I played a oboe in high school. I looked really unattractive though with my chin and all.
… of attending a symphony concert. Enjoy. :-)
I haven’t written about Haiti. I just can’t find words. It’s too painful. To difficult to comprehend.
And then I ran across this story:
Somewhere in the dust and blood of his own grave, blind violinist Romel Joseph began to play the strains of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto.
Even with his left leg pinned in the rubble of his collapsed music school, he moved onto Brahms and then Mozart.
By the time he was pulled from the ruins of the New Victorian School 18 hours later, he had recited every concerto in his mind that he had ever performed during his renowned career.
“I never thought I would get out,” said Joseph, who has already undergone two surgeries at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital to repair his shattered legs. “The earth just opened up.”
RTWT.
SF Opera has announced their next season (most of which I’d already heard about thanks to Opera Tattler, who often knows things before the rest of us). We received our renewal form and brochure yesterday. Some bloggers aren’t terribly thrilled.
Me?
I am fairly new to being an audience member at opera (been in the pit for 25+ years), so I’m not getting any “repeats” at this point. I’m okay with the operas, although I’m not doing backflips over them. (But I never do backflips, truth be told.)
Here are some blog links if you want to read what others are saying:
Iron Tongue of Midnight
Summer is Coming In
Kinderkuchen for the FBI
A Beast in a Jungle
… and I’m still looking forward to the remainder of this season!
I know what Opera San José is doing as well, but I’m not sure we are supposed to divulge that information yet, and I don’t like to spill the beans without permission.
If you can make it there, I highly recommend hearing this duo!
The Lowell DuoJanet Popesco Archibald, oboe & English Horn
Howard Kadis, classical guitar, lute & archluteJoin us for an eclectic afternoon of works by Classical composers of all eras, Baroque, Classical, Impressionist & Contemporary, including works by Locatelli, Scarlatti, Faure,Villa Lobos & Karl Pilss
Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:00pm
Armando’s 707 Marina Vista Av, Martinez, CA
$10.00 cover charge/ 2 for $18.00
What should I expect with the oboe?
Right now I play the flute(7.5 years), Alto Saxophone(3.5 years), and the bassoon(2.5 years). I personally have kinda despised the oboe because people would always mistake the bassoon for an oboe(stupid reason I know). And I am good enough on the bassoon to get first chair of my school district’s honor band. So i don’t sound like a duck anymore XP. And just recently, a senior from last year brought her oboe in to play with the band, (she was visiting), and I asked her if I could try her oboe, she said yes, I tried it. And my very first note was clear and didn’t sound like a beginner at all. (according to her) I don’t know if I was just a natural with the oboe, or playing the bassoon helped.So now I am looking to learn the oboe. I have played around with the school’s english horn(didn’t sound that great because it was broken in the first place), so I am kinda already familiar with some of the basic fingerings. I could do one octave chromatically.
So, anything I should be aware of, or any tips. Anything would help, I teach myself the instruments, so if there is something teaching books don’t mention that would be great. :)
Please and thank you
Some of you probably know what I might suggest. (Hint: a teacher!) But this young player obviously isn’t interested in that. So perhaps one of you would like to answer the question.
Update The link won’t work … and it says the question has been taken down. (And that link also messed with my blog entry for some reason.) But if I google the first few sentences I’m taken to the question. Odd.
Has anybody else notice the oboe on the hamburger helper commercial sounds like a clarinet
It’s for sale. Really.
The seller is California businessman Paul Kaufmann, who first became aware that his family possessed the item in 1990. While searching among his late mother’s possessions, he happened on an ancient, pear-shaped box labeled “Beethoven.”
Oh … it’s not the entire skull … I just read this:
Kaufmann inherited the bones in 1993 and eventually sought scientists who could prove whether the fragments — each more than 3 inches long — were indeed Beethoven’s.
A new work I played recently included a low A.
Everyone knows an oboe doesn’t have a low A.
I want an oboe like that. It just sounds like fun! Sort of like having the extension for my English horn. Since I have it, I love it when someone includes the low B♭ … but maybe now I need a low A on the English horn, too. Hmm. I wonder.
The blog I’m linking to above is one new to me. I plan on checking it out more. You might want to as well.
| Cleveland Orchestra strike settled |
I found it here.
I could write a ton of things about teaching at UCSC. But right now there’s only one thing that comes to mind: today’s drive was a bit hairy!
Yes indeed, the drive today was not the sort I do frequently. We had quite the storm, and highway 17 had a ton of water on it. Fortunately everyone was driving at a decent speed, aside from two crazy people who sped on by. Guess they must have done okay since I never saw them overturned anywhere.
The drive home was a piece of cake … the way it should be. The way it usually is.
I hear we are going to continue with this storm stuff. I’m hoping next Tuesday we’ll be done with this. For the day, anyway; I LOVE stormy weather!
BAD behaviour at a Derby school has been halved – by playing classical music to unruly children.
Brian Walker, head of West Park School, has seen the improvement in behaviour among his pupils since he introduced two-hour detentions, complete with Verdi and Mozart.
Mr Walker also “names and shames” disruptive teenagers on video screens in the school.
And instead of handing out lines, pupils are forced to write out the poem Jerusalem, a favourite of Mr Walker’s.
Using classical music as punishment ticks me off. If you don’t know why … well … I guess you don’t know why. (This particular article I find especially disturbing. And if you don’t know why … well … again, I guess you don’t know why.)
Every few years, I think about buying an oboe and do all the research. But this year, I have the money to do it. This may be dangerous.
NewsChannel5 has learned that there is a tentative agreement in the Cleveland Orchestra strike.
Both sides met through the night during a mediated bargaining session.
Both sides still have to ratify the terms of the new deal.
We’re told the musicians are voting later this afternoon.
The musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra put down their instruments Monday and went on strike because of a pay impasse with management, which jeopardized upcoming performances.
Why do tunes in a major key, such as Singin’ in the Rain, sound cheerful, while those in minor keys – Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, say – sound gloomy and depressing?
The answer – in part – seems to be that the patterns of pitches in major keys mirror those of excited speech, whereas minor keys parallel subdued speech. That suggests that language shaped our musical expression of emotion.
Several factors affect music’s sentimental influence, and some are common sense: a fast, loud, jumpy rhythm sounds happy because it reflects the way an excited person behaves, and slow, quiet music with a regular beat mimics a mournful emotional state.
Doesn’t change much for me. Some music makes me sad. Some makes me happy. So sometimes I listen to the sad stuff because I’m sad and feel like wallowing. And sometimes I don’t. That is all.
But I’m glad scientists have figured this out. Now they can move on to something much more important: creating the “Everlasting Oboe Reed”, known as EOR — pronounced Eeyore (American pronunciation, that is — … and yes, I know it’ll never happen. Sigh.
