Prepping for the First Concert...

One great thing about this tour is that we only have one "early" day (coming up this weekend when we leave Fukui at 7:30 a.m.) So despite having slept less than three hours the night before leaving San Francisco, I've been able to sleep nine or ten hours the last two nights! Today is the day of our first concert. (According to the itinerary that makes it Friday today.) We leave for the concert hall at 2 p.m. (it's a 90 minute drive) so much of the group is heading out to see the sights this morning. I'm always pretty focused on concert days, particularly the early ones, before routine sets in, so I'm staying in the hotel relaxing and looking over my parts. My roommate is our Japanese ringer, Taiko Otsubo, who has been similarly focused since joining us yesterday for the rehearsal. Taiko learns her parts with her whole body, and when she thinks her part through, she moves with it, just the way she plays. She fell asleep with her music last night (I had to prod her off the sofa so she wouldn't wake up with a cramped neck) and woke up ringing air bells again this morning. For the concert tonight, in addition to everything else I'm going to have to concentrate on raising my motions a few inches to compensate for the higher tables we're using this year. It's great for the taller than average ringers in the group, but a little scary for those of us whose feet just barely reach the ground as it is! Better get back to my music. I wonder what air-bell practicing would look like to a non-ringer? Here we are, staring at the music and swinging our arms in seemingly erratic rhythms...