The Latest Adventures

So this last Saturday I went with a friend from school to down town Portland to Pioneer square where they hold annually "TubaChristmas" (http://www.tubachristmas.org/) and it was so fun! About 200 tubas/baritones/euphoniums/sousaphones/weird tubas from all ages join to play Christmas songs and other tunes. One of the baritone players even sang for several numbers, and the audience sang too. It was so neat to hear the PUBLIC of Portland singing about Truth--about Jesus, His birth, and reason for coming. I don't know how much they believe it, and as liberal as Portland is, I'm glad there wasn't more resistance there. The director was an 89-yr old man with a lot of SPUNK and whit. Not only did he direct, but he gave quite the lecture in between songs on the tubas, composers, and other random facts/puns. You could tell that he lived for that time and that he will probably direct as long as he lives. Someone else recently told me that he played for the Oregon Symphony for 50-some-odd years and of course, still teaches tuba. Did you know that the double-belled euphonium was outlawed? Did you know that John Phillip's first sousaphone was actually called the "Raincatcher?" Dr. John Miller actually owns the first one that was made! Anyhow, it was a really neat event--the tuba makes an actually a calm and soothing sort of sound I think.

But I've been doing more music trombone myself as well--last week I went to a Christmas party for CMDA and we had our own little caroling accompaniment ensemble made up of a couple med students, 1 med-student-wife (she's a music teacher), and a doc. The cast included a trombone, flute, cello, guitar, and piano! Thankfully it came off as a success! Then that Friday we held a memorial service for the families of the body donors from gross anatomy to honor them for their anatomical gift and sacrifice. It was quite a moving service, and I am so proud of how our class put it together--the programs/booklet of memories, slideshow, speakers, music, and reception afterwards. I played a trombone duet for the program with a second year medical student and everyone seemed to enjoy it, and some were a little tickled because they had never heard a trombone duet before (and probably didn't expect me to be playing it). One of our classmates played AMAZING jazz piano to a slideshow "monatge of memories" and the some of the families spoke about their loved ones. I just have 1 more t-boning event to do which is tomorrow our trombone trio is going to do our own Christmas caroling--we're meeting before school to serenade our classmates and so that should be fun as we blast the basic science building with brass Christmas!