oboeinsight

I recently read something from a student who is also now teaching. It was clear she was relishing “nailing” the students on their lack of knowledge. I commented, “I’ve found the closer to having been in school (or still IN school) the teacher the tougher the grader. Funny how that goes!”

She replied, “oh I feel the same way. for me it’s because I know what kind of [expletive deleted] students pull cause I did it not too long ago”

And I guess that was supposed to be a good thing?

She isn’t the first one I’ve found to be acting this way. Some have told me how they yell at students. Some how they like to “catch them” doing something wrong or foolish. Some like to trick the students. They tend to be harsh graders. I think they need a bit of time to get over their own memories of abuse or some such thing. I definitely think they are teaching too soon if they are mainly enjoying this sort of odd torture of students.

But I do understand.

I was a much tougher instructor when I was younger, and I wasn’t always very nice. I’m still demanding, and I’m still challenging, but I hope I’ve learned to treat students the way I prefer to be treated. I’m sorry to read of these younger teachers and their behavior. I’m especially bothered by the glee they seem to experience when they catch a student doing something wrong or giving an incorrect answer.

Okay. I’m done whining about that.

Now on to symphony … we’ll see what kind of whining I do after the two rehearsals today! I’m nervous about the Ravel works, and I need to get that out of my system so I can enjoy the music!

Today:

• I tried to clean the house. I made it partway through.
• I tried to make reeds — both oboe and English horn (I’ll get back to that after my latté, actually)
• I tried to remain confident even though my reeds are not behaving

  — FAIL —

• and, finally … I tried to be more “real” about my bio for our upcoming UCSC faculty recital by supplying the following bio:
  

  Patricia Emerson Mitchell has performed professionally in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1975. She has been a member of San Jose Symphony and the Midsummer Mozart Festival orchestra, freelanced with a number of Bay Area ensembles, and is currently principal oboist of Opera San José, and oboist and English hornist in Symphony Silicon Valley. In addition to teaching at UCSC she maintains a private studio. In order to avoid reed making Patty spends a good amount of time on her website, oboeinsight.com. She is married and has three grown children.

  Something we classical folk are told a lot is that we are snooty. Snobby. Inaccessible. We are told there is a “wall” between the audience and performers. So I thought, “Heck, let’s be more of who we are! Let’s break down that wall. Let’s see if we can bash it to pieces.” Okay, maybe not bash it, but at least be a little more “real”. So I asked the players to provide one or two sentences of a more personal sort. Two of the other four did so.

  Turns out our bios were “too long” for the back sheet of the one page piece of paper we will hand out (ahh, budget cuts!). Guess which lines came out?

  Yep. Nothing personal left.

  — DOUBLE FAIL —

• Oh … I also tried to make a latté, choose the bigger of the two remaining chocolate chip cookies, and dip said cookie into my wonderful latté.

  Finally … SUCCESS!

Last week I had a multitude of hits from stumbleupon (no, I’m not providing a link here … because I’m a bit annoyed). This week? So far nothing in the last 100 hits. I think it was as I suspected; I think stumbleupon was trying to get my attention to get me to sign up with them. If so, I’m just annoyed.

So I’m back to “normal” now and the hits are as they used to be. (While stumbleupon was visiting constantly my hits nearly doubled.) Were those all “teaser hits”? I’m thinking so.

Unless I’m guessing wrong and people really were “stumbling upon” this site.

So … well … this doesn’t really change a thing and you can all go back to whatever you were doing. I just felt like venting. ;-)

Where do we draw a line when it comes to performing? Do we draw the line? Do we have a choice? I’m pondering these questions today. I may blog about it later.

But what do other readers of this blog do? Would you play for something if you knew it was in support of something that you oppose? Is it all about the money? Just how far would you go for that paycheck? How do you decide?

And how helpful is the “not knowing” (which is where I was last night). Is ignorance bliss?

No.

Best to remember that the above quote has more to it that those three words “Ignorance is bliss”:

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;
The tender for another’s pain,
The unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.