ProneOboe

In our dress rehearsal Saturday morning I became aware of just how GREAT my reed was. It felt so EASY to play the oboe.   I could come in perfectly softly, with or without a strong attack.   I could enter loudly and in tune, with or without accent.   My pitch was centered, my tone was attractive.   I could taper right off the ends of notes EXACTLY as I needed to.   And all of these things just felt RIGHT.   It’s so unusual to have a reed that I didn’t have to MANAGE, that I didn’t have to keep an awareness of in the back of my head, that I didn’t have to massage in certain registers or dynamics.   I could just THINK a musical gesture and then DO it, without compromise.   It was a fantastic feeling. RIGHT IMMEDIATELY behind that awareness of my great reed came anxiety.   How terrible would it feel when I inevitably had to return to a lesser reed?   When this one died?   How could I ever make something THIS GOOD again? ...

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash In rehearsal last night, the concertmaster suggested to the strings that they play with a more open bow arm. I don’t know precisely what that phrase means to a string player - if it’s a technical term or more of a kinetic metaphor - but it immediately set my mind spinning. When I am playing my best, I do feel open. I feel that there’s a lovely big halo of air around me, like the space surrounding me is part of the physical act. I feel spaciousness in my chest and softness in my elbows and I’m grounded through my chair or my feet but everything else is lifted and filled with air and space and ROOM. I have open arms. This sensation - or the lack of it - stood out to me in my first Dreams and Visions performance last week. I have since listened back to the recording, and honestly things didn’t go all that badly - but I FELT bad in the moment. I started getting a lot of water in the instrument, I got flustered, and I got into...