oboeinsight

There are two articles on musicians and this wacky career. One is a bit more depressing. The other is about changing careers — or adding a career while keeping music — and that one seems more upbeat to me. Maybe it’s because it begins with an oboist. Hmmm.

It was a good living. But the New York freelance musician — a bright thread in the fabric of the city — is dying out. In an age of sampling, digitization and outsourcing, New York’s soundtrack and advertising-jingle recording industry has essentially collapsed. Broadway jobs are in decline. Dance companies rely increasingly on recorded music. And many freelance orchestras, among the last steady deals, are cutting back on their seasons, sometimes to nothingness.

RTWT

In the sunny front room of her Little Italy apartment, at a work table filled with unusual tools, Diane Lacelle uses a gouger, a micrometer and a guillotine to make a reed for her oboe. Lacelle is 45, and has been playing oboe professionally for 25 years. The reed is key to the instrument’s sound and for an oboist, the painstaking preparation of reeds is part of the job description.

“If you scrape at the wrong place and remove too much, you ruin the reed,” she said as she shaved off a fraction of a millimetre. “Students want to know the secret of making reeds. There’s no secret, just practice and lots of reeds in the garbage. Oboists are like beavers, we spend half the time scraping away. You have to be patient, meticulous, precise.”

When a dentist friend suggested that Lacelle could apply these qualities to a career in his field, she was intrigued.

RTWT

I sometimes think about what I’d do if this career of mine fell apart (or if it was taken away from me). I love research. But I’m not exactly a brain. I sort of enjoy busywork (yeah, that’s what a person with little brain enjoys sometimes). Is there some way I can combine those two and find a new career? I wonder.

Someone want to hire a neurotic oboist? C’mon, you know you do!

Curious:

A lecture recital by the Carpe Diem Quartet at the University of Leeds is in jeopardy after the ensemble’s cellist, Kristin Ostling, was denied entry into the UK.

The Quartet landed at Heathrow Terminal 3, and while the other members of the group passed through immigration unhindered, Ms Ostling, who is a US citizen, was detained. The event at Leeds was to be an unpaid appearance, but the immigration officials apparently considered any musical performance to be work, therefore requiring a specific visa. She reports being bullied and rudely questioned for eight hours before being put on a plane back to Chicago.

During the incident, and apparently under some duress, she signed a statement claiming that her airfare had been paid by the University of Leeds, which is untrue. After arriving back in Chicago, she immediately went to the UK Consulate, but was told that they were unable to help because she did not need a visa to enter the UK.

Although the full details of the affair have yet to emerge, there is some speculation that this decision is part of a wider tit-for-tat dispute between immigration officials in the UK and the US.

I read it here.

You can see “EVENT CANCELLED” on the university calendar page, with no explanation given.

We’re always hearing sobering news about the widespread AIDS epidemic, but, until now, you’ve probably never “heard” about HIV quite like this.

Alexandra Pajak, a graduate student at the University of Georgia, has just created a whole new way of looking at the complexities of HIV by combining the biology of the disease with music.

For months, Pajak carefully studied the different types of DNA that make up the AIDS virus and assigned musical pitches to each individual strand.

What resulted was a 17-track, 52-minute album of transcribed “DNA music,” appropriately dubbed “Sounds of HIV.”

Courtesy of Alexandra Pajak
University of Georgia grad student Alexandra Pajak has composed an album of classical music inspired by the DNA that makes up the AIDS virus. It’s an interesting new way to look at — and hear — the complexities of HIV.

“I wanted to show all of the properties that the DNA in HIV contains. Hopefully it’s a whole new way for people to learn about the science behind the disease,” Pajak told AOL News.

The graduate student — who studied music as an undergrad at Agnes Scott College — said the project took her more than three painstaking months to complete because she wanted to compose the most accurate musical translation possible of the genetic code of HIV.

RTWT

I have read several articles on this music. It’s interesting to me that they were very concerned that people would take offense; I hadn’t really thought about it, but I suppose if what she “wrote” is beautiful, some might not care for it, considering the awful disease.

Pajak said she wrote and composed all of the classical tunes on her keyboard first, and then called for help from an instrumental band named “Sequence Ensemble” to lay down the final tracks.

The band brought a piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and cello to blend all of her rhythms and patterns together and, to Pajak’s surprise, the songs ended up sounding rather “pleasant.”

I’ve only listening to short snippets — it’s rather beautiful to my little ears. I suppose I should give it a second chance. An excerpt (all piano) is here. Below is a different clip:

So I’m curious; does knowing what this is created from change the way you hear it?

Seems to me this is just a repeat of some stinky news … I already blogged about it.

CLASSICAL music’s ability to stir the soul and lift the spirit is undisputed. But its ability to break down sewage is only just coming to light.

A German company is trialling a sound system that replicates the vibrations and sounds of the concert hall which, when combined with oxygen, helps break down sewage. Sydney Water is monitoring the trial.

The process being tested involves a stereo sound system developed by a private company, Mundus. It claims the sound waves of Mozart’s The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, together with oxygen, boost the activity of micro-organisms in breaking down biosolids.

”Mozart managed to transpose universal laws of nature into his music,” a founder of the company, Anton Stucki, has been reported as saying.

”It has an effect on people of every age and every cultural background. So why not microbes? After all, they are living things just like us.”

RTWT

I continue to believe Mozart would get a kick out of this.

Bed bugs at the Met.

In addition to the bedbug outbreak at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, the insects have also been found at the complex’s Metropolitan Opera House, a spokesman for the opera confirmed today.

Of course I do remember the time when San Francisco Opera had an article about musicians getting scabies from some couch or something in the orchestra musicians’ room. That might be worse. Hmmm.

A choir of 2,000 attempted to set a world record on Saturday by singing one of Switzerland’s best-loved traditional songs, a herdsman’s melody from canton Fribourg. Saturday’s performance at Villars-sur-Glâne was recorded on camera, and a legal attestation will be sent to the Guinness Book of Records for approval.

The coordinator of the event, Véronique Monney, said the aim was not to break an existing record but to set one. However, she admitted to the “La Liberté” newspaper that it would be difficult to get it accepted.

The Gruyères Ranz des Vaches was originally an unaccompanied song used to call cows for milking, well known for its haunting “lyôba” refrain.

It is said that it was forbidden to sing the song in the presence of Swiss mercenary soldiers as it made them homesick and unable to fight. The composer Rossini used the melody in his famous William Tell overture.

I read it here.