As a lot of the music I’m playing with CSWO is written at pitch, I’ve been resetting many of the parts to make it easier to keep up with. It is also a good opportunity to keep developing my engraving skills with Lilypond and Frescobaldi.

I’m far from flawless though and, last night, I realised that I had a serious problem with the part I’d done for a piece called A Celtic Christmas (that’s an entirely different band, by the way). It does shift tempo, time signature and keys that make it complex and I thought that was why I was tending to get lost in the middle. The bass line is relatively featureless for long sections – gently rolling changes rather than landmark melodies – and it seemed to run away with me. I’d fixed a few errors in my practise time this week but it was only when I was sitting at the pre-gig rehearsal, without the original score to refer back to, that I realised my bar numbers didn’t line up with the rehearsal mark numbers (one value, I suppose, of number marks… although it hadn’t done me that much good).

I had to busk my way through that one, relying to a certain extent on my ear rather than trusting what was before my eyes. When I got home, I checked and, sure enough, I’d omitted a whole line of music! My new edition has it back in and a few other minor changes too. Playing along with the video turned out to be much easier. Next time we take that journey, my map should be a lot more trustworthy.