Skip to main content

COMMUNICATING Through the Mask

I was just trying to pick up my kid’s prescription at the pharmacy.

No, it’s INGLE.  EYE ENN GEE ELLL EEEE.  

Between the mask covering half my face and the plexiglass barrier, I was almost reduced to charades as I tried to communicate a simple order.  

And we’ve all discovered this lately, I’m sure.  When you are wearing a mask and trying to speak with someone else, you have to enunciate MUCH more than normal.  You have to slow down and say all of the words distinctly.  You might have to rephrase, to use more distinctive sounding words.  Expressive eyebrows are helpful.  It takes EFFORT to communicate in this age of COVID.

But you know what? We HAVE this skill already.  As performers, we know what it is to have to heighten our affect and PROJECT our intentions beyond our bodies.  We know that although we FEEL the music deeply within ourselves, that feeling doesn’t necessarily translate to an audience unless we SEND it there. 

Practicing in my room, I can mumble.  I can let the work I’m doing with my fingers and tongue in a technical passage be the only thing I care about, or can gloss over the “boring” parts that I already know.  I can let the dynamics all be relative, all sort of related to MF, if my focus is not on them. 

But once I’m in front of an audience, whether that’s in a formal hall (remember those?) or a classroom (right?) or even just in front of Zoom demonstrating something for a student or giving a livestream recital - once I’m performing for someone else, it’s no longer about me. It’s about COMMUNICATION. 

It takes real energy to get your musical ideas OUT of your body, THROUGH the oboe, and ACROSS space TO another person.  At the best of times this is difficult - I used to say things in lessons like, “I see a diminuendo on the page, and I SORT of even heard it.  But I’m sitting five feet from you, I’m looking at the music, and I’m being paid to give you my undivided attention right now.  Would anyone else have believed you did it?”  

Now I say things like, “Zoom is weird, and if you tell me you did a huge exaggerated dynamic change between that Forte and that Piano I will take you at your word.  But I sure didn’t hear it.  Can you make me believe in your dynamic plan?”   And you know what? They can.  Zoom IS weird, but you can communicate through it, it just takes more energy than you expect. 

And this is the point.  We’re not in a normal time right now, but the lessons we’re learning from performing and teaching on line AND from striving for connection in a locked down world can take us forward into the future.  Push yourself to reach out harder, to communicate better. Might we emerge from this time as MORE GENEROUS PERFORMERS? 

It’s just like speaking through a mask. Put extra energy into your communication style these days - and put that extra energy into performing on your instrument, always!  

The musical connection, the HUMAN connection? It's WORTH the effort.  

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