Post-rehearsal sigh of relief

Well I've just come back from the rehearsal and can officially confirm that my mind has been put at ease! I faced today with more than a little trepidation mainly due to the fact that I not only didn't know if people had been practicing; but that I hadn't even heard some of the band play before!

However, I should have known better than to worry, the guys did not disappoint me!

First of all, the absences; Jon was not there because of work, Lauren was in Dorset, and Henry is still in Stratford. However, Simon, Dan, Emma, and Lucy played better than I ever could have anticipated, and for a first rehearsal I'm really impressed with how things went.

We got there and started off by listening to Kontakt Act III. I'd already told people before that we'd focus on that one first. We played a lacklustre version of Tetris but already I could feel that the quality of musicianship was very high. Another run through of Tetris with much higher energy instantly felt very very promising.

Due to Henry's skivingness, we didn't play though Zelda, but went through both Mario tunes and the Sonic ones with very very few problems. We skipped Final Fantasy too because of the predominance of piano in that arrangement.

After a break we cracked on with the Victory Fanfare and Still More Fighting from Act I. This was good because neither Dan nor Si had properly looked at Act I, but they still managed to impress me.
..Fighting was slightly slower than it should be, yet I even managed to play the tricky triplet quaver passages with minimal mistakes; another week of practice and I should have it up to speed.

I had been slightly perturbed by not starting rehearsals until now, but with a solid group of musicians behind me I really think we'll put on a cracking performance.

The only major issue to arise from this is that Lucy hasn't the world's greatest Tenor Sax, as she usually plays the baritone. Consequently, I'll rescore her part for Baritone instead of Tenor Sax.