Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Numbering

21 Comments

This morning I’m numbering the measures of the music we’re playing at our next concert. Which happens to be Friday, March 13th in case you need to put it in your calendar.

It’s our dinner fundraiser, where you pay to attend but we give you food and a silent auction in addition to a full concert. As soon as tickets are available I’ll let you know. Last year (our first) we sold out, so don’t delay!

It’s all fun music.

For your listening pleasure this year we’ll be doing show tunes. And that’s why numbering measures is giving me fits. Because as I’m counting along my mind starts to wander into the music. Then I start to hum and then I tend to mis-number the measures which defeats the whole purpose.

The first two pieces, Les Mis and Grease each had 216 measures! What are the odds of that?

I completed about half the music this morning, until my eyes were going bad and I was secretly glad when a certain fuzzy short member of the family poked me in the leg asking to go outside.

I might need a haircut too, mom. But only after I go outside, OK?

Good timing, my girl. Good timing.

Author: dawnkinster

I'm a long time banker having worked in banks since the age of 17. I took a break when I turned 50 and went back to school. I graduated right when the economy took a turn for the worst and after a year of library work found myself unemployed. I was lucky that my previous bank employer wanted me back. So here I am again, a long time banker. Change is hard.

21 thoughts on “Numbering

  1. Our pets serve many purposes!! I can only pretend to understand this numbering you speak of. I, sadly, do not speak nor read music!

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    • It’s marking each measure, starting with the first as 1, and putting a number above each measure so that the conductor, during rehearsal, can stop us and tell us to start again at measure #xxx. So for example, if there are 4 beats to the measure, every four beats is a line and that’s one measure, and if there were 216 of these little sections, there’d be 216 measures.

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  2. It’s all in the timing as pretty Penny knows.

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  3. Miss Penny looks gorgeous in that backlight. Well, gorgeous anywhere if truth be told…

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  4. What FUN music y’all are playing for this concert!! I hope it’s a sell-out and you make lots of money, too. If I were up in your area, I’d be sure to attend. Funny how our fuzzy family members seem to know exactly when we need a break from routine!

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  5. Perfect timing I’d say 🙂

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  6. It sounds complex – but a good task to have on a cold and snowy day when you and Penny can’t go out to play or walk. 🙂

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    • Exactly right. I’m debating now if Pen and I should go to a park or I should stay home and finish numbering music. It’s snowing those big floating flakes at the moment…

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      • We got more snow than predicted on Monday and as I was shoveling it away this morning, those fat flakes were coming down and coating the cement anew. A walk might be more fun, especially if you’re photographing the photogenic Penny!

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  7. Gosh, I played flute in high school and college (a few years ago!!) and didn’t know about numbering, tho have heard from friends since. I think I would get lost in the music too, rather than the numbering. Friends of mine tell me that most numbering is just of each bar, between the vertical lines. But some conductors number other sorts of things like you say, maybe the measure, maybe the chord changes, etc. But who knows what the measure is? Seems maybe numbering each bar would be more exact? What if a measure begins in the middle of a bar? Or ends in the middle of a bar? What then? Penny, please help!! 🙂

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    • I’ve never had a conductor ask us to do this before. Basically it’s at the measure line, nothing fancy. But it does take a lot of time and I’m wondering if it will be distracting along with all the other notation.

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  8. Dawn, you are talented in so many ways. Good luck with the concert. I would definitely buy a ticket to hear you play. Unfortunately, it’s a bit out of my neighborhood.

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