I absolutely love Alan's post as part of this thread:
I've never known any horn players in the timeshare biz.
I was in a horn section 1 time with a guy who was both an ordained priest and a licensed mortician. Sometimes his beeper went off during rehearsal -- and not with a message from the monsignor, either.
Our current Fairfax Band horn section is made up of . . .
-- a business executive & former school music teacher
-- a retired U.S. Navy captain & CPA
-- a retired U.S. Navy Band chief arranger & professional composer-arranger & piano technician
-- a retired public school special education teacher
-- a retired U.S. civil service bureaucrat
-- a full-time mom & homemaker
-- a high-tech systems engineer
-- a political foundation executive
-- a U.S. defense agency scientist
Not a timeshare seller in the bunch.
So it goes.
If that isn't a teaser to read the entire thread, I don't know what is!
Nice of you to say. A great feature of TUG-BBS is knowing that we actually connect with 1 another now & then.
Not all of the French horn people listed earlier are still with us, but most of'm have hung in there. The foundation executive has moved on, thanks to being on the receiving end of an ambassadorial appointment. The former Navy Band arranger married a Navy Band widow & moved to Colorado with her. The systems engineer switched to cello. The defense agency scientist got too busy for band (marriage, parenthood, basketball, night school, etc.).
Fortunately we recruited some new talent in the horn section -- a defense agency logistics expert, a public school music teacher, a computer scientist & programmer, & 1 new guy whose profession I don't know yet. All of'm play rings around me, which is a good thing. (No benefit in adding people who play worse than I do.)
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.