ProneOboe

All this week I have been sitting on audition committees for my orchestra.  In three days we listened to 4 basses, 6 cellos, 3 oboes, 19 horns, and 11 tubas, many of them two and three times each.  We hired winners in every case.  I LOVE auditions. I am always inspired watching the Olympics, because I love seeing athletes work and strive and succeed.  I love imagining the work that has gone into each performance and I have such respect for the human body - for humanity, really - and for the power of focused effort.  But auditions, now - that’s MY field.  I know exactly what goes into that preparation, and I’m drawing ideas for my own future auditions - and I’m hearing the wealth of talent that has come to perform for US.  It’s humbling. I could think of it another way, and become terribly depressed - that so many high caliber players would come to try out for a job as small and regional as the South Bend Symphony has to be a very bad thing for the futu...

We are driving back home to Indiana.  The Breckenridge Music Festival has been a great experience for me - a five week experiment in being totally out of my comfort zone.   I am used to being the principal oboist of a small regional orchestra.  I am used to being a strong presence in the group, because of my position and because I am very good at my job.  I have the personal confidence to speak in rehearsals and meetings, and people know who I am.  In contrast, for more than a month I feel that I’ve been scrambling to keep up with an orchestra full of great musicians, and trying mostly to fly under the radar.  Both roles are new to me.  In the first place, I am not an English horn player.  I have always been able to kind of get around on the instrument, and play the solos, but that’s very different from being able to sit in a high-quality professional orchestra week after week and confidently make soft entrances, at altitude.  Early on, ...

When I have taken time off from the oboe, I dread going back.   Even if I crave it, and desperately wish I was active again, I fear those initial few notes.  The reeds are unrecognizable in their case - WHICH one did I use for that last concert?  Is THIS one any good? - and feel uniformly horrid. I’m not quite sure whether I am soaking them up enough.  The instrument is clumsy under my fingers.  My lips feel puffy and unresponsive.  Although I know the oboe better than almost anything else, the first day back feels awful.  It seems that I’ll never get back to the freedom and ease and authority that I left behind.  Sometimes the expectation of that discomfort can keep me away for another day or even two.  I can let time pass, wishing I was playing but unwilling to work through the re-introduction.  I’ve been playing the whole time here, don’t worry - but for the first time in my life I feel about writing the way I do about the oboe....

First, the gripe.  Why do the women gymnasts have to do all of these goofy, stagy, choreographed arm movements?   The men don’t do them.  If I wanted to watch ballet I would watch ballet.  In gymnastics I am impressed by the astounding athleticism and the skills I could never do (not that I can dance either).  These girls have been coached to wiggle their arms and torsos around in pre-determined ways during their routines, and in most cases these gestures are meaningless and distracting. But occasionally there is one who gets it.  One whose gestures seem to communicate something, and who flows from one pose to another in a way that is beautiful, and who makes a coherent performance out of her series of movements. As far as I can tell, there is no room in the scoring system to acknowledge these artists - the tenths of points just keep being deducted at the same rate for the missed landings and minor form breaks - but as a spectator, I appreciate their c...

Last night I was watching the mens gymnastics team final, and things were not going well for our heroes.  And I recognized all of the emotions flitting across the faces of these amazing, talented, and well-prepared athletes.  They were ready every time they stepped up, and they knew exactly what they were planning to do and how well it was supposed to go, and they were shocked and surprised and disappointed each time when a serious error happened. As the evening wore on, I saw the confidence fade, and the men began to step up defensively, just trying not to screw up, and of course that just made things all the more likely to fall apart.  That feeling rings so true this month. In my head I am solid. I have come a long way since college, and since my early years as a young, green  professional.  I do know how to play in an orchestra, and how to blend and match what my colleagues are doing, and also how to formulate a musical idea and get it across.  I k...

 Zoe turned three on Wednesday. Since then she has had some success on the potty.  More than once. She has helped me make dinner, in an actually slightly helpful way, and has EATEN some of the food that subsequently appeared in front of her.  At a mealtime.  Without being forced. She has gone on a four mile hike at high elevation, and has remained cheerful for almost the entire time. This afternoon she requested birthday cake.  I told her that she would have to wait until after dinner, and she said, “But I AM three!”  As if that were the magic factor that made cake acceptable in the daytime. Tonight she came running and yelling to get my attention, and when I indicated that I was on the phone, SHE WENT AWAY AND WAITED PATIENTLY FOR ME TO FINISH! She fell in love with some of the decorations at a party we were at, but when I explained that they were not hers to take home she acquiesced graciously. She still has melt-downs, and tantrums, but is surprisi...

So yes, reeds are hard to work with up here.  I don’t know exactly what causes it - the dry climate and the thinness of the air, perhaps, or maybe the same mystical property that makes baked goods fall flat (I won’t be posting pictures of Zoe’s birthday cake - far too humiliating).  The symptom is that my “normal” reeds - the ones I’ve been happily making my living on for weeks - won’t vibrate.  Just won’t make the oboe play.  Maybe I can squeak out a few wimpy left-hand notes, but nothing more than that, and nothing that sounds good.  And the low register of my instrument feels terrible - unresponsive and mushy - which I understand is also a factor of altitude.  I don’t know why it is, just that it is.  I’ve checked and rechecked the adjustments on both of my oboes and there’s nothing wrong - they just don’t want to vibrate properly. But honestly, it’s not been all that terrible to work with.  My midwest reeds won’t play, but I made a new batch o...