ProneOboe

 For oboists, endurance is a huge problem.  We can play an endlessly long phrase, because of the way the instrument is constructed, but we can really only do that a few times in a row before our embouchure starts to get fatigued.  We develop a buildup of air that feels exhausting to hold onto, and the thought of sustaining that kind of energy over  an entire page of music, much less a 45 minute recital program, is intimidating.    There's almost always a lesson, a week or two before a jury or a recital, where my student comes in and says, "I just can't DO this! I can play every detail in my music, but I can't put the whole thing together!  My mouth comes right off the oboe when I try - I'm going to fall apart in front of the audience, and it's going to be terrible!"  Look, I'm putting this on my students now - but there's a moment a week or so before MY performances that feels exactly the same! I have not outgrown this moment of panic. And at that...

After my concerto performance last June, I was chatting with a lovely woman from the audience.   “It’s not like you’re blowing through the oboe,” she said.   People are always interested in the AIR, and I had just finished talking about circular breathing with someone else.   So I was sure I knew what she was about to say, but I was wrong.   “It’s as though you’re sending your very soul through it.”   Needless to say, this statement floored me.   Because it was so poetic and lovely, and because it made the work I had just done - a real physical effort, right? - seem like a greater good, somehow.   Because it actually felt incredibly resonant to the way I think about the oboe, and about air and breathing and support, and was just such a perfect and efficient way to say the thing I always struggle to describe.   On the physical side, I relate very well to the verb “sending”, compared to the word “blowing”.   To blow f...

I've had five different concerts in a row this past four weeks, and for three of them I was not playing principal.  Which meant that I got to sit back and enjoy watching someone else sweat the tuning notes. Maybe everyone doesn't find the tuning A as stressful as I do - certainly no one I've played with seems anxious about it or sounds bad in any way. But I've struggled to find a consistent approach.  It's not the pitch itself - I know what A 440 feels like in my body and on my instrument and I can produce it on demand.  No, it's the attack. What an ugly word, attack.  But that's sometimes what it feels like.  The concertmaster stands up, and suddenly NOW, NOW is the moment and I have to make the sound instantly. I know how to gently start a note.  I know how to support into the center of the pitch and I know how to stabilize it with my air and not my embouchure so it sounds full and unshakeable and confident.  But somehow when on the spot I ca...

I love breathing. I love how cold air feels coming into my nose and I love how on a warm humid evening the air feels soft in my body. I love that I can turn a simple breath into a quiet space of personal calm.  I love that my breath powers me when I run.  I love that I can breathe with intention to start a piece of music or breathe rhythmically to cement my body to the ground as I draw an arrow back in a bow or breathe deeply to find my center and connect to my intuition. Stringed instruments are amazing, and I admire people who have studied and practiced and worked for years to make pieces of lifeless wood really come alive and sing.  But to make music with your breath is another element of intimacy.  It makes the whole thing seem more human. People frequently comment on my lung capacity after a solo performance.  They ask about how I practice breathing, and say that I must work out, and are amazed that I can play phrases as long as I do. In part, this ...