rehearsal days.

Then I drove the caramels out to my friend Bill, which is two hours round trip. It's a nice drive, but I spent half of it using dictation to respond to a flurry of text messages and group chats as our Epic rehearsal was rescheduled twice and then put back to the original time, and then the musicians in the gig I just got were messaging about reserving a rehearsal space. Anyway got the caramels dropped, chatted with Bill a bit. He tried a caramel and said they were excellent. Good!

Back home lunch, then prepping the salad and parts of the lasagna for dinner tonight.
Practicing bass and memorizing another Disney tune.
Packing lunch and dinner for Epic tomorrow, and prepping breakfast too.
Made the lasagna while Jameson was in a meeting. It's a recipe I've used before, halved, and it turns out great every time. Now he can eat out a little less while I'm at Epic for the next three days.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, up early to shove my soul into my body for Epic rehearsals.

Showed up early enough to get a decent parking spot, even!
I brought the remaining caramels from the batch I'd made for Bill, and everyone who tried them enjoyed them (we didn't get much indoor time today.)

It was a very weird day. Mock service is in full swing, so lots of employees walking around in civilian clothes riding rides, eating at restaurants, shopping, and taking in entertainment as though they were guests. There were also some Warner Bros. honchos on site later in the day.

Both of the other trombone ladies had gigs that night and left at 2pm. Up to that point Dwight (show director) had us practicing things with our prop "backstage" since we couldn't do it in the actual park during mock service. Then we were told we'd do shows at 1:30 and 3:30, so I got into costume and makeup, but the schedules were running behind (shows are on a schedule so as not to overlap/compete. If one is late, subsequent shows can be late or even canceled.) We didn't do the 1:30 but did do the 3:30.

It was the first time any of us have done a show, in full costume, with our special prop. With EVERYTHING! We even had our hats and wands!! Fun fact (which I'll hope is not an NDA violation): My wand is from Ollivander's, but the boys' wands are from Cosme Acajor. I am a bit jealous because Cosme's wands are new and shiny, but having a wand at all is very exciting!

The new wands from Cosme Acajor's shop in the Ministry of Magic.
Remember that you can click on images to enlarge them.

(photo courtesy wdwnt.com)

And they WORK on the interactives in the park!! Between activities Adrian the clarinetist and I snuck away to wave our wands at as many interactive things in the park as we could. Mine did not work, possibly because it's from the "other" wizarding world. But Adrian's set everything off and it was very fun to see!

Ahem. The 3:30 went as well as it could considering all of the new factors that we were dealing with. Some things went pear-shaped, but for the most part it went pretty well. It's really exciting to be SO CLOSE to a truly complete show :)

All day long the WESH2 helicopter was circling. All. Day.
Here's what they got:

Watch on YouTube

To close out the day we did a show run in the park out of costume (mock service ended at 4pm.) So OF COURSE that’s when the Warner Bros honchos came through! Lol. That run went fine. Personally I don't care who's in the audience; it doesn't change how I play. Unless it's my parents. But that's a moot point now.

It was a more relaxed day than expected, and I was thankful for that.

Back home Jameson was helping some friends with a keyboard issue...he knows so much about all types of keyboards!...and instead of practicing I took it upon myself to dig out the old, ugly, stinky "frankenbone" that my friend Brett sent me a while ago when I was looking for a spare trombone to use at Disney. I hadn't ended up needing it because I found a guy with a spare Earl Williams that he was willing to trade for my Minick. But when I'd tried to return it to Brett he'd asked me to just keep it or donate it. A throwaway horn.

Part of using our new prop at Epic Universe involves setting my trombone down and, uh...."doing lots of stuff involving movement" around it. Not just me, but my colleagues in the show. As my trombone is one-of-a-kind and not replaceable if something happens to it, I am VERY uncomfortable with this. Myself and the other trombone ladies have voiced this discomfort many times, but ultimately the problem is that I'm bringing a rare trombone into a situation where it could be damaged. So, fine. I cleaned up this "frankenbone," which is not very fun to play, but the guests don't know that. I'll have no problem if it's hit, knocked over, or damaged during our show.

Cleaning the trombone took me until 9pm, so no practice today, but that's all right.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday and Friday: Two more Epic rehearsal days.

Saturday & Sunday: Days "off." Starting a new transcription job, meeting with a tax preparer, cooking dinner, practicing, cleaning...the usual.

If I'm not interacting with your posts as much, please don't be surprised RE: suddenly working from 8am-7pm every day.
I'll try to catch up on weekends.

Also sorry for the lack of photos. For the very obvious reasons that I cannot even think about taking my phone out while at the new theme park, and having signed the NDA.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Had a horrible night's sleep on Wednesday into Thursday. Something fell over in Jameson's studio and made a loud crash at 1am, scared the absolute daylights out of me (my Apple Watch informs me that my heart rate jumped up to 111 bpm when it happened.) I walked two circuits of the house looking for whatever-it-had-been before I realized it was a piece of his wall lighting that had fallen off and gone crashing into a shelf. F*cking hell.

This was followed by absolutely horrific stress dreams about an imaginary blonde-haired, blue-eyed nephew who got ahold of BOTH of my rare, one-of-a-kind Williams trombones....both of them!....and smashed them to dented useless messes while I was at work(?) In the dream I was screaming at the top of my lungs, crying, and very sincerely trying to murder this child with every ounce of dream-strength in me (I was trying to choke him to death.) I never can seem to kill people in dreams, which I suppose is part of what makes it a stress dream; the tormentor always survives and justice is not served.

At least it was good to wake up and realize it had only been a dream.

Breakfast, and off to Epic Universe rehearsal again.

The cranky mood from Wednesday persisted, and at first I was annoyed with myself because this is the second day in a row that I'm acting like it's a chore to be there when it should be thrilling and exciting and a dream come true. But at these times I take care to consider the WHYS behind the feelings:

     1) I'm an introvert, and have now spent four straight days and 28 hours in a brightly-lit room with a group of loud, excited, boisterous actor-musicians and one endlessly energetic and attentive Show Director. I've had almost no time to decompress and "recharge" my introvert batteries.

     2) The way that I memorize music is to spend time with the music. Alone. In a quiet place where I can hear myself think and focus fully on memorization. All rehearsals so far have been group activities, we have not been given any "alone time" for personal memorization, and yet it's expected that we should have started memorizing by now. This has been incredibly frustrating for me.

     3) Standing in front of a group of people and acting out a character, in a loud voice, is something that I have NEVER done in all my 40 years on earth and I would have collapsed in utter terror if I had even tried it at a younger age. I am doing something THAT intense and scary, for the very first time in my life, for the past four days straight, and although I'm happy to be doing it it is incredibly stressful.

     4) In the back of my mind all week have been my Disney music and upcoming fill-in dates, the bass trombone music I'm supposed to be practicing for a potential tour, the possibility of losing my transcription job for this theme park, and the housework piling up while I'm away all week.

     5) On average I've only gotten about 5 hours of sleep per night, on top of all that's happening while I'm awake. Which may be enough for some people but definitely not for me.

So when I really think about it, there are plenty of reasons to be moody even though this is such a wonderful and exciting situation!
I am doing my absolute best to simply be quiet and keep to myself when in such moods, rather than snapping at people around me or detracting from rehearsal. There's nothing I can do about it this week except take deep breaths and plow ahead.

The most exciting thing that happened today was that we got to actually see where we'll be performing in the park!! There was still so much construction going on, but our section of the park is the only area where PPE is not required. This means we were the FIRST performers in the park!!! Incredible.
(CLICK HERE to see flyover of Ministry of Magic world)

And it WAS incredible. God, I wish I could describe it to you. I've said this like eight times but if you're a Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts fan you will lose your mind. The only spoiler I can give at this point is that big parts of this "world" are to-scale, brick-for-brick renderings of parts of the Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald movie..........

(photo from discoveruniversal.com)

Aaaanyway. After visiting the spot we watched a bit of the movie to see the parts where our set appears. We also did run-throughs again, this time in a slightly different format as we were missing some musicians with prior commitments. I also got a more definite schedule finally, so ended up emailing and texting misc bosses to let them know that for the next several weeks my time is limited.

After rehearsal I picked up dinner and got home to Jameson, packed lunch for tomorrow, told him about my day, etc etc. His surgery wounds are healing nicely, and he's been told he can use his arm as normal to build up strength.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Friday I was excited to get the day over with!
Again not that I don't enjoy what we're doing, but it's been a very intense week and I'd really like to get a full night's sleep.

Rehearsal today was rhythm exercises, as well as running through the music and practicing the script as we had in previous days. We also recorded ourselves and watched it back, something that I hate doing but is very informative. For example I learned that although I had planted my feet while acting, as we were told to do, I still sway back and forth which is distracting for the audience. Was able to stop doing it on the next take, and will make a conscious effort about it going forward.

Back home it was nice to drop my things and relax without having to pack a lunch or set clothes out or do transcription.
I also got a few more Main Street Philharmonic dates in February, which means that for about a week during that month I'll be bouncing back and forth between the two parks. It feels like working for Coke and Pepsi at the same time, lol. Definitely one of the top unexpected things to happen in my musical career!

------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday, I slept poorly and was up at 7:30. That's normal after a week of getting up early, so I was not upset.

It was so nice to have a slow breakfast and enjoy the quiet house. Aaaaah. :)

Once Jameson was up I vacuumed, went out to get bagels and groceries, practiced bass trombone, had lunch, and went for a walk. Called my stepmom on the walk, she recently had a fall and bashed her face up pretty badly but she's recovering well.

Back home we had taco salads for dinner. After the intensity of the week I felt too tired to memorize so left it for tomorrow.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I must have been exhausted because I didn't wake up until 9, which is late for me.
It felt good. I needed the rest, but I also felt guilty for losing potentially productive hours.

Breakfast and when Jameson got up I practiced the bass for 30 minutes, then buckled down to memorize for an hour.
There are five pieces total, plus the script, to memorize. My goal today was to get the first piece and ALL of my lines, and I think I've got it (you always think you've got it until you're doing it in front of other people.) We went to the grocery in the afternoon, he did laundry, and I packed lunch and breakfast for tomorrow. It rained for about two hours which was nice and soothing. For dinner I made sloppy joes with coleslaw and smiley fries. We watched The Traitors and I ordered myself a new lavender-and-rice pad/pillow. My sister made them for us one year for Christmas and I've become quite attached to it, but it's several years old and is getting worn. Lord knows I could use some nice aromatherapy right now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday through Thursday: more rehearsals. We're supposed to be rehearsing in our actual performance spot this week, but it's supposed to rain so we'll see what happens. I'll be very tired because I'll also have to practice bass and memorization once I get home each night :/

Also:
     RE: TikTok getting banned: Where is my health care?
     RE: Trump's inauguration: Health care?
     RE: People crying, screaming, and ranting about either TikTok or Trump: But when do we get health care?

All of this daytime soap drama about TikTok and Trump is a distraction from Real Actual Issues.
HEALTH CARE. INFRASTRUCTURE. LIVING WAGES.
I don't care which party you're from, if those aren't your priorities then you do not represent me or my needs.

Profile

taz_39

July 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Ciel by carisma_sensei
Theme: Bold Enough by krja

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jul. 10th, 2025 08:29 pm

goofball on a train

(adventures of a touring musician)

Entries tagged with trombone

Layoff Doings - O'Malley Trombones, Downtown Chi-Town

Layoff Doings - Chicago Burbs, Hiding from Capitalism

Beauty and the Beast - Farewell Schenectady NY

Beauty and the Beast - Day Off + Some Final Shows in Schenectady, NY

Beauty and the Beast - Schenectady, NY Previews part 2

Beauty and the Beast - Schenectady, NY Previews part 1

Beauty and the Beast - Schenectady, NY Tech Rehearsals part 4

Beauty and the Beast - Schenectady, NY Tech Rehearsals part 3

Beauty and the Beast - Schenectady, NY Tech Rehearsals part 2

Beauty and the Beast - Travel to Schenectady and 1st Day of Tech Rehearsal!

Just Monday and Tuesday

The Portals Are Open: Epic Universe

Transitioning

Nerd Stuff

Sweet, Savory, and Sour

Mid-March Monotony

Adulting, And Not

March, On

Productive Chaos

More Weekend Pls

Profile

July 2025

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags