Skip to main content

I'm Not late, I'm on Baby Standard Time

If you're putting a concert together fast, the thing you really focus on is the transitions. In limited rehearsal time, you can trust the musicians to play the big juicy melodies, but getting from one section to the next or in and out of tempos is always a challenge, so that's what you work on.

I like being a mother. I LOVE spending time with Zoe, and playing with her, and watching her learn to stand and lately to stand unaided and to eat by herself and to take her first few steps along the furniture. There's a gentle structure to her days - wake up, snuggle, eat, play, nap, etc - which varies in details but not really in substance.

I also have found that I can still be a good professional musician. I can report on time, and pay attention to what I am doing, and give a good performance, and get the job done. I can be a great teacher. I can keep my reed business going and get all of my shipments out on time, every month. I can keep myself and my students in reeds. In short, I can do what I have always done without compromising a lot, and I am impressed with myself.

BUT what is hard is the transitions. Actually getting up and stepping away from the baby to work upstairs in my studio is rough. The compromise in which she plays in my room while I scrape reeds or practice inevitably winds up with me accomplishing half or less of what I had planned. Half. Never more.

Leaving the house is even worse. I know that she is well cared for when I'm gone. There is no question in my mind that Steve is a great dad, or that our babysitters are capable, qualified, and caring. And anyway, I'm not a worrier. Once I'm gone I know she is fine, and I'm fine, too, once I get out. But when I stand up to go she looks so betrayed, and she cries, and it's for me. And her eyes are so desolate when I am leaving. And I turn back and we nurse just a little more, and I talk to her and remind her that I love her so much, and that I am coming back in just a few hours, and that she'll have so much fun at home - but still she is sad and I am sad.

It's actually easier when I have a gig out of town - the time I spend in the car is the transition time I need to put my oboist face on and be ready to be that other person; the grown-up among grown-ups. When my work is conveniently right down the street I have developed a habit of dashing in at the last second, still eating dinner out of my hand and with Cheerios in my hair. (Usually metaphorical Cheerios, but still). I feel frenzied and stressed. I am still a little bit in baby mode, and it takes a few minutes to recover. It's jarring to travel between my two worlds, and somehow that's what I need to work on.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zoe's Musical Beginnings

I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies.  Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked.  I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel.  If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance.  Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street.  She makes us sing along.  She loves it when we clap at the end.  When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later.  Her immediate interest is in ...
2 comments
Read more

Cleaning Your Reeds

Updated: I've posted a video of my plaque cleaning technique HERE ! Oboe reeds are made from organic material, and over time it is inevitable that they will age and change. The first few days of change are usually quite welcome, as you break the reed in by playing and the opening gradually settles down to something you can be comfortable with and the response becomes more and more predictable.  You might even hit a plateau where it appears to be perfectly consistent and reliable for several days! But after that, the reed seems to be on a constant gradually accelerating downslope, until it eventually collapses into a sharp, non-responsive, mushy mess. We can rejuvenate the reed during this time by cleaning it, and can often extend its life as well! There are three good ways to do this. First, least invasively, you can just run some fresh water through and over the reed AFTER you play each time.  Go ahead and rinse that reed in the sink, shake it as dry as possible, a...
6 comments
Read more

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...
7 comments
Read more