Sleepy Lagoon

I had not been to a Harlow band rehearsal for a couple of weeks and it was nice to get back. Although towards the end of the second half my mouth started to get tired and I consequently found it hard to blow. Thinking back I had realised that I had not played much over the last few weeks and this illustrates the need to practise. I remember when I was learning to play clarinet that if I did not play for been a few days my embouchure would suffer. A wise old man once told me that if you don’t practise for one day no one would notice, for two days you will notice, if you don’t practise for three days everyone will notice. I find that this is less important with the saxophone as there is less need to tighten the mouth on the higher notes. But last night proved to me that you have to keep playing to keep the mouth strong.

We had a good rehearsal taken by Paul Cutler as our regular MD was sick. We played a medley of Beatles songs and a Toccata for band which was interesting. We finished off with an old favourite of ours ‘Sleepy Lagoon’ written in 1930 by English composer Eric Coates and used for the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs.