ProneOboe

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...

I had the most interesting conversations with a few of my students after my first recital performance last weekend.  One thanked me for exposing her to so many interesting new pieces that she had never heard before.  One admitted unabashedly that his favorites were the familiar ones, the ones he already knew from his previous listening.  And both of these observations rang true to me. See, I LOVE learning new music.  I really enjoy digging into a piece and breaking through an unfamiliar harmonic language to get to the depths of it.  To discover the composer's intention, and to find the universal emotion or experience at the heart of the work, and then to communicate that meaning back out to an audience.  This challenge is fun for me, and I think I do it well. I have to be fair, though.  By the time I have put that kind of work into a new piece, it's not new to me anymore.  By the time I get it to the recital stage, it's an old friend.  I ...

Let no one suggest that I am not grateful for my nearly three weeks of vacation.  I was so lucky to be able to take that much time to sleep, read, travel, fill my house with people and love, and catch up on all most some of the busywork from the year.  It was a lovely break. But TODAY school started back up for my daughter.  I'm heading out to teach again this afternoon.  I'm playing Beethoven next weekend.   I'm getting serious about the recitals I have scheduled for next month, I'm thinking ahead to some auditions the month after.  I've been making reeds at a break-neck speed. I am SO EXCITED to be back in the saddle and back in a routine and SO READY to do this year even better than last year. I called 2018 my Year of Temperance, and I used it to back off, very intentionally, from many of the things that were keeping me busy and frantic.  I did not accept new students.  I withdrew from SEVERAL orchestra committees.  I was far more...

I judged a university Concerto Competition recently and heard some great playing.  But I was disappointed to hear some contestants play their concerto like an etude.   An etude they had been assigned, one they didn’t especially like, one they had practiced only to ask for someone else’s approval.   All sort of at a middle dynamic, all a little pitchy, no real variety of color or articulation, and often no musical line at all.   I was shocked.   Playing concertos is probably my favorite thing EVER to do in the world, and I consider it a serious responsibility.     When you are playing a concerto, your job is to be the Hero.   If you are playing loud, play heroically loud.   Softs should be heroically soft, should make the audience lean in and take notice.   No matter what you do, it should be done with intent, with ownership, with design.   Sometimes we look at superheroes and we want to peek in to discern the simple hum...

I haven't shared anything about my playing work for quite a while.  These past two weeks have been overwhelmingly busy, filled with driving and performing - three different organizations, seven venues, six separate programs, very hard music - all this to say, I've been drowning in repertoire and putting in hours behind the wheel for the privilege, and I have not been able to sit and write as I normally would. Heck, I haven't even been able to lie down and sleep for seven hours as I normally would.  Late nights and early mornings should not go together like this.  Here's to the return of a civilized schedule soon! The most fascinating bit of this craziness is a snippet of music I play from offstage at Lyric Opera's production of Siegfried.  I've written before about the stunning experience of being behind the scenes at this fantastic organization - the attention to detail, the care and integrity from everyone I see, from the amazing and hard-working musicians t...

My Five Minute Reedmaker Season Two seems to be largely about experiments.  People ask me how LONG, how THICK, how SLOPED, etc - and I'm running the experiments for them and for you. I've been posting these videos on YouTube, and sharing them from my Facebook Page, but haven't totally kept up with sharing here on my blog. Here are the ones you may have missed: Length of the Heart Fallacy of the Long Tip Moldy Cane And here's the new one: Here's the YouTube playlist with all of my other Five Minute Reedmaker videos.   You could subscribe right there if you wanted to - I'm dropping a video each week until I run out of ideas this season. Here's my website, where you can order reeds or cane or ask me questions.   Questions will keep these videos flowing!  Here's how you can send me your own reeds to analyze and improve on video for your learning pleasure!

When my students get too MOUTHY with the oboe, I put them in a corner. Really. They tend to play the oboe only from the TOP of their body, north of the collarbone, and it winds up unsupported.  Fussy.  Weak.  And out of tune. So I back them into a corner, and have them stand a foot or so out from it, facing out into the room.  And I challenge them to find a sound that resonates BEHIND them, out from the corner of the room that they are not facing, to fill the space without blowing directly into the space. It's a weird metaphor.  I wouldn't have any idea how to describe the physical technique to do it. When I find it in myself, it feels like my back is puffy and my body is round, and large, and barrel like, and also collected and zipped up, and supremely powerful.  If you know me, you know that these statements about my body aren't remotely true.  But that's what I feel when I'm blowing well, and filling the room, and owning my resonance. I te...