I finally got home from my ‘forever’ trip from Macomb to Long Island. I left Monday morning and planned on getting home Tuesday in time for my band rehearsal. Originally I had plans to visit some friends but in the end that didn’t pan out so home I went. The trip is about 1100 miles – 16 hours. My plan was to drive as far as I could stand on Monday and wrap up the trip Tuesday. Well, the best laid plans….. Tuesday I started to get a pretty bad headache, bad enough that I decided to stop somewhere in western Pennsylvania. Oh well, so much for band rehearsal.
Wednesday the headache was worse. I managed to drive for an hour and a half. After driving over a curb and an entire sidewalk, it was definitely time to call it quits. Thank goodness I have an SUV. By the time I pulled into a hotel, I was feeling just awful. I have to give big kudos to the Holiday Inn Express in Bloomburg, PA. They were kind enough to actually take care of me – they brought food, orange juice, bottled water (all no charge) and checked on me during the day. Wow.
I was slightly better Thursday so I left this wonderful hotel around two and pushed onward. I managed around two and a half hours but stopped both due to the headache and the terrible weather – pouring rain, thunder, fog, you name it, I drove through it. Friday I actually got home. Geesh what a trip.
So, what’s the point of describing this miserable saga? I hadn’t played my horn since Sunday at the symposium! Hence the oops. I took out my horn yesterday having no idea what to expect. In the year that I have been playing, with the exception of the surgery I had in December, I had occasionally missed a day but nothing more. I was hoping that the rest would be helpful, but no, it was more like a disaster.
I started by just buzzing for a while and then moving on to long low tones. I did that (buzzing and long tones) for about 20 minutes and then took a break. I went back to it after an hour and continued with the long tones and then tried some slurs. That’s where the problems started. No flexibility. No range. Screechy tone. Ugh. I went back to long low tones and some low slurs and then quit after about half and hour. I sure hope today is better and that it doesn’t take too long to get back to where I was.
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