Skip to main content

Treadmill Excerpt Fartleks

Here’s a workout I love - Treadmill Excerpt Fartleks.

I come armed with a complete playlist of all the excerpts for my next audition, and start with the treadmill at a comfortable jogging pace.  I set my iPod to shuffle, and start with a nice slow piece for a warmup.  As soon as the oboe solo is over I click ahead to the next track and notch my treadmill 0.3 MPH faster.  Because I’m shuffling the playlist I have no idea how long the next track will be, but I let it play out until I’ve heard my solo.  Might be 30 seconds, might be 7 minutes.  I click ahead and take my speed back down 0.2 MPH.  Another excerpt, another .3 faster, another excerpt, .2 down.

This workout is a multi-tasker’s dream.  At the end of 30 minutes I am running nearly a 10K pace (results vary based on how close to the front of the track the excerpts sit) and because it wasn’t continuous fast running but intervals of easier and harder work, I still have the energy to face the rest of the day.  In fact, I’m glowing with the endorphins. 

I don’t know about anyone else, but I find intentional listening an onerous task - sure, I can put some music on as I putter around and make reeds, but actually listening in order to intentionally contemplate the phrasing, absorb the harmonic underpinnings, and study the texture and orchestration of a solo feels like a chore.  I don’t want to stop what I’m doing and pay attention to my stereo when there are reeds to make, laundry to do, and a two-year-old to wrangle. 

But on the treadmill I am being productive, and I have nothing more important to do than listen.  And listening through headphones is such a fantastically intimate experience.  My car stereo is fine, but you don’t get a lot of nuance over the engine noise of a 12-year-old Beetle.  In headphones you can hear every breath, every attack, every grunt from the conductor.  It’s focused listening, and after a few rounds  I have an understanding of the style of music I’m working in, I’ve heard two or three different legitimate tempos, I know where the underlying material is interesting or surprising, and what kind of mood I want to cast as I play the line alone.  I know whether my solo is really a solo or sits under a singer (I’m in opera excerpt land right now) and thus how soloistic I should be in presenting it. 

Also, and not irrelevantly, I feel strong, fast, and powerful, and my wind is all the better for having run.  It is a huge win-win. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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

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...