Skip to main content

IDRS Day One

IDRS Conference Day One:  Impressions

It took me forever to get here.  No, mostly it took me forever to leave home in the morning.  Zoe is so snuggly and so much wants me to just stay and play with her all day. 

My directions to Miami University were great (thanks, iPhone!) but the directions on campus were at first very confusing and resulted in a lot of needless hiking around in 102 degree weather.  This conference is not spectacularly well organized - my Monday afternoon program is actually wrongly listed as starting at different times in different venues in various places in the program.

Officially, now: I will perform at 4:45 on Monday in the Art Museum here at Miami University in Oxford Ohio. 

I got in later than I wanted to, but still attended three recitals and one amazing gala concert, made two brand new friends, met up with several old ones,  practiced for an hour, and generally wore myself totally out in the process.  Tomorrow my schedule looks packed from dawn til dusk, between recital attendance and piano rehearsals.  My biggest challenge, I think, will be to find the time to reflect on what I’m seeing and hearing.

Today the biggest thing I am noticing is individual differences in sound.  I have thoughts.  I’d love to put them down.  Personal oboe sound is something I’ve been thinking about a ton lately.  But tonight is not the night to try to pull my thoughts together.  I need to sleep and regroup for another day.

My main goal while I’m here is to attend masterclasses.  I have been searching for inspiration in my teaching, and am ready to hear some of what other people say.  This is going to be the Year of the Student for me, and I want lots of new ideas to kick me off in the fall. 

I love the oboe.  This morning when I was at home I wanted to stay there, but this week is the time for me to make the most of my surroundings.  Go, Double Reeds!


Comments

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

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...

Choose the YES

Special moments come at the least expected times. This video , the one I circulate periodically whenever Facebook reminds me of it, was literally just a gig. I didn’t know Sullivan when he reached out to me to play because he needed the video for some application or other.  I didn’t even ask what it was for.  I only had a day or two to prepare the music and I was annoyed that it was so hard and annoyed at myself for accepting the gig and annoyed as I drove up to the church he had booked which proved to be basically unheated. I love what I do, but some gigs ARE an annoyance.  Holiday pops runouts leap to mind here. Endless drives through the snow for ungratifyingly formulaic performances of insipid music.  My annoyance level going in to this was about the same. But it turned out to be marvelous fun!  Once I got going, the challenge turned out to be the BEST kind of challenge, the thing that is difficult but totally attainable if you bring your A game and yo...