BathTub Orchestra

The Bathtub Orchestra has had to quickly adapt to the reality of the lockdown during the Coronavirus pandemic. We already had to make a heartbreaking decision early on to cancel a gig that was going to be on Bath Half Marathon Sunday. At that point the government was not advising anything other than washing your hands regularly, but we needed to take a further decision on whether to continue rehearsals which are inevitably very interactive! With a number of members being in high risk groups we decided the prudent decision would be to suspend rehearsals until further notice. Roll on a few days later and the government announced social distancing, followed soon after by the closure of schools. We felt somewhat vindicated in making a decision which was ahead of the curve, but it did not take the pain away from having to suspend all rehearsals for an undetermined period. Some might say ‘so what, rehearsals will start back up again at some point?’ But the Bathtub Orchestra is more than just

After five weeks off for summer, we're back with weekly rehearsals, new songs and getting ready for a Christmas concert. Writing a few days after our first rehearsal since the summer break, this post introduces the latest music of BathTub Orchestra. Dusting off that instrument Five weeks feels like such a long time so I was really looking forward to picking up my bass guitar and rehearsing with everybody again (I confess I spent far more time relaxing on holiday than playing during the break). While most of us were enjoying our summer holidays, our musical director Edward had been hard at work arranging our latest new pieces... On Her Majesty's Secret Service We already have Mission Impossible in our repertoire, so it's exciting to add another classic theme tune. Composed by John Barry, this is the only Bond theme which is completely instrumental and I think it sounded pretty good during our first run through. We Have All The Time In The World This ballad was featured in th

From 23rd October 2018 to 30th November 2018, we made the journey from a group of strangers to a fully fledged performing orchestra - that's just 6 weeks' practice! The first rehearsal... When Tony (keyboard) and Ed (musical director) decided to form an orchestra, they didn't know what to expect. So it must have been really pleasing to see around fourteen people show up for the first rehearsal. Everyone was a bit nervous - we were nearly all strangers - and we had quite a broad range of experience within the group. It was a bit like the first day at school! We'd had the music to practice for about a month beforehand so it was really exciting to go from practicing at home alone to playing with a room full of about fourteen other musicians - you could see the excitement on Ed's face when he heard the first bars of his arrangements being played back to him by a group of strangers. Practice, practice, practice You could really hear the sound develop each week as we star