The conductor for the Training Band was unwell yesterday and didn’t think she’d be recovered enough for today so I volunteered to have a go. We got through although, gosh, it was a lot of mental energy, not to mention that my shoulders are likely to ache tomorrow!

I have conducted Christmas choirs before but the trick there is that I’m basically dancing to the organ and everyone is following that in practise. There is a bit more responsibility actually conducting a concert band. Hurrah for the member who gently piped up and encouraged me to make the downbeat more obvious, which helped everyone out.

I don’t think I did an amazing job and I want to stick with learning the tuba in that band for now but we got through and hopefully others also found it a useful learning experience.