The Charnwood Symphonic Wind Orchestra has some swing numbers in its pad, such as Come Fly With Me and String of Pearls. They didn’t come out last term after I’d joined because we were already pressing into the Christmas repertoire. The times they have got called this term I’ve either had to busk and get the music at the end of the evening or we’ve held off because other key people didn’t have music.

Even busking the pieces sounded, at least to my ears, like some of the best bass playing I’ve contributed. Last night, we finally got to do one of the pieces while I had the right set of dots in front of me and I have to say that it actually felt relatively easy. That isn’t to say that I nailed every single note and most of it was straight crotchets, so there not too many points for the rhythm to trip me up, but I think my familiarity with the style was a massive help.

It just all makes sense to me. My brain doesn’t lose milliseconds thinking ‘what’s going on?’ because most of the connections I need are tried and tested. That’s also true, to some extent, of the latin-flavoured pieces whereas it isn’t the case with some of the other corners of the repertoire. Still, that’s what practise and rehearsal are for!