(Breaking my “no post but the Sunday morning/evening music” rule.)
This video is pretty amazing. Tremors could end one’s career rather rapidly.
“When I was growing up, I generally tried to practice 30 minutes a day,” he said.
The students let out a collective gasp when Philipsen told them he now practices eight hours a day.
“It sounds kind of scary, but when you think about it, that’s my job,” the 26-year-old oboe player said.
I read it here.
I will readily confess: I do not practice 8 hours a day!
Now maybe what Philipsen is talking about is reed making + practicing + rehearsals. Could that be? I don’t count reed making and rehearsal & performance time as practice.
Hmmm. Maybe I should!
I first heard this work with Bart Schneeman, on his CD “It Takes Two”. Some of you will enjoy this. Some will not. Go figure. That’s how music works, right? Especially when it’s for oboe and boombox! :-)
So I haven’t written much about my ear lately. It seems rather silly to blog about it, and perhaps even dangerous. But I’m silly, and I can be dangerous too (only in that I write risky stuff), so here goes … or should I write “hear” goes? Hmmm.
I had an “episode” a few weeks ago, as I mentioned earlier. It wasn’t nearly like the horrible first one that happened in 2009, but of course I had to bag a rehearsal which annoys me no end. Now I’m suffering the after effects.
Noise hurts. Certain things really hurt my left ear. I can’t whistle. Stacking dishes is painful. Putting a lid on a pot hurts. And some voices hurt. It’s best if I stand to the left of a person, since my right ear is a happy camper.
I have Dizzy Days. I’m dizzy. Not always, but sometimes. It’s more frequent in the morning. Then I seem to get things figured out and things get better. But I have to be cautious sometimes, or I might just tumble over.
Tinnitus is worse. It’s loud. I mean very loud. I describe it as “wires singing” to some people and they look at me quizzically. But have you ever heard wires outside making noise when it’s rather warm out? Maybe that’s just me. It’s sort of like cicadas too. Or like having water running outside and you’re inside, except that the frequency of tinnitus is much higher. And there are now several notes. One seems to be an octave lower than the high pitch I always deal with.
Pop goes the ear! Sometimes I feel pressure in the ear. Sometimes not. And I’m hearing a popping sound — sort of like when you crack your jaw or something — and who knows what that’s about.
So, you might wonder, how can I deal with the sound of the orchestra?
Believe it or not, that’s one of the most comfortable places for me to be. I don’t notice the tinnitus, and for some reason the sounds of the instruments doesn’t hurt. (I do wear an earplug when the brass get very loud.)
I whine. My poor husband has to deal with that, as do my double reed colleagues. I’m trying not to whine, though. As I repeatedly tell myself, I am alive. I don’t have a life threatening illness. And, besides, I’m back to being able to enjoy lattés and chocolate (when these episodes hit I first can’t stomach those well).
So then I put on some lovely music, with singing by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and I think, “You have nothing to complain about, you whiney oboist! Listen to this woman sing. Think of what a loss it was when she died.” So there’s that.
I just received this:
George Mason University
Oboe Day: “Oboe Masters at Mason 2010″
April 11, 11:00am – 6:00pm
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VAGMU School of Music • Fairfax, VA
For all beginning, intermediate & advanced oboe students
• International competition adjudicator and Howarth of London Oboe Manager, Mr. Michael Britton invites you to audition the handmade instruments on display!
• Meet master reed-maker Ms. Meredeth Rouse of Back Bay Reeds!
• 12:00pm-1:00pm – “Where do oboes come from?” A clinic by Master Oboe Builder Mr. Jeremy Walsworth of T.W. Howarth of London• 1:30pm- 4:30pm – Master class by Mr. Joseph Robinson, Principal Oboist (Ret.) of the New York Philharmonic
All events take place in the GMU Performing Arts Building – Choral Room
Free and open to the public!If you have any questions about this event (or about the GMU Oboe Studio), please contact: Dr. Lorrie Brown at lberkshi [at] gmu [dot] edu
• Download the flyer here: www.gmu.edu/depts/music/perfarts/archives/spring10/2010.04.11.oboeday.pdf
• RSVP to our event of Facebook here: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107183979300661&ref=ts
I rarely give standing ovations. I’m stingy that way. When I stand, I want it to mean something. If I stand at everything it’s fairly meaningless, don’tcha think?
Or maybe I’m just lazy. Hmmm.
But someone got yelled at for giving a standing ovation. Amazing:
I particularly enjoyed it, so I stood up at the end and clapped. Something often referred to as a standing ovation.
A man and woman next to me also stood up, and at once provoked the blind, spitting fury of a well-dressed couple behind them who had remained seated. “How dare you stand up and ruin my appreciation?” said the well-dressed man.
Now I can understand someone getting angry about a standing O if the performance is bad. Heck, I’ve been on stage before when an audience has stood and I want to yell out, “Stop! It wasn’t that good!” (For the record, I’ve never done that.) But for an audience member to yell at someone in front of him because he can’t see? Well, as frustrated as I sometimes am because people stand right in front of me (Yes, it really does bug me.) I would never yell at the person or people. Just as I won’t yell at the people I frequently see in audiences who don’t applaud at all. And I’ve seen a number of them recently. Similar to my wanting to yell, “Stop! It wasn’t that good!” I sometimes want to go over and shake the person not applauding and say, “Don’t you realize that what you just heard (or saw) was glorious?!” I refrain from doing that too. I hope you all are proud of me for my wonderful restraint.
Flute, clarinet and oboe are very similar, soits easy to pick up on if you know one of them.
One of my favorite moments in the movie “High Anxiety” is when Mel Brooks yells out “Key Change!” And because of this incredible moment, I simply must share with you:
You can thank me now.
There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent.
-W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
Stolen from Terry Teachout
Gordon Jacob: Sonata for Oboe & Piano (first movement)
Leonid Sirotkin – Oboe, Katya Kramer-Lapin – Piano
I have this vague recollection of working with the conductor. But maybe I’m just imagining this. I have a rather … um … interesting imagination. (It includes having to ask Dan if I graduated from college at one point; I had dreamt, I think, that I didn’t graduate, so my imagination had turned that into truth.) But anyway … any of my long time colleagues (this would have been eons ago) remember this? Or did I dream it? (I’m gonna guess the latter, to be on the safe side!)
Opera Chic snagged an interview with Maestro Conlon. And I’m fairly sure she didn’t dream this one up. Here’s a snippet from the conductor:
I’m against people who present a Mozart symphony and say, “Okay, now I’m going to dissect this work and show you what it really is.” To me it’s a false point of departure. Our job as performers is to surrender our own egos and to completely open ourselves to the work itself and to transmit that work as if we’re not there. This is on the one hand a very easy and simple thing to do. On the other hand, we’re all crippled by our own egos. To me, I’m not interested in knowing what my interpretation is.
When I was studying at The Juilliard School, the big movement was objectivism vs. subjectivism and the popular methodology was, “You have to find your own feelings, your own voice, and you have to find yourself. What’s your take on this piece of music?” Well, I had an allergy to that type of conversation. I thought, “I know what my feelings are and I couldn’t care less what my own feelings are. I want to know what the object is.” Is that objectivism? Well, yes, that’s objectivism. I want to know who Haydn is. I want to know who Beethoven is. I want to know how their music works. How does it fit? Why is it this? And why is it that? And to me, the beauty of that method is that you can devote yourself to the other, and a byproduct of that is that you find yourself. However if you go from the other point of view — the “find yourself” subjectivism — you don’t find the other. It’s very simple — so simple that we don’t do it enough.
Therefore, you can imagine I have a strong sense of resistance to anything that wants to superimpose itself on the work of art. It is our job to serve the work of art, not to make the art a vehicle of ourselves.
So now go over to the OC blog entry and read the whole thing.
Did you know that anagrams of ‘sweetoblivion’ are: “I Towel Bovines”, “Wino Lovebites”, and “Oboe Evil Twins”
