Signaling Horn Change
In my working life there has never been a weekly routine, but in the last four months I have come close to it. A freelance professional musician goes where the work is, sometimes near home, sometimes staying away. Concerts can occur on any day of the week, even any hour of the day. Children’s concerts are often morning events; rehearsals and recordings can be morning, afternoon or evening; in some countries concerts are often late night affairs and touring check-ins can be very early at airports. Although there has not been any rigid timetable throughout the horn building, the usual pattern has been to work from about 9.30 – 6.30 each day, five days a week. What a luxury to eat an evening meal at home every day!
But now I must prepare to return to my previous existence, starting with rehearsals next week for Haydn’s opera L’Isola Disabitata with the New York Philomusica. At least that’s only a couple of time zones away from Alberta. I’m also organising some teaching for October at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. I expect my students will be interested to see my newly made hand horn.
In my last week of the project I made a couple of new crooks – one for each horn, but most of the time was spent cleaning and polishing everything that I made in the last four months. I was lucky to have Katrina as a volunteer assistant polisher for one day too, or I would never have managed to deal with each piece. If I were to be critical of my work, I’m afraid that not all of the crooks, joints and horn parts have been polished to the highest of professional polishing standards, but I console myself with the thought that if they had been cleared of every single scratch or scrape mark then they would not have such an even tube wall thickness, and so be less perfect acoustically. Keith says that only years of practice will teach me how to avoid these tiny flaws.
As a little relaxation at the end of the project, on Saturday Keith took us and his family in his four wheel drive vehicle up to the top of Canoe Mountain. This is a snow-tipped peak about 70 km south of Dunster where from the summit one can see mountains in every direction, including the massive Mount Robson. Here is one view from the top, with Robson in the background partially covered by its own cloud.
Posted by Andrew Clarke on September 16th, 2008.
