oboeinsight

“So it’s like a symphony, right? The piston goes down, and comes back up.”

What is it with ad companies and using music as some sort of metaphor or example for whatever they’re advertising? And how the heck is a piston going down and coming back up like a symphony?

Of course advertisers and newspapers love to use the symphony lingo. You can’t escape it, as I’m sure you’ve found.

Here’s one for you:

Quartet of shutterbugs comes together in symphony of shots

And then there are those headlines for actual music articles:

Trying to tune up symphony finances

Rankin composes himself to write an opera

Getting a Handel on classical-music sites

Grand Opera ends season on high note

Yeah, they aren’t very creative, are they? And you know there are so many more I could paste here for you. But … well … I’m nicer than that. ;-)
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Some neighbors to the west side of our house have had music blasting both today and yesterday. But I don’t even have a clue what they are playing. All I hear—and feel—is the bass cranked up to who knows where going boom thump boom thump boom boom thump thump.

And this makes me grumpy.

Which makes me wonder: do my neighbors get grumpy when I or my oboe students are playing? Or maybe they don’t even hear us because we are so much higher than the boom booms.

Boom boom thump thump
makes me quite the grouchy grump

And now I’m off to something that will, I’m sure, make me even grumpier: REEDS.
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Looks like I’m not a top 100 classical music blog any longer.

I’d go cry in my beer, but I’m not having a beer. So oh well.
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Last night, prior to the opera, I had this glib little conversation with some colleagues. I’m not sure how we go on to the subject of reeds, but I tossed out my little story about a coaching session I once had with a principal player of the San Francisco Symphony. (This was years ago.) The minute I stepped into his house I said my usual, “I have awful reeds,” and his response was, “So learn how to play on bad reeds.” Of course he’s right, and I often explain this to students; there will be days that we will have only bad reeds. We still have to play well. We can’t make excuses. My motto really is, “Play well on bad reeds. Or else.”

But isn’t it somewhat mysterious, frightening, distressing and … well … I could go on … that after saying that last night I get into the pit and find that my reeds are misbehaving?

Yes. Yes it is.

Thank you to Ruth for writing to me to say that my pathetic posts (no, she didn’t use the word pathetic!) on my reed woes are actually encouraging. I am guessing there are some professional musicians who never worry about reeds, but I’m certain there are a lot of players who just won’t talk about it. I prefer to be honest about this whole business. You may as well know the truth.

But still, I did play well on my reeds last night … or so I’ve been told. So I guess I’m managing to follow my motto!
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It is a coincidence that these two words rhyme, cause me great distress, and won’t behave?

Now if only my reeds would flourish like weeds, and my weeds would fail like my reeds, I’d be a much happpier camper. But I am currently a Most Unhappy Camper. I’ve been working, working, working on reeds. Nothing feels right. The cane feels yucky, the crows are all horrible, and after a while I started seeing only bizarre foreign objects in front of me, as my brain went into lala land and couldn’t even fathom reed making any longer.

Why do I sometimes feel as if I’m the only person in the world who can’t seem to get a reed when I work diligently? Often I can get a RushReed™ out of desperation. But diligence? It’s simply not paying off!

Okay … grumble over.

For now.

Perhaps I should blame this Very Bad Reed Day on the Sharks and their sad loss. Or the Yankees and their win. Hmmm. Maybe both.

Reed woes couldn’t be my fault, could they? ;-)

Someone did a search on brain damage and oboe playing.

Yep. This is the perfect place to land. ;-)
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Or should it be “It was the reed, stupid!”?

I guess my feeling as if it was the OBOE was merely panic mode; once the first reed didn’t work nothing worked because I was freaking out.

Pulling out the instrument today, I went over the top joint, where I was just sure there was a problem. Not so. Then I pulled out what I thought, since it behaved so well at the Tuesday performance and orchestration class, was WonderReed™ and, lo and behold, it’s turned into a piece of junk.

Ah reeds … they love to keep us guessing.

So now it’s back to the reed board, although of course that would be the case no matter what.

While I do have my reed assessment page (since removed) up and running, please know I certainly understand the plight of these reed makers. What appears to be grand and glorious one day may be garbage the next.

Or at least that’s the way it works for me.

I’ll tell you, reeds are crazy making. Horrible, awful, no good crazy making things.

Meanwhile …
Sniff, sniff, sneeze.

I walked downtown to do some banking. I just “happened” by Jamba Juice at the same time (wonder of wonders!) and picked up a pretzel and drink (yum!). Problem is, I’m highly allergic to some trees that are dropping blossoms right now. So I’m in misery even as I indulge in my little lunch. Such is life.

Right now I’m watching the Sharks. It’s 2-0, good guys, and they are still in the first period. Cool. GO SHARKS!
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Our server seems to be up & down; I just had to restart the computer yet again. So I do apologize if you sometimes don’t see me here. I’m not sure what’s up because I’m a certified Computer Idiot.

Anyway, off to teach and work on my oboe … back later ….
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I had opera tonight. I wasn’t stressed about it at all. When I’ve done seven rehearsals and three perfomances and things have gone fine what’s to worry about, eh?

Hah!

I did a bit of warming up. Not as much as usual, though, because I was handing out music for the next Symphony Silicon Valley set (since I always like to go get my music I figure it’s just as easy to get other SSV folks theirs at the same time), and I also simply wasn’t worried; I really like a reed I’ve worked on, and several others are adequate.

So of COURSE you know how this has to go, right?

We start the piece. And something is terribly awry! Notes simply don’t come out. I think, “Oh rats, this reed must be cracked!” So I switch to another. And it’s doing something similar. At that point I’m guessing something is up with the oboe. There’s something that goes in and out … even the A-440 is sometimes rebelling. So I am in panic mode which means that my alternate fingerings for one solo went out the window. Fortunately the regular fingers flew in when the alternates flew out so I did those and they worked fine. But being panicked about Butterfly is no way to be … and especially since tonight was our first of two nights with our assistant conductor. He took some things so much slower and it was quite difficult to manage with a leaky oboe. (I also just disagree with changing tempi in such a major way when coming in as an assistant; he actually added at least five minutes to the opera and while that sounds like a short amount of time it’s really rather significant with something like this. I felt sorry for Butterfly in Un bel di … it was sloooooowwww.

The good news is that despite the turmoil and the panic and all my furor, someone sitting only two seats away was totally unaware that something was wrong. So while I was in HorrorLand™ I guess it was my own private place to be. (Well, okay, I think I “shared” my horror with the second oboist, as I muttered under my breath during the acts and then whined during the intermissions. I should ‘fess up, yes?)

After the second intermission I finally figured out that something is up with the top joint, and I think I can fix things using the Carl Sawicki book. I hope I can, because I can’t drive to Napa over the weekend (Mark Chudnow doesn’t work weekends and even if Forrests’ repairman does he’s not been terribly nice to me and pretty much refused to fix my oboes since I play on the Marigaux brand), and I would prefer to fix what has to be a very small thing—which causes big problems—myself. I do hope I can do it!

In Other News our son, Jameson, has selected UCSC as his next stomping ground! Today he and I went to the campus, he met a few instructors and some students, and we sat in on part of a vocal rehearsal for The Magic Flute. Fun!