Skip to main content

Being Prepared


This is why I keep so many reeds around. Not because I ever thought I would want to use this misbegotten looking thing in public, but because today it was unexpectedly the best reed in my case for the task at hand. That task was playing Stravinsky's Petrouchka, a piece filled with aggressive articulation for the oboe and loud tutti sections that don't need to feature me but which I would like to be able to blow through. We were on stage at the Morris, a fairly dead stage that requires a very resonant, not to say buzzy, reed to project on, on an unusually cold and crisp day in spring that rendered all of my "good" reeds mushy and small.

My students know that I get on them when they have just one reed in their case - anything could happen to that one - and three is much safer, but twenty is safer still. After all, you only need one reed - but it has to be the right one.

Incidentally, we are performing Petrouchka this Saturday in South Bend, along with Beethoven's Emperor Piano Concerto (no. 5) and it's our final concert of the season and I am very excited about it. Click HERE for tickets and information.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Blog has MOVED

 Have you been waiting ... and waiting ... and WAITING for a new Prone Oboe post?  Don't wait here anymore!  The blog has moved to https://jennetingle.com/prone-oboe/  and will not be updated here on Blogger anymore.  Please come and check me out there!  I love you all - stay safe out there!  Jennet
Post a Comment
Read more

How Do You WISH You Could Describe Your Reeds?

In Reed Club last Monday, we took a moment before we started scraping to set some intentions.  We each said one word - an adjective to describe what we WANTED our reeds to be.  An aspirational adjective. Efficient was a word that came up, and Consistent . Dark and Mysterious . Mellow . Predictable .  Trustworthy .  Honest .  BIGGER . Reed affirmations actually felt helpful - both in the moment and in the results we found as we worked.  I don't know why that surprises me - I set intentions at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of a run, in the morning before I work.  I love a good affirmation.  I love WORDS.  But I'd sort of forgotten about the possibility of applying one to the mundane work of reed-making.   You don't have to know exactly how to GET to that result.  But having clarity in your mind about what that result is?  Helps you to stop going down unhelpful rabbit holes...
2 comments
Read more

Micro Rests

 For oboists, endurance is a huge problem.  We can play an endlessly long phrase, because of the way the instrument is constructed, but we can really only do that a few times in a row before our embouchure starts to get fatigued.  We develop a buildup of air that feels exhausting to hold onto, and the thought of sustaining that kind of energy over  an entire page of music, much less a 45 minute recital program, is intimidating.    There's almost always a lesson, a week or two before a jury or a recital, where my student comes in and says, "I just can't DO this! I can play every detail in my music, but I can't put the whole thing together!  My mouth comes right off the oboe when I try - I'm going to fall apart in front of the audience, and it's going to be terrible!"  Look, I'm putting this on my students now - but there's a moment a week or so before MY performances that feels exactly the same! I have not outgrown this moment of panic. And at that...
Post a Comment
Read more