Lanceros,

First of all, I must admit that I was remiss in wishing each of you a happy Thanksgiving. I trust you had one nonetheless. Second, I want to commend everyone who was at the banquet tonight, for it was a most beneficent event indeed, good food, good fun, good friends. it seems a long time since we practiced or had a job, so it was uplifting to see folks again.

Finally, I promise that I'll check my December calendar and schedule a basement practice or two. I'll get a letter out on that matter in the next day or so. If we can learn the new warm up and get the Duck in better order, we can approach January thinking of the new music we'll need to learn.

May you each be safe and well, till we drum again.

BOB

Last night's event was a conundrum for me. (For those of you who aren't familiar with the word, a "conundrum" is not a strange drum that Randy would play if he could!) I can't remember attending an event where I was as ineffectual at using the time available as I was last evening. I was consternated first by the lack of horn players, which had me pondering if we'd even play. And then there were the "Which drums are we playing," (another circumstance I didn't think through very well; the small drums sounded terrific indoors) and the "What's the Gettysburg Band doing in the hall where we usually practice?" mess. On top of that, I never ascertained when we'd be going on, and we surely never practiced as much as we might have or should have.

I came prepared to work everyone so that we would play the Duck. I didn't pursue that goal arduously enough. We wasted time, time where we might have been ready. Even if we weren't, it wasn't till I was riding home that I hit on the solution to the problem. In my head, I made the Duck a tutorial for the audience, and that would have been great. I explained to the audience, in my head of course, and after the fact, which is worse, that we weren't ready to do the entire solo, explained how the solo was constructed, and I walked them, and the drum line, through strain after strain, eventually connecting parts without playing the entire solo till the very end, this at a time when they didn't expect perfection. I was thrilled by my interaction with the audience, thrilled that we eventually played the entire Duck, this while the audience was aware that they were both watching a practice and also learning the intricacies of how a solo is built and what drummers seek to do in a solo. This idea seems so sound that I plan to incorporate it into our future presentations of the Duck, or at least those where there's a microphone and seated audience.

I am and shall be disappointed that we didn't do that very thing last night, but I wasn't astute enough to think of it till after the fact, a time when I'm often at my best, by the way! I hope that each one of you is equally disappointed that we did not do the drum solo, and I trust you will be as resolved as I that we learn it, that you practice it, and that make strides to be a better drum line, and one with a more alert instructor as well.

All that being said, the show went well last night. The balance was fine within the drum line, as it was with the horns.

I will schedule some basement practices. I hope we've had enough of excuses and of mediocrity.

BOB