ProneOboe

(Part One HERE ) (Similar story HERE ) Mercifully, THIS one didn't happen to me.  But my poor student was playing an audition for his orchestra, and reached up with his right hand to turn the page of his music.  And heard a "plink".  And when, a split second later, he returned his hand to his oboe to continue playing, he found that his entire thumb rest had fallen off onto the floor, leaving only the post it had been mounted to. With his hand now contorted uncomfortably, he finished the audition - ably, I am sure - and tracked down the crucial little piece of metal.  Evidently the screw that secures the adjustable thumb rest into its most optimal position had come out - never to be found again - so the thumb rest itself now can escape at will. He devised a workaround - teflon tape to keep the thing in - but let this be a lesson to all of us. Seriously, the oboe is not your friend.  It's like a cat trying to slip out the door - it's just WAITING for ...

I talk a lot about warmups.  How important they are. How you can do all of your practicing on warmups and get better at the oboe.  How sometimes scales and long tones are all you need. That's not totally true, though, or at least not for me.  Abstract oboe practicing is important but it's not the only thing. We went to a party and it solved all of my oboe problems. I have been struggling lately to know who I am in my playing.  We came home from IDRS three weeks ago - while there I drew inspiration from everywhere and had loads of very good ideas about how to improve myself and ways I could choose to sound.  I did not have any real practice time in which to realize these good ideas.  I also bought a new oboe which feels and sounds very different from my current one. Then we immediately went on vacation for two weeks, and I came back to a huge reed backlog which I've just now mostly cleared up. And then for a week I played oboe d'amore - the small...

Today was another amazing day at Lawrence University in Appleton.  I sat riveted as Aaron Hill put four students through Ferling Etudes in an enjoyable and inspiring masterclass.  One of my students played for him and I was SO proud of her, and delighted to hear his suggestions to her. I love attending masterclasses because I always hear so much that I can use! Sometimes it's suggestions that I can incorporate into my own playing, sometimes a turn of phrase that I love for my own teaching, sometimes a concept I had not considered.  I loved, for example, the way he released a student's tense throat by having her intentionally repeat the bad thing before finding the good thing.  I loved the way he worked on rubato - he had a student conduct by "bouncing a basketball that you always expect to come back up" and then fit all of the notes into the bounce.  Lovely, right?  And actionable. I heard the great Nermis Mieses present a spectacular Silvestrini solo p...

For sale:   Loree oboe, AK Bore, serial # RJ XX.  I bought this oboe new in 2008- from Carlos Coelho - and played it as my primary oboe for two years.  Since then it has been a reliable back-up instrument.  I keep it well maintained, because oboes  are unreliable beasts.  My back-up oboes don't sit in a closet, they travel with me to gigs and teaching and are always ready to be pressed into use. RJ  did crack, extensively, the first year that I had it.  But since being pinned and inserted by Carlos Coelho, those cracks have been perfectly stable and trouble-free.  It was fully serviced about a year ago by the great Sue Shockey, and is working beautifully. This Loree is slim and agile.  It has a dark sound, but is beautifully flexible - I can make it bright, make it dark, make it sing or shout.  The scale is even and the high register leaps out strongly and proudly.  It plays in tune.  I have loved it for yea...

So this happened.  We were playing a quintet concert in a library the other day, and I didn't quite like the way my oboe was aligned.  Some of the keys on the lower joint affect vents and pads on the upper joint, and the instrument wasn't responding quite right, and I knew exactly the microscopic adjustment I needed to make in the way those two joints had twisted together.  This happens frequently, and I was ready to fix it and move on. So I twisted the joints. I over-corrected a little. Tried to go back - and the oboe was stuck. Untwistable. I tried wiggling it, twisting the other way, clockwise, counterclockwise - nothing.  And what had been a slightly inconvenient little technical glitch was suddenly an unplayable oboe, and my colleague was just about to finish his speech and introduce the next piece. But I already know that the oboe is not my friend , and I nearly always carry a spare instrument, and I was able to pull it out, slap the reed on, and be ready t...

I'm in Columbus, Georgia at the International Double Reed Society conference this week, after taking a year off and NOT flying to Tokyo for last year's event.  It's amazing to be back. An IDRS conference is not a relaxing affair.  Every hour is double and triple and quadruple booked. It's impossible to see everything I want to see, and I find myself leafing through my program frantically the MINUTE I sit down at a recital, wondering what I'm going to next and even whether I dare to sit all the way to the end of this one. Inevitably I have to choose whether to see a friend perform or hear a lecture I am interested in or soak in some learning at a masterclass.  And somehow I have to carve out enough time to buy ALL OF THE THREAD COLORS at the exhibit hall.  It's very stressful. The great thing about double reed players is how amazingly supportive we are of each other.  Flutists can be mean at their convention, or so I hear.  But the oboe and bassoon are j...

I talk so blithely about how the oboe is not your friend . How it is a different instrument every day .  How complicated and annoying those tiny reeds are.  In our quintet concerts this week I commiserated openly with the high school oboists in the audience, and told whole classes of kids that REEDS are the hardest thing about the oboe. Which is not untrue, but I can say it so easily, and write about it so preachily, because most of the time I privately believe that I am past it.  I make so many reeds that SOMETHING will almost always work, and I have the skills and savvy to cover for most deficiencies and the showmanship to perform through reed inadequacies.  At this point in my career, it's pretty easy to be "good enough" in any given performance, and I'm always striving for the more elusive "great" or "awesome".  It's been a long time since I had to fight my way note by note through a concert, hyperaware of every register shift and a...

I am in Illinois this week for the Peoria Bach Festival, with concerts tonight and tomorrow night.  As always, I love this festival.  Love the challenges of jumping between three instruments, love playing my oboe d'amore anytime.  I love playing for the music director, John Jost, who has this music in his heart and communicates it so effectively and effortlessly to us that I feel it in mine as well. Details HERE Out of town gigs used to be the norm for me - when we first lived in Chicago I played principal with the Illinois Symphony , which necessitated regular five-day stays in Springfield with a host family.  My husband and I frequently took jobs several hours from home, staying with local people and getting to know them. This was fun in its way, of course. These gigs always necessitated long days of time-killing - we'd practice and work out, and then we'd read, or shop, or drink coffee.  In my home I can do busy work every minute and still end the day f...

I'm writing my Day Two report while all of my colleagues and friends, new and old, are well into their Day Three experience.  I was terribly sad to leave NYC, and IDRS.  In past years I've found myself sort of oboe-ed out by the third or fourth day, but I was nowhere near that point last night when I had to begin my schlep to the airport.  On the up side, I am home and spent the morning with Zoe and Steve, and I'm safely on the correct side of Lake Michigan well before my concert tonight, which was the important purpose of my travel plans - but there are SO MANY MORE great events happening at NYU.  Best of luck to everyone performing! Yesterday, among other performances, I enjoyed THREE recitals featuring music for oboe and bassoon.  Be prepared for a husband-wife recital coming down the pike in the next year or two, as I loved much of the new music that I heard.  First I enjoyed hearing ToniMarie Marchioni and two of her colleagues from the University ...

If I had an English horn job, I would get a lot more reading done.  I like playing the thing fine, and I even don’t mind schlepping it around since I got my BAM Ultralight case a few years ago.  I don’t love making the reeds, but once made they last a really long time and I could get used to that. What I will never grow to like is the sitting around.  There’s always a pretty solo for the English horn somewhere, but waiting for my piece and then waiting for my entrance gets old pretty fast.  But on the upside, I’ve finished two New Yorker s today, and the stack of unread reads in my room is shrinking nicely this week.  If I did this regularly, there's no telling how caught up I might be with my life.  AND, we have another concert tomorrow.  This week for me is the Illinois Philharmonic, in a concert of Bernstein and Prokofiev, which I love, and Glazunov, which I read during.  Fun program.  Beautiful music.  Details HERE . 

You know how, in E.T.:The Extra-Terrestrial , E.T. and Elliott are psychically connected, and then ultimately physiologically connected, and when ET gets sick from the unfriendly atmosphere of the Earth, Elliott gets sick too, and then eventually they both magically recover? I would not have thought that I had that sort of connection with my oboe.  I’ve been subbing with the (amazing, excellent, inspiring) Milwaukee Symphony this week, and it’s been rough going for my new oboe and me.  I’ve been struggling to fit in with the group.  Most surprising to me were several low attacks that I really expected my Bulgheroni to carry off with aplomb.  I kept over- or under-blowing them and missing ever so slightly, and I was annoyed at myself, and super self-conscious about it.  And then annoyed that I was making so big a deal about myself, to myself, and then I would make more mistakes.  Thursday morning, after two long days of hard commutes, I finally had time to g...

I don’t often attend symphony concerts.  I love them from my side of the footlights, but when it comes to paying a babysitter to go out in the evening, or even just leaving the house after dinner, I can’t see it.  I listen to music, but usually only to learn a specific work.  I love the oboe.  I love what I do.  I love the collaborative experience of making music - but I don’t care that much for passive listening. And that makes me wonder why ANYONE attends a concert.  I am not the first person to raise this question, I know.  The audience is declining, the audience is graying, the audience is giving up on us.  This is the perpetual refrain of orchestra management, and organizations are cutting back and even closing their doors all over the country now.  We talk about improving the concert experience, making the Symphony Orchestra less of a stuffy, tuxedo-clad institution and more of an event to go out to.  We argue about the rela...

This Sunday, we’re performing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the University of Chicago, in the venerable Rockefeller Chapel, with a terrific orchestra and choir and soloists.  Playing music this great is a pleasure that never gets old.  I’ve done this piece many times, but this is the first time I’ve sat at the bottom of the section, playing Second English horn. The first best thing about this is that I get to listen to a LOT of great playing while I wait for my movements.  The orchestra is marvelous, and I adore my oboe colleagues, who make the difficult solos and duets sound simply effortless.  The second best thing is that I enjoy the challenge of playing the English horn, which is far from my main instrument.  What I love, generally, about the English horn is how easy it is to sound good on it.  Much of the orchestral music written for the instrument is soloistic, and it has such a pretty sound, and you get to blow so satisfyingly through it, rather than ...

Yesterday our outdoor concert moved indoors, due to torrential rain, and because we were inside and climate-controlled I could not resist playing my new oboe.  Yes, I bought a new oboe.  Just a few days ago.  A Bulgheroni Opera model, and I was pretty sure I loved it - but playing alone in your room for a week is a great way to talk yourself into some doubts.  I was eager to get it out in public, just to make sure that it was a team player.  After all, I could play the oboe in tune with my tuner, but matching with other players is another factor altogether.  Did every note have the flexibility I needed?  Would I be able to easily change the sound to blend with a flute or a trumpet or to bring a solo line forward?  Was it easy to USE, in other words?  I knew I liked it in isolation but needed to know how much it would fight me in the orchestra. And it was great.  I know I’ll write more about this instrument as I get to know it better - bu...

I had a conversation recently with a dear friend, a wonderful professional flutist with a great job.  She was frustrated by her lack of success in a recent audition, and complained that some days she just couldn’t seem to make the flute do what she wanted.  The sound would be off and the attacks not where she expected them to be.  Maybe it was nerves, maybe just muscles and normal day-to-day human variability, but it had cost her more than one audition and she was at a loss as to how to address it.  My first response is that that problem sounded like the exact one oboists face every day.  Each morning when I pick up the instrument my reed might be fantastic or might feel like two two-by-fours strapped together.  I might have total control in every register or might be fighting a recalcitrant instrument.  Most often there is some kind of tradeoff - I select the reed that plays well in tune but is risky on low register attacks, or I use the one that resp...

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....

Remember how Yamaha made me better ?  Here's another awesome example of the same phenomenon. I have a very young student who has been struggling to get her oboe playing off the ground.  She's hampered by the dreadful instrument rented to her by the local music store.  The "oboe" she has does not sound good, which is not too unreasonable as few fifth grade oboists sound good on anything.  Regrettably, it also does not work.  If I adjust it carefully myself, turning all of the little screws (which are loose and wobbly in their holes anyway) to their most perfect positions, and then put a good reed on and CRANK my fingers down really hard, I can make that thing play almost all of the notes it should.  When she does it, the oboe basically thumbs its nose at her and refuses.  As a result, the feedback loop she needs is totally severed.  When she looks at her music, and translates the dot she sees into an F, say, and remembers the fingering, and then tr...

The Yamaha oboe has made me better.  No doubt everyone is tired of hearing me rhapsodize about this instrument, but it's revolutionized my approach. I can just play, and if I do my job right it does its job too.  Believing that my oboe will work every time makes me relax. I have always feared low attacks, but with this instrument, my new reed style, and my new articulation technique I don't any more.  The exciting revelation, though, came very recently.  My Yamaha cracked while I was playing 3rd oboe and English horn in Milwaukee several weeks ago.  I quickly sent it down to Carlos Coelho, who pinned it, sealed it, and put inserts in the tone holes. I got it back as good as new, and played it for several more concerts, including Extase this past weekend.  When I pulled it out Monday morning, the pre-existing crack had opened wide and a large new one had materialized.  My pretty oboe is on a truck now, on its way to service. So now I am in Milwaukee ag...

So I had this oboe .  I bought it because it called to me through the internet.  I liked it, then I liked it a lot, then I liked it less.  I decided to sell it .  Two people tried it, and both seemed to like it but declined to buy it.  It came back and sat on my shelf for a few weeks, until I pulled it out to see what I still had. And suddenly it's the best oboe in my collection!  I love it for my Chen concerto because it is so easy to double tongue even in the lower register and to pop high notes out and to sustain a note forever.  I love it to play second oboe because it is so easy to sneak in low and quietly.  I love it in my recent Big Band concert because the keys feel so small and neat under my fingers that I can lay down the complicated jazz rhythms without having to fret about my fingers - I know that's a weird statement but if I don't have to worry about the oboe I can focus much better on the music.  I loved it even in a big masterw...

So I've been practicing a ton on the English horn. It's fun. I have to say, I think oboists have the best auxiliary instrument in the orchestra - flutes have to play piccolo which hurts the ears, clarinets and bassoons have really heavy things to carry when they double on their auxiliaries - except for the Eb clarinet, which is just silly. And as I was practicing away I started to really struggle. The low register just wasn't speaking well. So I readjusted. All of those crazy little tiny screws on the instrument regulate the keys and pads and their relationships to each other, and members of the oboe family are notoriously finicky about well, everything. Changes in temperature or humidity, moisture touching the pads, someone looking at them sideways - it's easy to mess up those little adjustments. So I fixed it, and things were okay again. I went to my Tuesday recording session, and there were only a few bars of EH, but again I was struggling. The attacks weren...