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Now I've had some time to recover, let's see how much I can remember of my exam...The day was rather busy. I had paperwork to print out and as always, this took longer than I expected. I was also playing in someone's 4th-year Composition final: good music, but sadly under-rehearsed and the rehearsal did not go well at all due to missing personnel and rather more set-up than had been anticipated....

It's been a particularly busy time recently. Classes and performance department rehearsals have stopped for the year, but there's still a lot to do.I mentioned on Friday that I'd joined the tail end of an open-air concert. I didn't mention the horn lesson that morning, or the rehearsal of the Brahms horn trio with shiny new page-turner, or the coaching session. Nor did I mention that by hook or...

Last night on my way to meet a friend for dinner I ran into the East London Cockney Awkestra, playing a free open-air concert at St. John on Bethnal Green. Delightful fun! Apparently they'd been playing since about 6.30 so I got there rather late, but I bought some pineapple juice and sat and listened for a bit, then got to talking and got my horn out. They were tired, I was hungry, so we packed...

This weekend my Singer exercise book, Embouchure Building for French Horn, finally arrived. Also, I broke down and bought the tiniest metronome ever. I'm not entirely sure I like it. It... well, it squeaks. A beep or tick or tock would be so much nicer for someone as frightened of mice as I am. I'm sure I'll get used to it, though.It will be interesting to see what these two tools do for my...

Just got back from the Trinity College of Music Soloists' Competition final. I want to write up what I remember while it's fresh, so please excuse the late-night incoherence.The programme was as follows:Johannes Mnich, PianoM Ravel - Piano Concerto in G majorHari Eustice, Tenor TromboneH Tomasi - Trombone ConcertoTadasuke Lijima, ViolinJ Brahms - Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77 All three candidates...

I'm playing 2nd horn in the Ravel and the Brahms in this concert tomorrow night. If nothing else it will give my low range a good workout. Trinity College of Music Soloists' Competition - FinalNicholas Cleobury conducts Trinity College of Music Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2008 Soloists' Competition Final. Three finalists compete for the College's most prestigious prize. This year's...

My electric metronome, inherited from my father and probably older than I am, finally died this year. I keep hoping I'll be able to resurrect it with a magnifying glass and a soldering iron, but honestly? I don't have the time, and ought to just buy a new one. I'm quite taken with this little device but need to decide whether it would be incredibly useful, or whether I'd just lose it. Meanwhile...

The rest of this week proceeded much as it started: lots of rehearsals, paperwork, and some classes. Thursday morning I managed to get both the rehearsal venue and the rehearsal time wrong. Somewhat fortuitously, they cancelled each other out, so that when I arrived at the correct venue (expecting to be 15 minutes late because I went to the wrong place first), I was actually 75 minutes early....

Today has been very, very long. I got up and taught and went on an impromptu picnic and taught some more and rehearsed and missed my last Northern Line tube toward home and messed about with night buses and ended up walking back from Bank with a semi-random person who turned out to be rather lovely. I'd do it all again except it would be nice not to have the hour or so of messing around on night...

Yesterday I didn't practise. I was far too coldified.Today I still feel like death warmed over, but managed to drag my sorry self in to Trinity anyway and got a good hour in before 9.30. Yay!I'm looking at repertoire for next year's final recital. It's going to be problematic, I think, because there is a 45-minute time limit, and I'd quite like to play more than 45 minutes' worth of music. Some...