Shermarama

Monday, I was up just a little before Jameson for breakfast and to feel nervous about the Steamboat Lillie rehearsal.

After Jameson went to the gym I practiced bass and packed my meals for Epic tomorrow.
Ate lunch in the car on the way to the musician's union building near downtown, which is where rehearsal would be held.

I haven't been to the union building for ages. Bad memories. When I first moved to Orlando Jameson lived in an apartment so I couldn't practice there without disturbing the neighbors. I'd practice at the union building whenever I could get a reservation for it...but 9 out of 10 times my rehearsal was halved by assholes (men) who insisted on rehearsing past their assigned time, or who would bust in in the middle of my time slot to banter and guffaw and use the space as a hang, and would glare at me for being there (even though I had more right to be there than any of them considering it was MY time slot.)

This was one of the reasons I left the union soon after. And then we moved to a house in Kissimmee anyway.

It all looked pretty much the same, maybe slightly cleaner but not much.


Three ladies were already there practicing. I introduced myself and got set up. Others were running late (people have kids and real jobs) so we used that time to try on our flapper dresses from Amazon. Our bandleader had wisely ordered multiple sizes, knowing that sometimes clothing online is not what it seems. My dress fit perfectly, and it is pale purple, almost the same color I wear as Phillipa in 1920s Paris at Epic Universe. Go figure!

When everyone else arrived we buckled down and plowed through the music piece by piece.
None of it is particularly hard, but some arrangements were pilfered online and are kind of "not the best" as far as making sense. Overall, though, people will have an easy time recognizing familiar Disney classics played in an old-timey jazz style. My favorite arrangements were the ones our bandleader did herself, you could tell she knows what she's doing as an arranger.

Overall this rehearsal went much better than I'd anticipated. Jazz is my biggest weakness as a musician, and improv jazz is worst of all. Playing it makes me feel inadequate and self-conscious. But this was a good group of patient people. And fortunately a lot of what was marked "solo" improv in my part turned out to be optional or for anyone to solo, not just trombone. Phew. It was a big relief not to have to improv much!

Back home I thanked my Morning Self for packing the Epic stuff so I wouldn't have to do it after a long day :p

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Tuesday. Halfway through April, wow.

They've moved our Epic sets by about an hour so I was able to get up an hour later, still 6:45am.

I argued with myself about bringing the bass trombone to Epic because with the schedule change I may actually have time to practice. Decided to bring it and at least have a try.

It was a normal day, quite hot and sunny. I did indeed find time to practice, only 30 minutes but way better than nothing. I was incredibly tired today, but so were a lot of other people, so maybe it's the heat or the alignments of the planets or something. Nothing else to report except that leaving work an hour later (5:30pm instead of 4:30pm) really, really sucks.

This was the "best route" according to the Googs:


What kind of squiggly-snake BS nonsense is this?!
Just horrific. And Epic isn't even open yet. Ugh.

By the time I got home I was truly exhausted, and thanked my Morning Self for insisting that I bring the bass to Epic because Evening Self had absolutely no energy for it. The morning version of me sure is stepping up this week! LOL

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Wednesday. Jameson had to get up at 8 for a doctor's appointment, so I just got up when he did.

Had breakfast and went out to get myself bagels and coffee but otherwise stayed at home and felt nervous about tonight's gig.
Practiced parts of the Steamboat music that I'm uncomfortable with, and tried to relax the rest of the time because I feel stressed and tired. Our third party has been getting our pay wrong, multiple weeks in a row, and it's stressing me out on top of misc other things.

When it got to be time to go I packed some snacks, trombone and music stand, trombone stand, mutes, in-ears, music, and dress shoes, then put on my Phillipa makeup and stockings (I had smuggled my makeup bag and stockings home from Epic for this haha.)

The venue was easy to find. Dragged all of my stuff inside and got set up.
From here, everything kind of went off the rails.

Problem 1: A child--I'm talking Gen Alpha--came running out from somewhere to do our sound setup, already on the phone with someone for help and with a panicked look on his face. Oh, lord. Sound check was supposed to be at 4pm and we did not play one note until 5pm. We found out later that the actual sound guy's grandfather had died and that's why he wasn't there...and we are all sympathetic to that. But the venue also could have told our bandleader that, so she could have had us come earlier, or made arrangements for us to warm up elsewhere while sound got their sh*t together instead of wasting an hour sitting on stage.

Problem 2: The bassist's bass started BREAKING. I don't exactly know how, but suspect that since it was hot outside and she'd had a long drive, she'd brought the car-warmed bass into the absolutely freezing theatre and it had started to crack (this is a VERY common problem with wooden instruments including clarinets, and is why unionized musicians insist on specific temperatures in performance spaces.) We all jumped on our phones and frantically started asking around for any bassists in the area to help...within the next hour.

Problem 3: Our trumpet player's audio pack died immediately meaning she'd have to do the entire show without the click track.

Problem 4: There were four songs that we didn't get to at rehearsal, that we were planning to cover at this sound check. Which we now couldn't do because due to the theater's audio crew (a child) not knowing what they were doing, we were now an hour behind schedule.

We did end up getting an emergency upright bass from a local bassist, god bless her.
And we did get our mixes together. But had absolutely no time to warm up or run any tunes.

And hey, the dresses were nice. Here's mine.


Problem 5: I have to apologize if this sounds snooty or rude, and I have loads of respect for our bandleader, who worked very hard to make this band happen. But truth is truth, and every musician on that stage with me would agree: most of these arrangements were simply NOT GOOD. Even during intermission our reed player was frantically making changes to her part to try and make it sound reasonable. There were so many times that I, a low brass instrument, was written to play ABOVE the trumpet and saxophone. That just doesn't sound good, which is why people don't WRITE that way :/

Problem 6: The click track was difficult to hear, and one of us (trumpet player) didn't have the click at all and so couldn't hear any count-offs. I tried to give her the count offs when I could, but *I* barely knew them either as we'd only had that one rehearsal and one run-through of each song (well, most songs.) The result was that we'd start with the click and quickly migrate away from it. So imagine trying to sing a song while another completely different song is playing loudly in the background. That's what it was like, and it was horrible. I stuck with it for a while but when we hit the Monsters, Inc. medley it's very syncopated AND I have a solo. I locked eyes with the drummer and we simultaneously reached out and yanked out our ear buds, lol. At least that was comedic, because the rest of the situation really wasn't.

Problem 7: Our poor bandleader had paid a professional photographer/videographer to come and take footage of this set, to use for media promotion to hopefully get the group hired for corporate events or weddings or whatever. Yikes. He probably got some decent visual footage...but I doubt much of our audio was usable the way things were going. Between the bad arrangements and not following the click track and the bassist being on an unfamiliar instrument and all of us having to play in a very cold space...it just didn't go very well.

Was it terrible? No. Every woman on that stage is an excellent musician. But circumstantially, we were screwed.
Even without the sound check issues, having a gig based on less-than-ideal arrangements, with only one run-through rehearsal, and using a click track when we had a perfectly excellent drummer, is what did us in. It's a shame. I was grateful that Jameson had NOT come out to support me for this one.

I do think that the idea of an all-female 1920s Disney jazz band is awesome!
But tonight it was too rushed, too unorganized, to come together.
Maybe in the future the parts can be refined, we can talk the bandleader out of using a click past the count-off, and we can have more rehearsals. I think all of that would make this a great band.


(but the odds of me playing with this group again, after that experience, are slim.)

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Thursday: I was supposed to have a bass lesson but Will is still recovering from surgery so it's a day off. Practice, some chores, the usual.

Friday: Another day off, I'll cook dinner and probably find other things that need to be done. Still have a lot of crap to list for sale online.

Saturday: Day at Epic.

Sunday: Easter, Easter church gig, eating candy all day with Jameson hopefully, making us a nice-but-basic Easter dinner. Thinking of my mom (Easter was her favorite holiday.)

Addendum: Someone made a video of our full set at Epic a few days ago! I didn't play my best (this was the last set of Tuesday and I was ungodly tired and unfocused) but now you can hear ALL of the lines and see Plume's big reveal, the percussion number, etc!
(and yes, we know we need to be miked, we've been asking for mics from day one and will continue to push for them!!)

Watch on YouTube

I was awake too early on Thursday. Not sure why. Generically anxious, I guess.

Breakfast and messing around online until Jameson got up.
His Disney interview was at 10, so I busied myself with quietly dusting and packing meals for tomorrow while we waited. During his interview I eavesdropped a bit...it sounded fairly "normal" but he had headphones on so I couldn't hear much. It about 30 minutes and he said all of the questions were exactly the same as ones he's been asked by Disney Corporate in the past. This makes me a bit annoyed and sad, but then again, what are they supposed to ask? What new information could they be looking for? This is probably Jameson's 7th or 8th interview with Disney, with the same questions asked, again. Will anything come of this one?

He's supposed to hear back in about two weeks. Fingers and toes crossed, but we are both past the point of keeping our hopes up about these. It's great that he's getting these interviews, but they seem to be just toying around, and it's very frustrating. He needs a new job.

I practiced bass trombone, ate lunch, went to the store for secret Easter treats (ssh!) and a few nice things to get me through these busy days. Specifically, Cracklin' Oat Bran. You'll probably laugh but I swear to God, this cereal is essentially miniature oatmeal cookies. They're one of my absolute favorites, especially soaked just slightly in some sort of non-dairy milk to make them soft. Ugh, so gawddamn good!

(wikipedia photo)

Back home I did nothing important, just made tea and downloaded my raw genetic data from 23andMe since they're going out of business.

I SHOULD be planning dinner. I SHOULD be practicing tenor stuff. I SHOULD be learning civil court transcription.
Instead I nearly fell asleep watching TikTok on the floor.

Well...as an adult, that's my prerogative I guess.

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Friday, a day at Epic but it was NIGHT rehearsals, ooooOOOOoooo.

Really, just the same as usual except that I didn’t have to get up at 5am! Which meant I actually had time to DO THINGS before work. After Jameson went to the gym I practiced bass and vacuumed and spent 30 minutes doing “Phillipa Hair.” Left a bit after Jameson got back.

The first three sets were hot, being in the middle of the day, but we had good crowds.

For the evening sets it was beautifully cool and we had GREAT crowds because it's so much easier for people to stand and watch a show without the sun beating down on them! I found out tonight that we're averaging around 90 people per set, and that's during normal daytime sets. I think that's pretty good considering we're just an "atmosphere" band without an actual stage or anywhere to sit.

And for us the performers, it was so nice to not be distracted by sweat soaking our clothes or the sun stabbing us in the eye while we try to play an instrument and smile at guests. Night shows are pretty great!

The other thing that I noticed during these lovely nighttime sets was some people out there with professional camera equipment. I guessed (rightly) that we had some actual freelance photographers with us, and made sure to stand still more often to aid in some decent shots. Not for ego, but because any media taken of me can be a part of my resume. My portfolio is entirely made up of live performance media.

Later I interrogated some of the ladies in our Ministry of Magic dressing room to discover local photographers who do theme park work. They graciously gave me some names, and lo and behold the very next day one of those accounts shared photos of us!

These are from @motley_joey on IG. Excellent, high-quality shots of our performance.



I am especially grateful for these two headshots.


Additionally, some photos from one of our show techs, Tiffany:



And finally, one of the wizarding students (her name is Ashley and she's an actress) went to the trouble of getting into plainclothes and taking photo and video of our set!

Here is the video snippet. Love it! I can't wait to someday have a whole set to share with you!



Here are some of her photos. I really like a lot of these and wish they were higher resolution. Thank you so much Ashley :)




Seeing Place Cachee at night was lovely, though we really just had dusk, not true night.
I do hope that we end up doing some night sets once the park opens, it's a very nice vibe.

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Saturday was when I dredged up all of these photos. Making social media posts, updating my LinkedIn and YouTube playlists/portfolios, and responding to people commenting on all the media took up pretty much the whole morning.

I had been supposed to meet up with Ilian of Morningstar Mutes for lunch and to check out some mutes, but for one thing he didn't have any of his new models ready, and for another I decided to back out because of my unexpected Disney day tomorrow. Performing outdoors is a lot of steps and a lot of energy, and I am not that young anymore, so this was mainly a self-care choice to have a buffer day.

Groceries, packing lunch and dinner for Disney tomorrow, practicing bass, and relaxing for a bit while Jameson was out day drinking with friends. He messaged me while he was on the way home so I could start cooking dinner. I'd had the good fortune to find a place just a few miles from us that sells Amoroso hoagie rolls direct from Philadelphia!! How unlikely! So I made us Philly cheesesteaks. Tried to keep them as authentic as possible but added mushrooms (that's not inauthentic, just less common) and used American cheese slices instead of cheese whiz. They turned out quite excellent and I'll keep that recipe on file, and gotta remember those hoagie rolls the next time I do po'boys too.

That was it. Pretty chill day and I was grateful for it.

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Sunday, up earlier than I wanted to be for breakfast and the commute to Disney.
I like to get there a bit early to try for better parking, and to have time to get changed before the guys arrive too.

Had a pretty basic day, although I got to learn firsthand why my boss was so reluctant to have me learn multiple trombone parts this year. Harry, another sub trombonist who has learned both the first and second trombone parts, accidentally started doing the first part's choreography halfway through our Encanto medley. I'M the sub for first trombone, so this left me in a really awkward position in the middle of a live performance! I basically had to guess where the second trombone would probably move or stand, and just do that for the rest of the set. We got through it but boy was that awkward. He apologized and I wasn’t mad, I might’ve done the same thing (ok I CERTAINLY would have, I’m a putz) but it made me realize that the risks of too many people knowing too many parts. If TWO people ever got confused at the same time, it could wreck a show.

Anyway, otherwise normal and a nice day with the guys.

Also, for the first time today Epic Universe has overlapped into my Disney workplace!
I saw an employee wearing a Nintendo World Bowser backpack in the Utilidors.
And I overheard more than one conversation about rides, attractions, and food that people want to check out.

There is a misconception that working for Disney AND Universal is a Coke-and-Pepsi situation.
I have even alluded to that, as a joke, in this blog.

It is not like that at all.
Many, MANY people work for (and love!) both parks.


If either park were to enforce a non-compete on it's employees, it would instantly lose AT LEAST half it's work force.
It's kind of interesting to consider how these competing theme parks are linked by their shared work force, imo.

There are some die-hards for either park, of course, and especially at Universal I've met a lot of people who are passionately anti-Disney either because they love Universal sooooo much, or because they had a bad experience working for Disney. Still, few of the employees who work for both parks would actually badmouth "the other park," whichever park that may be for them.

Eh, just something that I was thinking about today.

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Monday: Rehearsal for "Steamboat Lillie" 1920s-themed Disney band. I'm nervous!

Tuesday: Day at Epic.

Wednesday: "Steamboat Lillie" performance.