Skip to main content

IDRS Day Two

IDRS Day Two: Impressions

Oboe overload. Almost too many oboes even for me. 

I attended some superb performances today, and some odd ones.   It is interesting to hear the various compromises people make with their reeds and setups.  Many people use noticeably flat reeds to make their low register speak more easily.  Some use very heavy reeds to make their sound rich.  The best players make me completely forget that they have reeds at all.  I notice their music-making and their ownership of the stage.

One of the most difficult things here is to keep my mind on what is going on.  There are so many events happening simultaneously that I find myself flipping through my program book as soon as I sit down and trying to plan what I will attend next - even as someone is coming on stage right in front of me.   There’s a constant sense that I’m missing something - and I am - but it doesn’t help anyone for me to sit there doubting my choice.  When I catch myself, I stop and force myself to enjoy the now - which is always enjoyable, after all.

Highlights of the day:  The Goldberg Variations as performed by John Dee, Tim McGovern, and a couple of IU grad students.  Keve Wilson’s spectacular cabaret oboe performance.  I super-duper want her dress, and her gumption.  And her hair, maybe.  Really the whole package was great.  I heard two back-to-back recitals in which I loved one piece but not its performance, and adored another’s presentation but didn’t like the piece.  

I had a Body Mapping session with Stephen Caplan, the author of Oboemotions, which I’ve raved about before.  As it turns out, I don’t think about my arms correctly.  I love love love having something new to work on.  No one has ever mentioned my arms before.  My arms are going to be better than anyone else’s arms very soon.  Then nothing will stop me.


I wandered the exhibition hall for as long as I could stand the noise.  Play-tested a million oboes, and have now narrowed down my short list to a Howarth XL, a Bulgheroni Opera or Musa, another Yamaha with a lined top joint, or maybe possibly a Marigaux 901.  In other words, I have just made my next oboe shopping experience a great deal more difficult and expensive than it was going to be. 

On the whole a full and good day.  This conference runs through Wednesday night and I suspect I will not make it that long.  It’s nice to have my car here and know that I could escape at any time.   But at least for now I am content, and ready to face another Double Reed day tomorrow.


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