March 14, 2020--Practice Blog

Interesting day. I have been involved in Scottish Rite activities all day, so no practice. I spent most of the day helping out with the Properties department moving furniture and trying to be sure that all was ready for the degree work. I helped out in the 17th degree and conferred the 18th degree. Decided I needed a celebration after doing the 18th degree for the first time--so bought a bottle of Laphroiag and opened up a cigar. Then found out the current social distancing and elimination of events has finally hit me financially with church being "cancelled" in the morning. The minister is going to make some announcements, do some readings, and read his sermon for a radio broadcast, but all music and music related elements of the service have been canceled. As I work at the church as a "pay-per-play", this is going to hurt. And it is planned for a month. At the least, the music minister told me to bill the church as though we played as we had prepared for the service. It is the coming weeks that concern me. Likewise, at least one concert I was counting on was cancelled. There is nothing I can do about it. On the bright side, I have seen several people posting that they have begun to work on their own Op. 1's, so I may move forward with that. And it will give me some opportunities to catch up on reading, practicing, and spending time with my dogs.

Until tomorrow.