ProneOboe

Last night as my student performed a terrific degree recital, she gave a speech in which she thanked her friends, her parents, her teachers, her mentors.  It was beautiful.  She mentioned me, very sweetly, and then blew my mind when she cited my upcoming resignation from her school as an inspiration.  I had been feeling much more guilty than inspiring. I am about three weeks out from graduating all of my private students away.  I'm leaving one of my several adjunct teaching positions, and I am not going to be teaching weekly oboe lessons in my home anymore. My teaching time next year will be more than cut in half.  I am reclaiming - no, claiming - some work-life balance. It's not, objectively, that huge a deal.  Most of the students leaving me really are graduating from school and moving on.  The actual number of young oboists I'm orphaning is only three, and I've directed them to other good teachers. But at the same time, this decision feels ENO...

When we started the opera cycle ( An American Dream,  showing at the Harris Theater tonight and Sunday afternoon), the four woodwinds were sitting stacked in a rehearsal room.  In other words, the flute to my right, the bassoon behind me, the clarinet behind the flute, just like in the orchestra.  And it was OK.  We were fairly close together, the room was resonant, and we were working on orchestral details.  But when we moved into the pit, this seating felt VERY isolating.  The four of us were far apart, on two different levels, the wall was right next to me, and intonation and ensemble were very much more difficult.  Our entrances and releases were not clean together, and because we had to balance to the singers on stage, I found my playing getting more and more tentative.  Don't be too loud, don't come in early before the clarinet, keep everything in the box, try to lead the entrances but stay in the texture... And it felt like everything that...

This was supposed to be a terrible week. I was going to have five late nights and 6 early mornings all in a row, and I had 17 students on my books and on three of these nights I was going to have to teach right up until the instant of my departure time, book out of the house or college, and drive like a maniac to be on time for my rehearsal.  Obviously, I also had to make and mail a hundred or so reeds over the course of the week, because that's always true. I've lived this week before, plenty of times.  It's just the thing that happens when a particular kind of gig schedule bumps up against my daughter being in elementary school, and both coincide with the completely regular teaching that I have - and enjoy - and rely on financially for the off weeks.  I know very well both how frazzled and frantic I feel as the week is going on, and what a zombie I am by the end of it, running on insufficient sleep night after night.  I know how it feels to drag myself through th...

I do a lot in my life and career, as I have discussed before .  And every bit of it is something I have taken on intentionally, at some point, and every bit of it is something that I enjoy - but still sometimes it gets overwhelming.  Just as you should balance your checkbook every month and your investment portfolio every year - or so I read -  I have to periodically find a way to rebalance all of the balls I keep in the air in my life. My income comes from three main sources - performance, teaching, and my reed business.  My time has more claims on than that, of course, because of non-income-producing but important things like interacting with my husband and daughter, exercising for my own health, and practicing and writing which are sort of a part of my job but are mostly my own creative outlets. This year I have had a lot of wonderful performance opportunities, including my Mozart concerto, several enjoyable chamber music concerts, our ballet tour to NYC, and ...

I work all the time.  In addition to teaching and making reeds, I play in a different orchestra almost every week.  Most nights find me out in a rehearsal or a concert.  Different repertoire each week, different colleagues, a different commute.  I take it all in my stride. But sometimes there's a gig that is clearly special.  That is worth getting really excited and happy about.  That gig happened last week. Steve and I got to spend a week in New York City, playing Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet with the Joffrey Ballet at Lincoln Center, to packed and enthusiastic houses, with a great orchestra , being paid well.  It was fantastic, spectacular music which was genuinely fun to play every time, and it was the greatest city in the world.  This gig felt like the best EVER band trip, in that I got to do it as an adult with grownup social skills, sovereignty over my free time, and real money, instead of as a painfully introverted 15-year-old being d...

I wrote a post last year on the difference a power pose made to one of my high school students.  Standing in an authoritative position made her immediately less apologetic, more authoritative, more confident and competent. I LOVED this, and I believe that as women we should be using our body language to telegraph our pride in ourselves.  I'm always coaching my students to take up MORE physical space as they play. To own the room if they are soloing.  To act like musicians worth listening to. However. Zoe recently turned seven and started second grade.  She also hit a growth spurt - although she's still a tiny girl, and small for her age, she has suddenly begun to have the mass of a real human, rather than a fairy or a sprite, and when she crashes her body into mine it hurts, and when she bumps into things they fall over, and when she walks through the room the floor shakes.  Just like everybody else, but not like her first six years. Suddenly I'm always...

Zoe just turned seven and she requested a big party and we threw her one.  Parties are fun.  And there's always more people you can invite - between her friends and our friends, all the brothers and sisters of her friends, people who live in town and people who live out of town - it turned into a big event. I bought lots of food.  I went to Costco and bought LOTS of snack foods and meats and paper plates and beers.  I planned recipes.  I spent two days prepping marinades, making gallons of potato salad, learning a new crock-pot baked bean recipe, making a gluten free cake.  When I say it, it actually doesn't sound like an unreasonable amount of effort - but new recipes always feel a little harder than the tried and true ones, and cooking for thirty feels more intimidating than cooking for three.  I like to cook. But it was a lot. So on the day of the party, my sister and brother-in-law came in a little early, and my uncle.  We were chatting, a...

I'm playing with the Chicago Philharmonic for the Chicago Opera Theater's production of Lucio Silla, an early Mozart opera that I had truly never heard of before.  It's charming, in an early Mozart kind of way, and the singers sound wonderful and so does the orchestra.  If you like nearly incomprehensible historical storylines and impressive coloratura and light, elegant, beautifully played orchestral accompaniments, this show is for you.  We open next Saturday - details HERE . But I wanted to talk about logistics. Every week is different for a family of freelance musicians.  Sometimes we can take turns watching Zoe at home, sometimes we can hire sitters for a few hours as we work in town - and sometimes it's very complicated. Often our gigs are nearby, or at venues with convenient parking lots, but sometimes they are not. On Saturday I had a three hour opera rehearsal in Chicago.  It was the only thing on my calendar and the venue should have been less...

When you play notes that are close together, playing in tune is not that hard.  You don't have to change a lot - a finger or two, a minuscule difference in voicing with your air or embouchure.  You can pretty much do it mechanically, without thinking.  When the interval you're going for gets bigger, though, more is required.  On the oboe you really have to think about what your mouth and your air are doing.  If you jump up into the upper register everything needs to be more supported and you have to roll in on the reed- not too much, but just exactly enough - and blow more - not too much, but just exactly enough - and resonate a different part of your head to truly get the note you want. In the Cimarosa Concerto , which two of my students were just working on for our year-end recital, there's a passage that repeatedly leaps the octave from middle C to high C.  The fingerings are easy but those two notes are both terrifying ones to try to play in tune. ...

Zoe is five, and irresponsible in the way that young kids are.  If I send her to clean her room or get dressed to go outside, there’s no way that it will get done without direct supervision.  Sometimes toothbrushing goes all right independently, and specific, fun chores like feeding the cat, when I remind her - but she’s not ready for adulthood yet.  I woke up too early yesterday morning.  Well, I had set an extra alarm to make sure that I got up - and I got up to the wrong one, the early one.  It felt terrible.  I had come in from teaching at a reasonable hour, but by the time Steve and I got caught up over a lovely glass of wine and by the time I had finished winding up 12 more reeds, it was late, and I was tired, and when my 6:30 alarm went off I forgot that it was the pre-alarm and I got up and headed for the kitchen, with Zoe trailing gamely behind me. I started the kettle boiling for coffee, and then I noticed the oven clock, and realized that I could...

You’ve heard before that Zoe is struggling with the cello. It turns out that not every week is as fun as the first week.  And we almost caved and let her quit a few months ago, which I’m sure would have been a relief to her teacher.  We’ve been dragging through this semester, waiting for summer and a much-needed break.  And then last week we went to her lesson and she ACED it.  Had a huge breakthrough with her counting and plucking, got to play a little bit of a duet with her teacher.  Seemed to be re-inspired.  Has had better practice sessions ever since.  I have a high school student who can’t count.  Has NO rhythm or internal pulse.  We’ve been banging our heads against the walls all year trying to solve this problem.  She’s an adept mimic, which is how she’s made it through the system this long - if I play something for her she can play it right back, and if she hears a lick in band often enough she can approximate it pretty well....

It is Spring Break.  Because I teach in so many places, and am not myself a student, this milestone has rarely been meaningful to me - so what if six of my kids are out of school in a given week?  I still have to teach the rest.  But this week is Zoe’s Spring Break, and last week was one of the hardest I’ve had so far this season, and MERELY not having to drag a grumpy girl out of bed at seven each morning feels like a vacation.  Added to that, I’ve canceled all of my private students, even those who DON’T have break this week, and added to THAT, I have a fun concert to play in which I am not the boss of anything, and you can see why I am practically giddy with the freedom of it all. I have always found myself to be two different people - one socially, and one professionally, with an oboe in my hand.  I am naturally an introvert and draw all of my energy from being at home and being alone.  But I act the extrovert very well.  Performing is my favor...

I love to work.  I’m happy playing in orchestras, and would gladly do so every single week, but some weeks are slow, and some months.  I enjoy teaching.  The challenge of finding the right words to inspire incremental improvements in many different people is a fascinating one which uses many facets of my brain and gives me pleasure.  I am proud of my reed business.  It’s grown enormously since I started it 16 years ago, and I get to pour my entrepreneurial spirit into it.  Plus, I pretty much always have good reeds to play on since I’m making so many every day.  I love my annual recital tour, which keeps me learning (and inventing) new repertoire and gives me my spotlight fix.  And I’m ecstatic about Musicians for Michiana, my new chamber music series, which is forging new connections in the community and just being a lot of fun along the way.  I also adore my daughter, and here’s the challenge.  When the orchestra work is slow, I worry ...

I am excited to get back to work this weekend with the South Bend Symphony.  It’s been a long vacation.  We welcomed it, and made good use of it- some traveling and a lot of sleeping, mostly, but every day is fun with Zoe. We made Hide and Seek Muffins and French Toast and Ice Cream out of Snow, and played innumerable games of Uno, and hiked and shoveled when the weather permitted and watched movies when it didn’t.   Our family needed the break desperately, but after three snow days - right as school was supposed to begin again - extended our vacation another week I am intensely ready to get back to a routine of regular orchestra work.  My private students all came back this week, and the college kids will start up soon - but the playing is really what it’s about, isn’t it?  So we go back to work tomorrow morning.  This will be the first non-Christmas orchestral playing I’ve done since mid-November!  I hope I remember how to maintain a tempo...

Things have not been going all that well in Zoe’s cello lessons.  She’s only had a couple of months worth, and I wasn’t so sure even before we started that she was ready.   And in the first few lessons all my suspicions were borne out - she was all over the place, poking around her teacher’s studio and playing with toys and asking irrelevant questions instead of focusing.  I was embarrassed and infuriated.  After the excitement of the first week wore off, she never picked her cello up to practice it at home.  I would ask her to practice and she would put it off, and then not do it at all.  Clearly Zoe did not want to play the cello.  I realized only recently that it’s completely my fault.  How on earth did it take me this long?  I know how music lessons work.  I teach as many as 25 lessons a week, and I’ve been doing it for years.  Students come in for a period of time and pay attention and learn, and we can be friendly b...

Zoe got herself lost in the grocery store again today. “Mommy, can I look at that?” she cried over her shoulder as she scampered off.  I continued to shop.  Ten minutes later I was paged and collected her from the service desk - she had found a nice lady with kids, asked for help, and given her name and address and my name and indeed the grownup did know what to do and everything worked out just like it was supposed to.  Again. Zoe’s never liked to ride in the cart - she’s an active person and doesn’t want to be pushed luxuriously through the store as someone else does all the shopping.  This would be yet another way that we are different, I suppose.  So we instituted the Shopping Rules, which she knows well and can quote to me as we enter any place of business.   She is not to touch things, not to run away, and most importantly to STAY WHERE SHE CAN SEE ME.  I liked this rule because it put the burden of staying close with her instead of me....

School has started!  I now have FOUR GLORIOUS HOURS of uninterrupted grownup time every day where before I had to fight and beg and bribe for every minute of practice and reed work and thought that I got.  I’m already planning my approach.  I read a book this summer: Laura Vanderkam’s “168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think”.  I’m not exactly recommending it - there are plenty of spectacular productivity books out there and this was not at all one of the best - but I was inspired by her way of considering the week in terms of total hours - so that you can decide how to spend your time over a longer block than a day or an hour. It’s a little bit obvious - that if a week is composed of 168 hours you can choose how to spread your work and life out within that time, and plan hours for sleeping, working out, cooking, and DOING GOOD WORK.  But somehow I’ve never thought of it that way - as a big chart instead of a little one.  I often feel bad if I don’t ge...

I’m on vacation this week, up at our family’s camp on Lake Carmi.  This place always makes me think of the Tarot, as it was here that I first learned to read the cards.  Though it’s been over a year since I’ve had time to touch a deck, I love the early morning reflection of a daily card, especially here where the world is peaceful and beautiful (and everyone else sleeps in). This morning I drew the Five of Cups, which is an unusual card for me.  It’s about regret - looking at what you’ve done and wishing it had been different.  This is totally foreign to my personality.  On the rare occasions I’ve seen that card - most often in readings for other people, I have focused almost exclusively on the two full cups in the background.  Don’t dwell on the past!  I point out.  There’s so much more to see and do and LIVE than the three spilled cups - look around and find the joy instead of the sorrow. But this morning I think the other aspect of the card is ...

Zoe and I went for a Big Wheel walk.  In other words, she big wheeled, I walked.  We traveled around our tiny neighborhood block once.  First, she pressed a “button” on the handlebars and asked Siri for directions to the corner.  “Siri, take me to the corner please - directions for Zoe Ingle.”  She listened intently for a moment and then we were off. Before we even made it to the corner, she was Tigger, and pretended that her big wheel was bouncy. She found a little branch that had fallen off a pine tree, and explained that if I waved it from side to side it was red, but up and down made it green.  We then had a “rally race” which consisted of a lot of flags and stopping and starting.  She stopped and hung her head.  She was a sad Minnie Mouse, because it was “raining a robot rain and her bike basket got wet.”   We pressed a “button” to magically dry her bike basket. She drove intentionally into a yard, and became a sad Minnie Mouse,...

Building right onto my last post , may I say that I am thrilled and slightly intimidated by the amount of exciting, terrific, and difficult repertoire I have coming up in the next few weeks? This Monday we in the South Bend Symphony are presenting our annual tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, over at the campus of IUSB, and because we try to feature the work of African-American composers and because African-American composers are by definition not nineteenth-century European composers, we get to play new music!  This year I am most excited about Adolphus Hailstork’s An American Port of Call .  It uses the orchestra to portray the sounds of a busy harbor city, and the licks in my part are tricky and rhythmic and fun.  I can’t wait to start rehearsals tomorrow. Next weekend we’ve got a Chamber concert, featuring our outstanding principal clarinetist in the Copland Concerto , and although I am not playing that work I do get to do Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony .  No...