Back in the saddle? I hope so.

The last time I strapped on a marching drum was in September, to do what I thought would be a short parade with Unpresidented Brass Band. The parade turned out to be over three miles long out and back, and by the time we finished I was beyond exhausted, I was officially fatigued. Rather than stick around for an impromptu standstill, I said goodnight and dragged my drum to the bus stop.
The next day, I told Miles I couldn't march with the band anymore, at least until I started to feel like I was genuinely improving and full over the Long Covid. He was sad, but understood.

Slow-forward six months, through one of the coldest and longest winters we've seen in awhile.
Im definitely over the Long Covid, and also recovered from my surgery a month ago; now I just need a reason to move around, and returning to UBB seems a worthwhile pursuit. We have a few gigs lined up, and I've been promised none of them are terribly long. So next month, I'm thrilled to rejoin the band and play my little marching snare again.

At my last rehearsal with UBB, my snare cord frayed and broke due to a jury-rigged snare hoop that guaranteed that outcome. So I looked around for a real snare side hoop and swapped it in, along with adjusting the snare strainer and adding a small Snareweight clip-on dampener to cut the ring. That is probably about all I can do for a six-lug drum with wire snares, and on a tight budget. But it should hold up for UBB gigs.

This summer, Portland will host its first ever HONK! festival, HONK!PDX, in July. UBB is expected to play, along with another Portland Honk! band called Brassless Chaps. The latter group tries to do standstill performances only due to several of their members being less mobile. I haven't heard them yet, but a photo of their group shows hand drums and a bucket drum in the drum line, so it's anyone's guess how they sound. I'll try to catch a show later this spring just to get an idea.

Without an indoor practice space, it's been difficult for me to handle playing in the park during the winter months, and I've learned that's been the case for some other UBB members as well. I hope the warmer days return very soon so we can play outside, or that we can find an indoor practice space to utilize in the meantime.

I had tried playing with an adult community concert band, but their musical quality was just not very good, and I didn't want to give up my Tuesday nights to suffer through reruns of high school band, so after three rehearsals I politely bowed out. At least people in UBB can play and we sound decent. I look forward to picking up where we all left off last summer.