If it’s possible for me to teach myself to play the French horn unaided, then I’m sure I’ll be able to learn to play the EH pretty quickly.
(Of course the “if/then” thing is rather important here! I would suggest that a teacher should be necessary to learn to play French horn well, just as a teacher is needed to learn a double reed instrument.)
Many thanks to Michael Monroe of Mmmusing. He muses and amuses. Cool, huh?
What fun to see and hear:
70% oboist teenagers retain their overweight and obese condition even during their adulthood.
Heh … that’s what reeds’ll do to a kid.
Actually, I’m guessing that “obese” was misspelled and spell checker turned it into “oboist”. I’m hoping so!
Last week, when doing Nutcrackers, it was warm enough that I thought I could have left my coat at home. (I still brought it, as I’m wimpy that way.) Tonight was a different story. I was freezing after walking from my car to the pit, and never did fully warm up. Now I’m home, sitting underneath a wonderfully warm blanket, enjoying a cup of tea. (I initially had a nice large glass of milk. Cold as it was, it still hit the spot. Am I one party animal or what?)
I sit at the edge of the pit, closest to the audience, right under the conductor’s right arm. There’s a gaping hole next to me; it’s an area that’s underneath the first rows of the audience seating. I think it’s because there’s this hole that there’s a lot of cold air that comes up when we have weather like this. It was draftier than usual. I have to be extra careful with my instruments, making sure I’m not getting water in the octave keys. Ah, the life of the woodwind player! In addition, I think the vents that are outside the stage door entrance must be causing me to breathe a bit of cigarette smoke. (Both the stage crew and the dancers do a good (or is that “bad”) amount of smoking.)
Okay. Whining over. Really. It’s great to see the little kids bouncing their way back to their cars. Too darn cute. Even the ones who, usually at the start of the Pas de Deux, start to cry. (I think that’s probably at about the 2 hour mark, and it seems that some reach their limit about then; our Nutcracker is about 2 hours and 15 minutes.) I also like to hear people chatting as they leave. The other night one man was just ecstatic about the performance. That’s encouraging to hear.
Tomorrow it’s a double service day, so the morning will be a take-it-easy sort of time. I’m trying to remember how I did all of this when our three children were young. I guess that’s why most of us have kids we get too old, eh? I know I couldn’t manage now. Or at least I think I’d be a basket case!
Three more Nutcrackers for me. Then I’m officially off of work until January 4. No students, no playing work. Just family time. Nice!
My friend and colleague, Pam, said that another friend of ours (a cellist) suggested a reed crow as a ring tone. Hmmm. I think that might be one I’d actually hear. I tend to not really hear my cellphone. Sometimes a person standing near me will kindly alert me to the fact that my phone is going off. There’s something about all the rings I have on mine that either don’t capture my attention or drive me insane. (I’ll choose the former over the latter.) Does anyone know if there’s a way to make your own ring tone? I’m guessing there is …?
… and it even includes an oboe! (So many that I find on YouTube are for other instruments. Can’t they read that title?!)
Music for those who can’t afford a concert:
“I like sharing music with people, and they have zero access to it,” Ms. Hall-Tompkins said of her homeless audiences. ‘It’s very moving to me that I can find people in a place perhaps when they have a greater need for, and a heightened sensitivity to, beauty.’ She invites musician friends to play and uses her networking skills to cajole prominent soloists into joining. They include Emanuel Ax, the pianist, and Albrecht Mayer, a principal oboist of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Hall-Tompkins asked Mr. Ax to take part when he was playing a concerto with the New Jersey Symphony, and she encountered Mr. Mayer in a Tokyo hotel hallway while both were on tour.
Jay teasingly (?) mocked Chanticleer.
& Chanticleer gets him back!
Today we had only one Nutcracker, and tomorrow is a day off. (So what am I doing tomorrow? Teaching five students. Go figure!) This was the fourth Nutcracker in three days. That’s really not a huge deal … in past years we’ve had doubles on both Saturday and Sunday. I do enjoy having my Sunday evening off (although the Sunday afternoon performance meant I skipped church yet again. Sigh.). As you might recall, I blogged about neglectin my “idiot check” on Friday night. Rest assured that both Saturdays performances and today’s had my More Favored Reeds. (But — ACK! — I do believe the More Favored Reeds are dying quick deaths. Figures.)
Today was a different issue.
We got to “Big Number 5″ (if you have the same parts we have) and this is my first low D# to low B back to low D#. So before starting, I do the nose grease on the pinkie thing (if you don’t know what I’m talking about you probably aren’t an oboist and you probably don’t really need to know!). I slid several times from the D# key to the B before I started to play, just to make sure the finger slid easily. But wait! I get to that moment and my brains says, “Patty, you have absolutely no clue how to finger this!” Really. It didn’t say it out loud, but it said it loud and clear for my brain to deal with. So what did I do? Well, I used the banana key! (Again, if you aren’t an oboist or English hornist this is sort of meaningless to you.) Now the banana key DOES work, but I never use it, and it’s not as reliable as a nice clean slide. So the low B wasn’t as responsive and clear as I’d like.
Never a dull moment.
There was another moment I wasn’t thrilled with. But we’ll leave that alone for now. Mostly I was just shocked by the brain freeze. (I know some of you call these something else, but I do prefer brain freeze, as it really does feel as if my brain is suddenly frozen or locked up.)
And now I’m home, and watching San Francisco Symphony and MTT doing Ives’ “New English Holidays”. Crazy Ives! When I first started playing English horn in San Jose Symphony (RIP) we did an Ives that, at one point, has the orchestra blasting away playing a number of different things (I think it’s a parade of sorts? … it’s been a LONG time! Maybe a reader will fill me in?). All of the sudden everyone stops and there is a lone English horn (me) playing a long held note. I was, at that point, not as tuned in to the EH and the key of F, and I was always surprised by the note that was sounding as I expected the pitch you’d hear on a C instrument. I’m sure I’d be missing that surprise now, and I’m sort of sorry; that was always a fun little moment.
This is part of San Francisco Symphony series called Keeping Score. It’s a series I highly recommend.
There are six more Nutcracker performances left, of which I play four; originally I had thought we’d be out of town for the final two so I submitted my absence request. This didn’t turn out to be the case, but I had to turn my notice in early enough that I didn’t know plans would be different. So oh well! I’ll be done early, and a sub will get some extra work. So … well … “it’s all good.” (I’ve decided “it’s all good” means “nothin’ to be done!”)
And … WOW … just at the part of the Ives with choir. Incredible! I’d love to do this work! And now I suppose I should get the DVD because this is really amazing!
Mary was the first one
Bach: Quia fecit mihi magna from the Magnificat
Not an oboe player? Shop Sheet Music Plus and see what you find!
Or just shop Amazon.com
