this evening i’ve got the first rehearsal for a live gig i got from mark nichols, who is someone i know from the moisture festival. i went to mark’s studio back in july and recorded the tuba tracks for an album of harry nilsson songs that is being recorded by a friend of mark’s, and we’re coming up to the release of the CD and they want to put on a live performance of the CD for the release, which is going to be 8 december. i’m only playing for 4 songs, but because of the fact that i’m playing tuba, the parts are essential, and it’s more important than usual that i at least come close to playing all the right notes at something close to the right time, and do it consistently enough that they can rely on at least one live performance from me, so i’ve been practicing with the CD that he sent me. surprisingly, i am more prepared to do this than i expected i would be, and i’ll probably do okay. it’s only 4 out of 15 songs… but now, listening to the CD, i realise that there might be 5 songs that he wants tuba for, but he only sent me the music for 4 of them, so i’ve got something new to worry about. one of the tunes, “Miss Butter’s Lament”, has weird time signature changes and isn’t straight forward enough that i’m not sure i’m going to be able to keep track of the changes in real time, in spite of the fact that i’ve got the music in front of me and have kept track for at least 3 times, going through it with the CD. one of the tunes, “Daddy’s Song”, has music that only vaguely resembles what is on the CD, and, as he told us to “go through the songs with the CD”, i’m not sure whether he wants me to play what’s on the CD or what the music says. hopefully i’ll find out tonight…