Lovely piece from Charlotte Higgins in The Guardian today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlott...almusicandopera

Here she is describing her amateur chamber group which she joined after returning to violin after many years:

once in a while, we just click into place: there comes a fleeting moment when each of us, playing highly individuated and often wildly complicated parts, actually become an ensemble. We … blend. This is a tremendously intense feeling, and hard to describe. There's a kind of "whoosh" to it – the sensation that you are part of something immensely powerful, something bigger than your own individual capability. The idea that you are part of not only what you yourself are making, but also what the others are creating. Out of our normal human isolation, we make a single, complex voice. This is strangely emotional, and when it happens, I think we all feel it.

Eloquently put. How lovely.

I know that one well - and at first it would only really happen when I was playing together with someone much more skilled than I, who knew how to tap into what I was doing, but also how to get me to follow them musically. Now it can happen with others who are at the same level as I am - some days a whole piece might even go like that (bonus!) but at other times there is a shifting in and out of that phase, and oh, it's so hard to know how to keep up the momentum and not fall off the crest of that feeling! Other days, and I had had plenty of those too, especially when going through some rough times, that buzzy feeling would just not emerge, and okay, we might have played well enough - right notes, together, but minus the spark. Makes it all the more special when it does happen .

I'm too new to instrumental ensemble work to have experienced that with saxophone, but very aware of having felt it with choral works. It's an absolutely amazing sensation...