ProneOboe

Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom -Leonardo da Vinci The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution - Igor Stravinsky Sometimes constraints actually create success. Not being able to swim made me run.   And running taught me the discipline I needed as a writer - Malcolm Gladwell I bought a printer this summer.   I bought it specifically to carry in the camper with us when we took our long national parks vacation.   It was the smallest, lightest, simplest printer I could find that did what I needed - it printed in color or black and white on letter size paper, period.   With it, I was able to run my reed business from the road, and it took up barely any space, and weighed almost nothing, and it was also white and cute. I loved it for the freedom it gave me - to mail reed shipments from anywhere - and for its adorable design factor. ...

Happy New Year, everyone! I know I fell off this blog at the end of the year - the schedule got overwhelming and getting my CD released took up a lot of my time.  But I'm back now.  I love the oboe, I love writing, and I love you all. Over the holiday Steve and I visited the Smoky Mountain Knife Works .  It's on that giant, congested strip of attractions in Sevierville, TN, and it's a very... outdoorsy store, so I didn't have high expectations of finding anything for me.  But ooooh we had a great time.  I've never seen so many knives and tools and the staff were super knowledgeable and friendly and helpful and we were there for hours learning and shopping. The inexpensive folding pocket reed knife I purchased didn't end up working out for me.  It had the right shape, and I loved the size, and I felt like a real bada$$ whipping it out of my pocket to scrape a reed - but once I started really working I couldn't keep an edge on it and fell out of love pre...

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...

When it comes right down to performance time, what do you do to get ready to perform?  What are the notes that you play or the things that you think?  How do you set yourself up for success? My students are all preparing for our annual spring recital.  We've had our final lessons of the year, and the question I asked everyone was "What do you need to do right before you go on stage to prepare for this piece?" The answer is different for each of them.  For Carla, playing the Schumann A Major Romance, a slow C#, A, F# slur is going to prepare her embouchure for the descending intervals that start the piece and recur throughout.  For Braydon, playing Handel F major, the biggest issue is tempo and character.  He is to think about the tempo of his slow movement and play the first four notes, beautifully, to himself before he comes out on stage.  For Megan, playing the Jacob Sonatina, it's B and D long tones, to get her sound and vibrato flowing before s...

I had a huge performance this past weekend - the Rouse Oboe Concerto on my orchestra's final Masterworks concert.  We all know that reeds can be unpredictable and that the need to actually craft a crucial piece of your instrument can be a huge stressor, so my goal was to take that piece of the worry off the table as much as possible. How do you make sure you have the best reed possible on the big day?  I've seen students and colleagues treat this problem in three main ways: saving, obsessing, and collecting. Some people discover a good reed, and immediately tuck it into the "special" reed case, the one that doesn't come out to every gig, and just wait for the "special" time to use it.  They'll play their daily gigs and practice on "normal" reeds, withholding the "special" one for the big concert. Some people begin weeks in advance, trying extra hard with every single reed that they make.  A basically good reed is not good ...

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...

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...

Does this sound familiar?  You have a favorite reed.  It feels great, and you play it all the time - at school, at home, in lessons.  The response is right where you want it, all the time, and it just seems to get more and more comfortable for you the longer you play.  It's a GOOD reed. Then, tragedy strikes.  A flute player jostles your instrument and the reed breaks.  Or it cracks against your teeth.  Or it just finally gets too old to play on.  And you are left looking at a case full of unfamiliar reeds - some too new and hard, some too old and close to death, and inevitably there's a concert or a competition coming up that very week.  In a panic you order a reed from your teacher, or the store, or your favorite online reed-maker - and even though it's new, and customized for you, it DOES NOT feel as blissfully comfy as that sweet older reed did.  It feels hard.  It makes your mouth hurt.  The response is unexpectedly slow...

I've been re-reading through my collection of performance and teaching books, and remembered how much I love this one. Eloise Ristad writes beautifully about using movement, and acting, and the occasional silly game to release the creativity and inherent musicianship and even the technique of her students. The stories resonate with me, because I feel as though my most successful lessons are the ones in which an unexpected, informal turn of phrase makes a student suddenly connect the dots. In a recent lesson, a college student and I were working on phrase direction. I talked about the music moving forward or resting as it approached and then arrived at a cadence.  No real result.  We talked about keeping his articulation consistently light while ADDING direction and flow to the cadence.  He couldn't find that technique in himself either.  We bounced back to good old Barret page 46 - an intensely dull-looking set of exercises on short notes and slurred notes ...

Hello, my name is [XXXX]. I'm kinda new at the oboe and solos are my biggest problems. I'm also a freshman in high school so I'm not used to the large band group. I've had several solos but it's all still new to me. So is there any advice you can give me about playing solos or not being so scared to play them? Hi, [XXXX].  I’m so glad that you got in touch - I love meeting oboists, whether virtually or in person! Without knowing you, it's hard to know exactly what advice to give - but here are two (related) ways I might approach being nervous about solos. The first suggestion is about the solos themselves.  Make sure that you REALLY know how to play them.  If you are struggling with rhythms or notes, that will make you even more nervous.  Bring them to your teacher, if possible. Practice at home, in private, so you can work out the kinks. Use a metronome and make sure that you understand exactly where the beats should fall.  If your solo starts off the cli...

This isn't a real post - sorry it's been such a crazy month and I haven't written enough at all.  Remember a couple of months ago when I raved about Practice Plus?   Well, I still like the app, and still use it regularly on my phone.  I've just been informed that the app is now updated for all iOS devices, and that it is on sale - for FREE - for the next three days.  The sale runs from Sunday Nov 16- Tuesday Nov 18th, and after this the price will return to $3.99. You can find it at this link:  Practice+ Tuner, Metronome, Recorder and More... - Dynamic App Design Happy Oboe-ing, everyone - I'll get my act together blogwise real soon now...

I read a great book this week - Oboemotions by Stephen Caplan. I was skeptical at first, because the oboe is such a niche market. I buy anything that says OBOE on it, because there is not much, and of course I find a lot of fluff. Because there is so little that is specific to my instrument, I am accustomed to reading sports psychology or marketing manuals and automatically translating the ideas in my mind for my own needs. Having all of the work done for me sort of felt a little cheap - like I wasn't really having to think to learn. That said, the book was terrific. All about the physicality of playing the oboe, and intelligent ways to think about what is going on inside one's body. There were a few tweaks that I've been thinking about in my own playing - his approach to basic articulation is a little different from my own, for example, and I've been using this Mozart week to experiment - but mostly I was excited to have more ways to approach student problem...