Listening to pop music to drown out oboe players like whaaaaat
Is that an Oboe or English Horn (Cor Anglais) carrying the tune in the beginning? It’s either high for an English Horn or low for an Oboe. I can’t tell beyond that, unfortunately. A hunch tells me that it might be English Horn, but all I know for sure is it’s a med-high double-reed sound.
(From a site about Swan Lake)
We have now had two Merola opera rehearsals. Today we finally meet up with the singers. This is usually my favorite rehearsal; there’s an excitement beforehand, as I wait to hear these wonderful young singers. And then when they being to sing … well … I am nearly always just in awe. There really is nothing like the human voice. So I look forward to today’s rehearsal!
It’s so good to be back to work. Because the second to last performance I played was such a disaster for me (only seconds of time, but eons when it comes to how it felt), I must say that I continue to be haunted by the event. Similar to reviews, I rarely remember when I play well, but I do remember when I blow it. And this really was a doozy. I shouldn’t even blog about this sort of thing, I suppose. But too late now, eh?
Here is a sample of one of the voices we’ll hear (assuming there aren’t other singers with these same names!):
Eleazar Rodriguez:
Nadine Sierra:
Ryan Kuster:
I’ll try and locate some more of the singers later. I don’t mean to neglect anyone. Sadly, some singers (like Opera San José’s own Rebecca Davis) can’t put up videos due to union rules.
[name here] is going to tune her concert band with a vuvuzela instead of an oboe some day.
Fun to see this on YouTube:
Quinteto Latino:
Oh dear … THIS is scary!:
Q: How much is a decent oboe
A: A decent beginners Oboe costs anywhere from 1000 – 1500 dollars for a new oboe and 300 – 500 dollars for a used one.
This is simply not true. Oboes cost more. Sorry.
I read it here.
the oboe is an under appreciated instrument
… well, Merola began a while ago, as you can read at some other sites*, but for me it began yesterday. We had our first orchestra rehearsal for the Schwabacher set. It’s so great to get back to work, and I love seeing music friends after having been out of work for so long (my last job was June 6 … yikes!). I’m playing second oboe and English horn, and it doesn’t appear that I have a lot to do for the set. I’m okay with that; it’s just good to be back! We have a performance this Friday night, and then again the following Sunday. Visit the Merola site for more info.
We have another morning rehearsal today that begins at 10:30 and runs to 1:30. This makes it tough for a person like me; I’m used to eating my breakfast at about 11:00! Everything gets thrown off a bit. I get up there early enough to have a bite to eat before the rehearsal begins, because I won’t eat during the rehearsal and I don’t like to eat in the car on the drive home. I might be reconsidering the eating in the car thing, though; when I get home today I have to teach shortly after. So maybe I’ll get my act together and make a sandwich. (ME? Make a lunch ahead of time? Crazy!)
*Others who have blogged about Merola (you’ll have to look around for the Merola posts):
Not For Fun Only
Opera Tattler
and at least one Merolini has a blog, but I want to ask permission before linking it in an actual post.
Blog entries may start getting sparse around here. When I do the commuting to San Francisco thing I run out of time for a lot of blogging. Such is life. I’m just thankful to have this (somewhat unexpected) work!
Update:
Permission granted! Robin Flynn has granted permission to post to her blog! She is currently in San Francisco, running and singing and acting and doing all the things (plus the running) that singers do. I don’t believe we see and hear the singers today, but I look forward to tomorrow, when I’m sure they’ll be there! So visit Robin’s site to read about her Merola adventures.
The Concert Singers performing Effinger’s Pastorales with Ryan Zwahlen, oboe. Jenni Brandon, director.
I’ve played two of these, but never all. I played one (Basket) when I was in high school, so that was sometime between 1970 and 74. I played that same one and then another (No Mark) when my daughter was in high school (she graduated in ’03). I loved knowing that I played it first when I was her age as she sang! I find these well written for oboe, and very lovely.
I see that Ryan Zwahlen has posted three of the four (Noon is absent), so I’m posting them below.
I always thought the last four notes of this one were to represent playing taps. I don’t know for sure, but considering the words I thought perhaps I was correct. Here are the words, from th Thomas Hornsby Ferril poem:
No Mark
Corn grew where the corn was spilled
In the wreck where Casey Jones was killed,
Scrub-oak grows and sassafrass
Around the shady stone you pass
To show where Stonewall Jackson fell
That Saturday at Chancellorsville,
And soapweed bayonets are steeled
Across the Custer battlefield ;
But where you die the sky is black
A little while with cracking flak,
Then ocean crosses very still
Above your skull that held our will.
O swing away, white gull, white gull,
Evening star, be beautiful.
Basket
Know me then.
The children out of the shade have brought me a basket
Very small and woven of dry grass
Smelling as sweet in December as the day I smelled it first.
Only one other ever was this to me,
Sweet birch from a far river,
You would not know, you did not smell the birch,
You would not know, you did not smell the grass,
You, you did not know me then.
Know me then.
The children out of the shade have brought me a basket.
Wood
There was a dark and awful wood
Where increments of death accrued
To ev’ry leaf and antlered head
Until it withered and was dead,
And lonely there I wandered and wandered and wandered.
But once a myth-white moon shone there
And you were kneeling by a flow’r,
And it was practical and wise
For me to kneel and you to rise,
And me to rise and turn to go,
And you to turn and whisper no,
And seven wondrous stags that I could not believe
Walked slowly by.
This just in from Janet Archibald!
Hi Everyone,
We are pleased to announce the Lowell Trio’s summer 2010 concert at Armando’s, Sunday August 15, 3pm- hope you can make it!
Lowell Trio
Janet Popesco Archibald, oboe & English Horn
Emil Miland, cello
Margaret Wong Fondbertasse, piano
An eclectic program featuring two beautiful 19th century Romantic era trios by the little known composers Robert Kahn and Marie Grandval, along with some lively works by South American composers ,some old favorites by Schumann, and more!
Armando’s
707 Marina Vista Ave
Martinez CA $10.00 cover charge
English horn in a pop band? On Saturday Night Live? Who knew? (I’d heard the song before and still wasn’t really clued in to the English horn part. Silly me!)
I found this at a site that enjoys pointing out the jerks on Craigslist. I could not find this on Craiglist though. Hmm. It just made me laugh … true or not ….
let’s jam – $18
i am a professional oboe player and i am willing to play with you and jam. normally i charge $1000 for a playing engagement but i can play with you for $18/hr. you have to be pretty good beause i don’t slow down my playing. it wouldn’t be fair to the music to keep this racehorse from running if you know what i mean. so $18/hr and that probably won’t last but email anyway and we’ll see
No, I really don’t think that about any of my readers … but that’s what came to mind when I read an article about the “Cello in a box”. I thought it because of this quote:
“People are usually pleased at the tone quality,” Nussbaum says, “because they expect it to sound horrible, and they find it doesn’t sound horrible, so that’s good.”
So it doesn’t sound horrible and that’s the good news. But does it sound anywhere close to good? Hmmm. From what I’m reading, probably not.
I can’t imagine dealing with something that sounds bad … even while I realize one can practice scales and arpeggios and all, I think the sound would cause me to not play as well. It certainly wouldn’t encourage me to practice. Kind of like having only rotten reeds.
Oh. Wait. That’s the norm for me! Hmmm.
Now, after 500 performances, our producers have told us and our union that in order to cut costs they will chop our string section in half, releasing five musicians and “replacing” them with a synthesizer piped in from another room. I don’t think Lenny would have approved.
Grechaninov: Now The Powers Of Heaven
Kansas City Chorale
