Sectionals

During our rehearsal time we have sectionals every now and again... which I both love and hate.  I love it because its a nice time that we can focus directly on the parts we need the most help with so its tremendously helpful... but at the same time its frightening to me because you are so exposed as a section (or in my case player).  Our sectionals are usually run by our first chair, and out of rehearsal she's really nice... but she is a professional and is extremely good at what she does... so she expects no less out of her section, which is fair enough.  And I've gotten over my intimidation of her during sectionals because she's really nice in them.  But this time was different.. she was gone, so we got our conductor Andrew...

Now, I don't know about you but when you are around people who are really really really good at what they do it intimidates me.  And when what he does really really really well is play the violin.  I by no stretch of the imagination would call myself a good violin player, especially when I'm surrounded by the caliber of these players!  So, to have him listening and critiquing you was kind of scary.  However, he was really nice and helpful as well.  He even asked me to share some of the things I was doing during a particularly difficult passage... which was encouraging.  And, when he was pointing out things that the section was weak on it was other players... not me!  :)  So, I was pretty happy about that.

I suppose he knows the strengths and weaknesses of his section as we all auditioned for him to get in... but seeing how playing the violin isn't my profession or main focus, you could see why it was intimidating.  But, I came out alive and all is well... now, I just have to practice haha.

JVG