oboeinsight

Vivaldi, Bach, baroque music in general puts me in a very calm, but still alert place. And it’s truly classical, not just orchestral.

I have no idea what instrument this is (some sort of traditional English horn?), but it’s definitely meant to poke fun at Hagrid in his out-of-character role. Williams continues to display his virtuosity at adapting a new theme over and over in many new contexts.12. Monster Books and Boggarts! (Is there a non-traditional English horn?) [...]

When Berlioz and Franck used the English Horn in their symphonies, the critics said it was vulgar because Haydn and Beethoven did not use an English Horn in their symphonies. (I had never heard this before. Can anyone verify it for me?)

What’s funny is they say that the oboe is a hard instrument to play – I picked it up and could play a note on it just fine (I had ZERO problems with the double reed), however I could not for the life of me get anything to come out of the clarinet or saxaphone [...]

Let me out myself once more: I like live music, played by warm bodies, for warm bodies, in real rooms. I prefer live performances of music made for live performance to recordings. I like the spontaneity and variation a live performance necessarily brings to a work and I like the way the music dissipates in [...]

“Oh my gosh! Why are there wood chips in front of our couch?! It looks like a hamster lives in front of our couch!!” Read here.

Love it!: Speaking of music–tip for the day: It is impossible to play the oboe well after sprinting up ten flights of auditorium stairs, through the lobby of a fine arts center, and to the back of the parking lot, even if you’ve had five minutes to drive and relax on the way to the [...]

I am going to hopefully major in Woodwind Performance, with an emphasis in oboe and English horn- provided I can rent an English horn

I plan on selling and making more oboe reeds by the middle of this year!!! I am not sure how it will work, but it should work out once I have worked on my techniques….

Haha, so lately I’ve been, erm, I dunno, behaving like a 50 year-old, and listens to many, many classical pieces.

A note perfect, literal performance does not necessarily mean it is musically well parsed or that it draws you in with style. I read it here, at The Buzzing Reed.

Traveling with an oboe is like traveling with an infant. You can’t just bring a small carry-on because you aren’t just bringing the oboe, you’re bringing the oboe’s reeds, reed tools, music, extra cane in case you have to make more reeds. Seriously, it feels like a diaper bag sometimes.

I figure, as long as I’m going to teach saxophone, I might as well add flute, clarinet and most recently acquired, oboe, to the pile. Right now the local music shop has a guy that teaches sax and clarinet. Well, that’s nice and all, but if I teach more horns, I’d be more likely to [...]

I’d just like to say that I cannot promise to only listen to classical music- I will try to listen to it on a daily basis though. This is the first blog post (dated December 22, 2009), from

usually I’m just the second oboist that no one really knows about..now I’m a star English hornist but I don’t see how I suddenly became well known.