The old switcheroo

 Last night I was early to the shakuhachi practice session, so I thought. It was to start at 7, and I was there 15 or 20 minutes before, and sat down on the bench by the bamboo patch in front of the temple to do some practice before, and to be seen when the others came in. 

I was working on "Amida's Shrine" when I heard the same tune, ghostly. It was coming from inside the temple (a very sturdy building) so I went in and there was everyone else, all lined up with chairs and music stands, facing the pews. They were happy to see me and got me a music stand and a chair, and we practiced. 

There's one lady, Shirley I think? Who almost certainly comes from a music teaching background and she was calling the shots. There's one piece, "Always With Me" that is pretty involved and it was hilarious how badly we played it. But the others are not bad at all. One's the Star Wars theme and that's fun. The other two ... 

Well the other two are Amida's Shrine and Shinran Sama. All well and good, and I have those already but in the folder with the music stapled in that we're going to play, they're in there but the titles are switched. So now I don't know which is which! But they're pretty easy to play; I remember the longer one from shakuhachi class before, and the other is cheerful and has a nice swing to it, being in 3/4 time. I'll just make sure to have them both down pat. 

When the practice session was done I learned that they'd started at 6:30. So if I'd set out to be an hour early, I'd have been a half-hour early which would have been OK because I'd have just sat in front and practiced, etc. Another thing is that I need to get myself a music stand. 

I got myself some fried fish for dinner at Nijiya and got back here, listed things on Ebay after eating, and before bed did a lot of practice. I went back and forth between the PVC shakuhachi and the Shakuhachi Yuu and the PVC one still seems a bit better. I have the two songs with the titles switch more firmly in my mind now and the Star Wars theme is fun. I bet "Shakuhachi0" on YouTube could play the whole thing excellently.