Eat, sleep, oboe

You all know how it works by now...

2011-02-26T04:44:00.001-05:00

I disappear for a month or more, return sheepish, apologize profusely for disappearing, and rinse and repeat after that post.

Well, I had more or less planned on having a hiatus last term. That is, I hadn't thought about it beforehand, but when it ended up happening I was okay with it. That's what happened my first year at CCM as well. But this term I had not planned on it. I have a post in the works on culture shock as a musician, but alas, it may have to wait for two more weeks, until the end of this term.

I have been, and remain, so busy. Last term I played in orchestras, workshops, chamber groups. This term I've played in an opera, an orchestra concert of Rachmaninoff 2 and Dvorak Cello Concerto, and broken very briefly into the world of church gigs. Then another oboist at the university had to have his appendix out, and there suddenly was an oboe shortage! I've picked up three gigs from him, and between now and March 11 I'm playing in my college orchestra, Bach's St. Matthew's Passion, another orchestra concert, Bach's St. John's Passion, a chamber orchestra, and Brahms Requiem.

And I still have to get my school work done!

So my apologies, I'm very sheepish, please forgive me. In short, I am loving my course, and Oxford is fantastic oboe-wise as well; there is so much music here.

The City of Dreaming Spires

2010-10-06T18:39:00.000-04:00

Hello from Oxford!

I feel that everyone, upon moving to a new country, should have a week, if possible, to wander around lost and confused. Well, I have been in England for a week, and although my term doesn't officially start until Monday, I feel I should start moving in the direction of work. (Though I would like to note that the University, Department, College, and Graduate Common Room have all been incredibly welcoming and helpful. I may be overwhelmed, but I am not appreciably lost or confused.)

Although I have yet to meet my supervisor (an email for tomorrow!), I had department orientation, known here as induction, on Monday, and met the other first year graduate students. It seems like a really nice mix of people, doing really interesting things. I'm the only MPhil in Music History, but there are quite a few MSt Music History students, and our degrees are the same for the first year. So I will have some company! The department's in a nice building, with a Graduate Center (full of coffee, tea, and computers) out back and some practice rooms. We also had a library orientation, and got to see the Bate Musical Instrument Collection. The library's a nice space, with good resources only marred by the fact that there are two cataloging systems running side by side. Well, that and the fact that only 20-30% of the sheet music and scores are cataloged online. The rest are only found in the physical card catalog. Nevertheless, it's a nice library.

The Bate Collection is somewhat less helpful for my research, but incredibly exciting. As a student, I can play nearly any instrument in the collection, within reason. Of course, "within reason" means, for me, all the oboes. Such as the 18th century oboes, the 19th c. Viennese oboe, the Brod or Triebert or 19th c. Loree oboes, not to mention the English horns! I'm incredibly excited to take my reeds down there some day and see how the instruments are doing.

However, the Faculty Library isn't my only library resource. I also have the main Bodleian library. Normally the music reading room is in the New Bodleian. However, that's just been closed for extensive renovations, so we've been relocated to the Duke Humfrey Reading Room in the Old Bodleian. A hint: if you've ever been on a tour of the library, it's that room.

I'm incredibly excited to start the term. I'll be taking a language, having meetings with my supervisor, attending a two lecture series and a discussion series, and hopefully playing in at least one large ensemble as well as a quintet.

Now to finish organizing my room...

Oh, well, before I go. I'll have my orchestra audition this weekend; I'll find out more tomorrow at the activities fair. I'll be playing some combination of Bach and orchestra excerpts, as yet to be decided exactly. Wish me luck! The first orchestra concert is Tchaik 5 and Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, so I'm crossing my fingers that the audition goes well. (A side note for those who have trouble visualizing the size of spools: having just bought three exciting new thread colors from Forrests, I can say that they sell absolutely gigantic spools of thread. It makes it a fairly good buy, but be forewarned!) I hear that my college will be putting on Barber of Seville next term, so I hope to be playing for that as well.

Ciao!

2010-09-12T11:40:00.000-04:00

Spending 5 weeks in Italy playing beautiful music with talented people was a truly amazing experience.

It was the first year of the festival, so there were a few wrinkles; our housing was disappointing as the festival staff had been mislead as to what would be available for us, we had no cooking facilities, internet was spotty, and schedules sometimes very last minute. But the town of Spoleto is very excited that we've based the festival there, and so they are on our side to make next year run more smoothly. There were some personal wrinkles, too. I, and the rest of the oboe studio as well, had some very trying reed times, in part because of the airplane trip, in part because of the slightly different climate and altitude, and in part, I think, because we all felt so frantic about the whole thing. It's always harder to make a good reed when you feel like you need one immediately right now or else! Of course, by the time I returned to the US, I had some really beautiful ones which were in turn ruined by the return flight. A shame, but I'll just have to make some more!

However, the negatives of the festival were overwhelmingly eclipsed by the positives. There's really too much to say, but I will try a little bit. I played an orchestra concert in a 19th century opera house, chamber music in a chapel-turned-recital-hall, and an opera in a 17th century opera house. I was also able to sight-read a ton of woodwind quintets with some really great players, sneak in a few extra reed lessons with my teacher, and go on trips to Rome, Assisi, the beach, and a vineyard, not to mention exploring Spoleto and mountain behind it.

I think that Annunziata Tomaro, who conducted the orchestra concert I played in as well as the opera, is fantastic and inspiring, so I was very excited to get to work with her again. I was also excited to play The Rape of Lucretia again; it's a beautiful and incredibly moving opera. I actually had a chance to watch part of it in a piano dress rehearsal, and it brought me to tears. Credit to Britten, but also to our singers.

I got to do some reed work with my teacher with some last minute "wait! before you leave..." tips and hints, and although I'm still struggling with my English horn reeds, I've never made better oboe reeds - "grown up reeds," as my teacher calls them. The halls helped with that. The Teatro Nuovo, where the orchestra played, has a tall and deep stage with no shell, and reeds have to project and ring more than anywhere I've played. Of course, Caio Melisso is completely different. The pit has an extremely low ceiling (perhaps 5 foot 10?), and as such, everything ricochets off the floor and ceiling; reeds have to be extremely covered and very, very soft. The latter is much more challenging for me than the former! In the end, I was able to spend some time in the pit working on reeds, and I'm not sure I could have made the reeds I did otherwise. I'm not quite sure what I did differently - I was more careful around my tips, I think, and my tips were longer, with a hint of the "double tip" my teacher prefers. My definition was more pronounced, and my rails more even. I suppose what I really did was concentrate and do the right things, rather than the wrong things. Easy, huh?

I loved playing in orchestra, and I loved playing in the opera, but one of my favorite parts of the festival was my woodwind quintet. I didn't have a regular quintet this year at school, and I missed it! I loved playing Summer Music, and I also loved the time we spent reading quintets for fun. I probably played more quintets in those couple of sessions than I have in the whole rest of my life! Well, perhaps not quite. But I had a lot of fun, and I got to read through pieces like Ligeti 6 Bagatelles, D'Rivera Aires Tropicales, some arrangements of Mozart and Rossini overtures, Milhaud La cheminée du roi René, and other pieces with really fantastic chamber musicians.

Spoleto is also, of course, home to the very prestigious Festival dei Due Mondi, founded by Gian-Carlo Menotti. There is a distinct, and very exciting, possibility that in the future CCM Spoleto will become more strongly linked with the Festival. However, this year although we picked up about a week after the Festival closed, and were only in our first year, our chamber music concerts were consistently standing room only, and we had very good turn out for the opera and for our final gala concert. I intent to return next year if at all possible.

I will put up a few of my pictures so you can see the city and concert halls!

Unrelated to Spoleto, I have two new recordings on my youtube, both Bach with soprano, one on oboe and one on oboe d'amore. I played on the singer's recital in the spring, and I had a lot of fun. Beautiful music.

I have two pieces of news.

2010-06-22T21:39:00.005-04:00

First, a week ago I graduated from CCM with my MM in oboe performance! Technically, graduation was on the 12th, but my oboe written exam (16 pages, single spaced, on history, pieces, performers, techniques, teaching, etc.) was due last Wednesday. We were each given a CCM Alumni hat following the graduation ceremony.

Second, in the fall I will be attending Oxford (New College) for a MPhil in Musicology. I'm incredibly excited, and pretty nervous both to move to England and to go to Oxford. When I applied in the fall I never truly expected to get in, and while I received nice offers from both Case Western and Tufts for their masters programs, I couldn't turn down Oxford. It's really a dream come true for me.

Well, hello. I don't know that I've ever been as busy in school as I was this last quarter. In some ways it was great, and I got to play on a couple recitals, in the pit for Die Fledermaus, and in an extra orchestra concert, but I felt pretty overwhelmed the last couple weeks of school, working on a presentation, a paper, two exams, an excerpt board, and an opera.

I'm so happy that I got to play so much this year; a recital of my own, pieces on four other recitals, my orchestra rotation, a conducting workshop, Schubert Symphony 5, and 3 operas. I feel that I've improved a lot this year, both as a solo and chamber player and as an orchestral player. The Schubert concert was among if not the best concert I've ever played, despite the fact that I am utterly terrified of Schubert. (Everything must be exact, clear, simple, and beautiful at all times. That's a lot of pressure!) Less seriously, I played in a reading of Mahler 6 with two string players and 12 each horns and trumpets.

I've also learned a lot about what I need to work on. I feel like I've got a much more solid basis for tonguing, and I know how to work on that, and I also have a solid start to circular breathing and double tonguing. I'm also much more confident in an orchestral setting, in large part from playing in three chamber operas. And my tuning has gotten immeasurably better, though I'm still often nervous and mistrustful of it. However, I need to work on more accurately hearing the sound I produce. I was unaware of the positive qualities of my vibrato, and find it very hard to judge my volume accurately. In general, I need to play much louder when in orchestra, and even when playing in a chamber group. I also need to work on finessing the beginnings and ends of notes. Something that Dwight said which really stuck with me was "Oboe playing is like a book - even when what's in the middle is beautiful and interesting, the beginning and the end are what hooks people and what they remember." I thought that was really clear imagery as well as a great combination of compliment and critique.

This quarter I got to work with several teachers: three of the oboists in the symphony downtown, and another teacher from out of town. They are all fabulous teachers, and although I missed my professor, I really enjoyed working with several different people. Sometimes it can be frustrating going back and forth between different view points, particularly if one of them falls much more in line with your own views, but at the same time it's nice to get a lot of different view points, especially on the pieces, including really big audition excerpts, which are being played downtown. So even though I only worked on excerpts for my board nearly all quarter, I feel that I got a lot done.

The Master's excerpt board is the excerpts from 20 pieces, though as I was doing some very oboe heavy pieces I only did 18 on my prof's suggestion. Here's what I played:

Bach - Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen
Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra
Beethoven - Symphony 3
Bizet - Symphony in C
Brahms - Symphony 1
Brahms - Violin Concerto
Mahler - Symphony 3
Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition
Ravel - Tombeau de Couperin
Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade
Rossini - La Scala Di Seta
Schubert - Symphony 9 (The Great)
Shostakovich - Symphony 1
Shostakovich - Symphony 5
Strauss - Don Juan
Stravinsky - Pulcinella
Tchaikovsky - Symphony 4
Tchaikovsky - Symphony 5

I was also able to work with some great professors in my academic classes this year. My best class was probably one on American Symphonies in the first half of the 20th century. The topic isn't my general area of study, but the professor was articulate and engaging, and the class was truly interactive. We had some great discussion, both serious and a bit more frivolous - I must admit I love a class in which you can compare a symphony to a fantasy movie score and not be laughed at.

I'm fortunate enough to be going to CCM's opera program in Spoleto, Italy (which kind of piggybacks off of THE Spoleto Festival) for 5 weeks in July and August. I'll be playing The Rape of Lucretia again, so I'm going to spend the next several weeks working at my highly convenient desk job, practicing like crazy, and making reeds. Oh, yes, and learning Italian. :-)

It is finished!

2010-03-04T14:33:00.004-05:00

I gave my second Masters recital on Friday, which means that although I'm technically only half done with my degree requirements (I have an excerpt board and a written exam left), I have finished my recital requirements!

I'm fairly happy with how I performed. I frankly don't know why I programmed the music I did, given that my two main issues when performing are endurance and missing notes from nervous fingers, because my program was long and quite technical. Both problems did crop up in my recital, but I will say this. I loved all of the music I performed. I never got sick of it, and I didn't only like the music, I liked playing and performing it as well.

I had some dramatic reed problems in the week leading up to my recital, and although I made a very large number of reeds, I ended up playing my recital on a reed which my teacher helped me with. Although I'm disappointed about that, I was very happy with my tone throughout, even as I got tired. I did get nervous about endurance during the second and third pieces, but there were really only one or two places that it affected my sound. I was mostly able to keep in tune as well, though there were a few jarring notes. I feel that I communicated the affects of all the pieces and I was confident on stage. In general everything went well, and I didn't let my mistakes unduly influence the rest of my playing.

However, I can't say that I'm satisfied with my performance. I had some fairly dramatic finger issues in a couple passages, and I did get tired a little more quickly than I anticipated. My problem, really, is consistency. I took things too fast, I was messy, made a lot of mistakes I shouldn't have. Of course I played better when practicing, and in rehearsals. But the difference shouldn't have been so drastic. I'm disappointed in myself because I feel I didn't deliver a performance representative of my best ability. I was listening to some opera a few days after my recital, and I realized that part of the reason I feel so disappointed in my performance is that I've had an ideal in my head all quarter of the fantastic, flawless opera singers I've been listening to so much. I've been basing my performance, my stage presence, and everything else on the inspiration I've gotten from these singers. I had adjusted this ideal in my head to what I thought was feasible for me, but I still didn't live up to that. Mostly because I guess I just didn't practice my fingers enough, but also because I had a much less accurate idea of how stress and adrenaline would influence my playing that I though I had.

The trio, which ended my recital, went fabulously, though.

Now that I'm several days out, I'm actually feeling more ambivalent (in the true sense of the word) about my performance. I can't let myself be wholly satisfied with my performance, but I'm very happy with how I sounded for most of it. (One of the other oboists here, told me that my tone made her happy. Which made me happy.) Am I still kicking myself for missing all those notes? Yes. Do I recognize that most of the time I played very well, and if I hadn't missed those notes I would have been incredibly pleased? Yes.

If you're interested in listening to my recital (after I've said so many disparaging things about it!), I've uploaded it to Youtube here. It will come up in reverse order: my program, as listed in the post immediately below this one, is Sonata, Signor Bach; Concertino, Kalliwoda; Fantasia, Daelli; Trio, Dring. I'm having a very hard time being objective about my performances, so any comments are welcome, though merely "you missed a bunch of notes" would not be particularly helpful. I've also added two other recordings, from last fall and last spring respectively, which I'm particularly happy with.

And now I am very excited about getting to learn some new music (another minor Baroque sonata, another opera fantasia, a couple Bach arias) and playing bel canto opera scenes in orchestra with perhaps my favorite conductor of any I've worked with.

In non-oboe news, as I've said before, I applied for musicology programs for next year. I've been rejected from several, but I've been accepted to both Case Western and Tufts and waitlisted at Cornell. I'm still waiting to hear from Oxford. Now I must begin the process of deciding which school I want to attend!

Program Notes: Recital, Winter 2010

2010-03-04T14:08:00.005-05:00

Program:
Sonata in c, "Signor" (Johann Jacob) Bach
Concertino, J.W. Kalliwoda
Fantasy on Themes from Giuseppe Verdi’s “Rigoletto”, Giovanni Daelli
Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, & Keyboard, Madeleine Dring

“Signor” Johann Jacob Bach (1682-1722) was one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s brothers. He was an oboist for the King of Sweden, and also played the flute. While it is not known for certain that he composed this piece, which is only signed Signor Bach, it seems likely that J.J. Bach both wrote and performed this work; contemporary sources provide versions for flute and oboe.

The Sonata is simple and short, with four movements, each in simple binary form. Because it is so short, there is minimal space for development, but Bach tends to introduce each theme and then provide some gentle variation. His alternation between slow and fast movements, though there are not specific motivic links between the movements, also helps expand the form of the piece. The writing is characterized by echo effects and repeated motives, but his melodies, despite their naivety, are beautiful and evocative.

Johann Baptist Wenzel Kalliwoda (Jan Křtitel Václav Kalivoda) (1801-1866), born in Prague, was a composer, conductor, and violinist. After a touring career as a virtuoso violinist, he worked nearly his whole life in Donaueschingen, a town in southern Germany very near the present day Swiss border and eastern Austria. He was a prolific composer of symphonies, operas, masses, and, obviously, chamber works. David Hurwitz describes Kalliwoda’s music as “thrilling, and it strikingly anticipates or echoes so much of 19th century music--from Berlioz to Dvorák to Wagner, and even Sibelius,” and I can’t help agreeing. Written in the 1844, this Concertino seems to anticipate the music of Viennese operettas and waltzes some twenty or thirty years before their flourishing. Although the manuscript is lost, a contemporary set of parts exists, and the piece was evidently written for a friend, the oboist H. Reuthen.

Though it is not based on any specific operatic material, the highly theatrical sound of the Concertino cannot be denied. This is typical of Kalliwoda’s salon music, though his symphonies tend to be more dramatic and serious. Though the movements of the Concertino are all attacca, they are very clearly delineated. The first movement is a march made up nearly entirely of dotted rhythms which plod along until a passage of flurrying motion at the end; it exudes the slapstick humor of a comedic opera. The second, slow movement features beautiful and highly dramatic soaring melodic lines. In ABA form, the first theme is peaceful and calm, while the contrasting second theme is stormily but genuinely emotional. The third movement evokes nothing so much as the whirling ballrooms of Johann Strauss II and the many characters to be found within them. The movement ends in almost frenzied excitement while still maintaining the piece’s light, comic energy.

Giovanni Daelli (1800?-1860) played solo oboe at La Scala Theater in Milan, and also taught at the conservatory there. He lived in an age where copious amounts of virtuoso music, much of it in the form of opera fantasias, were being written for nearly every instrument except the oboe. (This was perhaps due to the fact that mechanical advancements had occurred much earlier for other woodwind instruments than for the oboe.) Like Pasculli some 50 years later, Daelli was perhaps frustrated with the lack of virtuoso music for the oboe, and so composed this Fantasia on Rigoletto.

The piece is undated, but was first published by Ricordi before 1855, when it was listed in a German catalogue of oboe music. Giovanni Ricordi and his son, founders of the publishing house, were close friends with Verdi, and Daelli likely knew him through his position at La Scala, so it is probable that Verdi gave permission for the publication of this piece. The fantasia consists of melodies, most notably Caro nome and Tutte le feste al tempio, and variations. Both of these melodies are played by the oboe in the opera, and are sung by Gilda, the unlucky daughter of Rigoletto. The piece ends in a dramatic rising chromatic scale and emphatic chords highly reminiscent of the opera’s final notes, but changed from a horror and sorrow filled minor to a triumphant major representative of the oboist’s efforts, if not the subject matter.

Madeleine Dring (1923-1977), was an English composer who studied with Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Most of her compositions are fairly small scale chamber works, but she also composed incidental music for the stage. According to her website, “she was also psychically gifted, which gave her a wider than usual perspective.” Dring’s husband was an oboist, which accounts for her numerous pieces for the oboe and their highly idiomatic writing.

The Trio will be played tonight with piano, but is written for either piano or harpsichord. Elements such as rolled chords and high, music box-like passages seem explicitly designed for the harpsichord, but others, such as the slow, legato second movement seem much more natural on the piano. This odd dichotomy is evident in much of the trio, which combines markings like “alla baroque” with harmonic language ranging from chant-like parallel motion to jazzily dissonant chords. The Trio is also characterized by short, overlapping phrases, and a very close partnership between all the instruments, but especially the oboe and bassoon. The abrupt endings of the first and third movement are typical of Dring’s writing, as is the light-hearted and playful sound.

For citation info, please contact me by leaving a comment on this post, or emailing racheloboes [at] gmail [dot] com. Please credit Rachel Becker if using quotes/specific information from these notes.

For a short month, February sure has a lot going on during it.

2010-02-18T21:56:00.004-05:00

"Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

~My audition (oh gosh, was that already more than two and a half weeks ago?) for the CCM Spoleto festival went quite well. I managed all of the tonguing in both La Scala (even the low ending scale!) and the Mozart concerto exposition, and played both probably better than I ever have before. The slow Scala and Don Juan went well also. I didn't miss a single note, which should be routine, but is in fact still cause for celebration for me.

~I played Britten's Rape of Lucretia and loved every minute of it. Well...perhaps not every single minute, but the vast majority of them! Even the days with two rehearsals or shows! I can't say that I was always happy with my playing, partially because I was killing a reed about every two rehearsals, and there were a couple technical passages I never quite got, but oh, did I have fun. I love being backstage and in a (real!) pit and things like that, being in the secret working areas of the stage. And the EH solo at the end routinely went quite well. I also really enjoyed playing with the conductor, who is fun in the pit while still being consummately professional, and the singers were naturally superb. And it was fascinating playing in two different orchestras, alternating shows. The two experiences were actually very different. Playing in opera pits continues to be probably my favorite thing in the entire world.

~(Something which I would like to come back to- I felt very confident, generally, while playing the opera, and actually felt more free to play loudly and to lead. I hope that I can transfer this back over to both orchestra and solo playing. I felt very competent, in the "professional and capable" sense rather than the "mediocre" sense.)

~(Another thing to which I would like to come back- the incredible emotional power of this opera, particularly the uncomfortable combination of inevitability and agency when playing without the singers.)

~My recital is next Friday. I'm currently alternating between mildly stressed and completely terrified. Which is about par for the course, really. However, I played through my program twice today, though not straight in a row, and it went fairly well both times, so I'm feeling pretty good right now. Once was even in front of a (very small) audience!

~There has been an absurd amount of snow, and with it school closings. It's nearly like being in high school again! I only hope that the rumored snow storm on Sunday is merely a rumor- I have an auditionee friend staying with me this weekend, and she has to be able to get home!

I may not return until after my recital! If not, wish me luck (and endurance!)

Bernstein is pretty fabulous.

2010-01-26T17:24:00.007-05:00

The wind ensemble is playing Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and though I'm not in that rotation, I subbed on principal today. That piece fills me with so much glee, and even though it's not quite as good as the orchestra version in my opinion, the band version is still pretty darn great. But then, it is West Side Story. And I have to give Bernstein extra credit because both WSS and Candide are pieces for band that I honestly enjoy. If playing the Mambo doesn't make you grin, I might judge you a little bit.

I hope everyone's new year is starting out positively!

I had some pretty serious reed troubles over winter break, but the past week or two I've finally gotten them back up to snuff. So now I can tip the balance in lessons from reed making back to playing! I've been working on my recital music (my recital's the last week in February) - I'm playing a c minor Sonata by "Signor Bach", Daelli's Rigoletto Fantasia, the Kalliwoda Concertino and Madeleine Dring's Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano. I programmed this almost by accident, just happening upon pieces I liked, but I think it turned out well. The pieces are all pretty different, and I have a lot of fun showy stuff without completely abandoning substance. And while most of them fall not far outside of my comfort zone, I am getting some challenges. The Kalliwoda is actually quite difficult, and I want to be as historically accurate as I can with the Bach, which is a nice project for me. Even if I do have to write ornaments again. Conveniently, the Daelli sounds much harder than it is. :-)

But I have got to stop picking pieces for which I can't find recordings! Not that I don't like making my own interpretations, but it's nice to be able to hear what's going on around you when you don't have a pianist handy. This week, though, I'm starting both trio and accompanist rehearsals, which is pretty exciting.

I'm very excited also to be playing in Britten's Rape of Lucretia this quarter. I dearly love playing opera. I had a fairly frustrating first three weeks of school, though, because we didn't start rehearsals until the 22nd, while everyone else began orchestra rehearsals on the 4th. We've begun now, though, and I'm already loving it. I can't wait until we get the singers in, though we have another week of orchestra rehearsals before that. Technically they're doing the show with two orchestras, because it's a lot of hours and 5 shows in one weekend, but I asked to play in both pits. The division of parts for the quarter works much better that way, for one, but I'm also by far the most excited about playing the show (and the hours are no more than any other show I've played for- frankly I don't quite understand the fuss), and so my teacher agreed. The conductor was initially hesitant, but I explained that I knew what I was getting myself into after playing in so many previous shows with "Hell weeks," and she said I was welcome to as long as I lined up an "understudy". It's interesting playing with two orchestras, just because I happen to play better with the other players in one than in the other, but we've only had two rehearsals so far. We just need to get used to each other.

I've finished my applications for schools for next year. The final tally: Berkeley, Princeton, Penn, and Cornell for PhD; Oxford, Case Western, and Tufts for MA. Now comes the waiting...March seems so far away!

I'm also auditioning for a CCM run summer program in Italy. The audition's next Monday, but I'm not overly worried. I've worked on it in a lesson and in a masterclass, and have one lesson left as well. And I know the music backwards: the exposition of the Mozart concerto, fast and slow La Scala, and slow Don Juan. If I can keep my tongue from getting overexcited, and not (as I did for masterclass yesterday) pick a reed completely lacking in low vibrations, all should be well.

To end, have something delightful, and something heartbreaking. Both beautiful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-28T20:41:00.005-05:00

I hope everyone to whom it applies had a lovely and not-too-stressful holiday! (And to everyone else, I hope you had a lovely and not-too-stressful couple of days.)

I don't suppose anyone comes to the blog not knowing any thing about the oboe and these crazy reeds we have to deal with, but I thought that this was the best and easiest to follow description I've seen of what making a reed is like.

The Poulenc opera (Les Mamelles de Tiresias) went off very well. I was a little nervous going into the performances, because we did not have very many rehearsals for the orchestra, and we didn't even have a real hell week (just normal orchestra rehearsals). However, our conductor was really fantastic, really impressive considering he's a grad student rather than a professor, and we pulled it together well in the end. I was really pleased with how it all went. Though to be fair, the vast majority of credit goes to the singers. The opera and musical theater programs are the best we have here, and I'm consistently blown away by how talented our singers are.

I absolutely love playing in opera pits, and this show was short and sweet, surreal and comical but with really great music, a few nice small oboe solos, and the staging and costumes were fantastic. Very French Cabaret, in fact. It was done with the orchestra onstage and with minimal staging for the singers, and the costumes were all berets and scarves and stripes and tulle, with everyone (both male and female) wearing heavy eyeliner and red lips. The orchestra was promised berets, but sadly the budget didn't allow for it. I hope that there's some way for me to get an audio or video recording of the show. I'd love to see it.

I also had an orchestra concert - my schedule was pretty hectic for a while, as I was in effect playing in two rotations while doing the opera- which went pretty well. We did Sibelius 2, which I unfortunately did not get to play in, and Bartok's Two Pictures, for which I played English horn. I always love playing English horn, but that piece really has a beautiful part. There's a duet in the second movement for EH/clarinet which is low and hollow and so very eerily icy. You can listen to both movements here: one, two.

So now I'm done for the quarter, except for the family holiday concerts. I really don't mind playing those, though I think I'm the only person in the whole school. :-)

In lessons I've mostly been working on Ferlings. I thought that after doing the Gillet etudes for the past two years that Ferling would be much easier. And, to be honest, the slow ones are pretty easy for me. I'm glad, because this means that I can really concentrate on being expressive in them, and I'm pretty happy with how I've been doing. But the fast ones are hard! I've actually been having quite a bit of trouble with some of them (for instance, #12), though of course some of them fall much more easily (for instance, #10). Still, I'm glad that I've decided to systematically go through the whole thing. It's far too easy to decide, as I have in the past, to "just skip that one..."

I've also planned my second degree recital, which will be at the end of February. Well, mostly planned it. I'll do a Sonata in c minor by Johann Jacob Bach, the Kalliwoda Concertino, Daelli's Fantasia on Rigoletto, and Dring's Trio for oboe/bassoon/piano. There's a chance that I will play Lovreglio's Fantasia on Un ballo in maschera instead of the Daelli, which I heard a recording of and fell in love with, but I've discovered that it's actually a clarinet piece, so it will depend whether it's worth the trouble to transpose the whole piece or not. I also have fallen in love with Bissoli's Sonata in g minor, another baroque piece, but it's rather long, and I think the Bach is a better fit for my recital in terms of how much music I have and the endurance needed. Bissoli was an oboist, though, so the piece falls very well, and it's really gorgeous.

I wish that I could link to recordings of these pieces, but they're all pretty scarce. None have a decent recording on youtube, and I can't even find a recording of the Bissoli on Amazon. Perhaps some day I will put up some clips for you to hear.

I've been listening to a lot of opera music lately, mostly Baroque opera, and it's really inspired me musically in terms of my oboe playing. Particularly as I'm working on both Baroque and opera music right now. I wrote a paper on trouser roles (women playing men in opera), which led me to youtube, and, well, I sort of got stuck. Of course there are a ton of fantastic singers out there, but I thought I'd share some of my favorite discoveries. I was really (pleasantly) surprised at how well acted a lot of operas are now, and the musicality of all of these singers is just impeccable. I'm particularly impressed by Ernman, Mijanovic, and Galou. I listen and just think, "That is what I want to be able to evoke with my oboe. What must I do to get that depth of emotion and ease of expression?" It's really frustrating to me at times, but it's really inspiring me to push myself to get the results I want rather than only the results I think I can get.

But rather than me going on and on (which, believe me, I have been to anyone who will listen), I'll just post some links to youtube.

Natalie Dessay, "Air des clochettes," Lakme (Delibes).
Joyce DiDonato, "Crude furie degli orridi abissi", Serse (Handel).
Frederica Von Stade, Moon Song from Rusalka, Dvorak
La mort d'Ophélie (Berlioz), Anne Sofie von Otter
Bach, Erbarme dich, mein Gott (Matthäuspassion), Delphine Galou .
Vivaldi, "Svena, uccidi, abbatti, atterra" from Bajazet, Marijana Mijanovic
Handel, "Ah ! Stigie larve" from Orlando, Marijana Mijanovic (There are several more clips of this opera on youtube, and they're all amazing.)
Handel, "Come Nube" from Agrippina, Malena Ernman
Strauss, "Chacun a son gout" from Die Fledermaus, Malena Ernman

In other music news, I have submitted my first PhD application, and will soon submit several more! Now for the waiting...and quickly deciding if I want to apply to more places- it's a tough market out there!

The longer I go without posting...

2009-10-27T22:42:00.003-04:00

...the longer I think it will take me to catch up here, and thus the longer I put it off. Many apologies, my quarter this fall has been truly crazy, and will most likely continue to be.

I'm in orchestra, of course, and also playing in an opera (technically the opera is from another rotation, but that orchestra has so many concerts this term that they ran out of oboists!), plus I'm playing both the Poulenc trio and sextet for someone's recital. Oh, yes, the opera is also Poulenc (Les Mamelles de Tiresias)- luckily he's one of my favorite composers! I really do love playing operas, and I can't wait until next week when we begin to rehearse with singers.

In my free time I've been doing things like playing in all-day conducting workshops, and filling out applications for musicology PhD programs. For the workshop, I had to learn Daphnis and Chloe on English horn, and the principal oboe part to Bizet's Symphony in C. Luckily I'd learned parts of both before, but I had to relearn the third movement of Bizet with B naturals instead of B flats, which was pretty hard! Muscle memory is a chore to unlearn.

Oboe-wise, the quarter has been going really well. I bought a new knife and a sharpening stick about a month ago, and they have completely revolutionized the way I make reeds. I've always been fairly happy with my rather idiosyncratic reed-making style, but I had no idea that a large part of my style was drawn from limitations imposed by my truly awful knife. I have so much more control now, and I find that I'm actually able to make reeds similar to my teacher's. The amount of precision and definition that I can get from my knife is shocking to me. I'm still working on changing my style, and getting used to having a knife that's actually sharp the way that it should be, but I'm really excited about the progress I'm making. (My teacher told me the other day, "You sound like a grown-up now!" which was pretty fabulous to hear.)

I bought both from Roger Miller, his sharpening steel and own brand knife, which looks very strange, with a very tall blade, but is actually very easy to sharpen and not too hard, though fairly different, to scrape with.

My teacher heard me play both Poulenc chamber pieces this week, and was very happy with how I sounded, which is really gratifying to hear. I do feel in general that I'm a better player this year. Some of this, of course, is run of the mill improvement- theoretically each year you should be a better player than the last- and my summer at EMF helped too. However, as I mentioned, I'm applying to musicology programs for next year, and I feel that that has also been beneficial for my playing. I feel like a weight has been lifted from me. Last year I was so very stressed, as I was trying plan a career in performance, and although applying to another round of grad school is stressful in its own way, I feel that the lifting of the "oboe performance" weight has opened me up to enjoying the oboe more and thus playing better. I feel more like I did in undergrad, when more of my energy was put towards musicality and playing the oboe rather than stressing about my career options.

Obviously I am still invested in the degree I'm currently seeking, and I under no circumstances mean to give up the oboe. But I feel this path is better for my continued mental health. :-)

Speaking of this degree, I'm trying to plan my repertoire for my second recital, which will be in February. I will hopefully be playing either the Poulenc trio or another oboe/bassoon/piano trio (perhaps the Dring?), but I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with the rest of my program. I'm looking for melodramatic, dark pieces. and also contemplating playing a Pasculli. We shall see.

Obviously a lot has gone on that I have not mentioned in this post, like my fall audition for orchestra rotations and the first orchestra concert of the year, for which I played principal on Bolero and Berlioz's Overture to Benvenuto Cellini, but this is at least some of what I've been up to lately.

2009-09-16T21:56:00.003-04:00

At first, the time between the end of EMF and the start of school seemed endless; a month and a half of boredom and inevitably bad practice habits. A month and a half later, with school beginning in a week and auditions in only 3 days, I almost wish I had more time.

The EMF ended as powerfully as it began, though the program for the last week left a little to be desired. But then, I had my big moments in the first half of camp, and the student soloists were truly amazing. I'm so incredibly glad that I had a chance to attend EMF, and I only wish I could go back next year. The conductors I worked under were inspired and inspiring, and I met a lot of fantastic students. I'm sure some of us will run into each other eventually, and I'll be glad when we do!

The auditions at the beginning of the year here determine our rotation: who we will play with all year, and in which order we'll go through the ensembles. And it's also technically a board (also known as a jury). On the one hand, you really get to know the people you're playing with, and all of the wind sections rotate together. On the other hand, you unfortunately only get to play with 1/3 of the wind players. I'm not sure which rotation I hope to get into this year, because while all three are more or less equal, one rotation gets to play in the pit of both operas. However, that rotation also would screw up the schedule I've planned for the quarter. But we shall see.

We have a LOT of audition music. 10 pages, to be precise, with music from Brahms 1, Bizet's Symphony in C, Mendelssohn 4, Debussy's Afternoon of the Faun and Fetes, Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, Sibelius 2, and Shostakovich 1. French Impressionism is...shall we say, very challenging. In undergrad we played one of the Daphnis and Chloe suites, and I believe it's still the hardest piece I have ever played in orchestra. At some point we'll be told which excerpts will be the ones actually used in the audition, but that point may be Saturday afternoon. Hopefully it'll be sooner. I'm obviously preparing all of them, but it would be nice to have a day to narrow it down.

Hopefully I'll also have some reeds for the audition. My cane lately has been exceedingly mushy, and I'm getting frustrated. I had such good luck for most of EMF, and I was really enjoying feeling comfortable and self-sufficient in terms of reeds. I'm nearly always completely self-sufficient, if only because I'm very used to my very idiosyncratic reeds, but at EMF I didn't do any work on reeds with my teachers until the last week, and I was really happy with my results the whole time. The climate, of course, was a big help- my reeds aren't quite as fond of Cincinnati. But I was similarly sufficient for much of last year at school, and I'll get there again eventually.

I also have...well, not big news, but news that could some day become big news. I'm applying to PhD programs in music history for next year, with the intent of studying 19th or 20th century opera of some sort. I've done a lot of thinking about this over the past year, and it's something I really want to do. I know by now that I'm not good enough to make it as a professional oboist. If I had a different temperament, and could make myself practice 6 hours a day every day, I think I have the raw ability. But that's not me, and it would make me miserable. I don't intend to ever give up playing the oboe, and I hope that I will be able to take lessons and play lots of gigs in the future, but I'm much happier when my stress level is a little bit lower. (And frankly it's easier to be a musicologist who plays the oboe than an oboist who writes articles on the side.) Besides, my classes here have really brought to my attention the difference a really good professor can make on your learning experience. I want to be one of those professors who help their students enjoy and be inspired by the material they teach.

So I've written another personal statement, and I'm figuring out what research papers I'll submit and bracing myself for another round of grad school applications. I'm taking Research and Writing this quarter, a required class for my Masters degree, and I'm planning to write a paper on the narratives created in Pasculli's opera fantasias. There's basically no existing scholarship on the subject, and I'm pretty excited. (I do look forward to the fact that come December the hard part will be over, not just beginning. Thank goodness for no auditions.)

I wanted to make a note of something. At EMF, one or some of the teachers found my blog, and asked my teacher to Speak To Me about it. I don't know who found it, or if they had any specific objections to it. My teacher was certainly nice about the whole thing, and said that she didn't want me to someday lose a job over something I'd written here, but I got quite a lecture and the intention seemed to me to be to convince me to stop blogging. It really freaked me out at the time, because I try very hard to be polite and professional on this blog, but I was caught too off guard to ask if there was anything specific on here that they objected to. I thought about the matter, and I'm definitely not going to stop blogging because of it or delete things that I've written in the past. While I do want to be professional here, and I am careful about what I write and try not to badmouth anyone, the intent of my blog is to give people an idea of the reality of being a musician and an oboist. Specifically, my reality and my experiences. I name names on purpose, I write about specifics on purpose, I hope that this blog comes up when people google pieces I've written about, or teachers I've studied with. I know that people can have very different experiences in similar situations, and I just want to provide yet another perspective. I'm not famous, and I'm not the best oboe player you'll meet, but I love what I do, I involve myself in it fully, and I have opinions that I want to share. I want to be informative. I'm not going to write horrible things about people or groups or what have you, but I'm also not going to never give specifics. I want people to have specifics.

That said, if I ever link to you or mention your name on here and you wish me to remove it, please contact me and I will do so immediately.

"Up is up and down is down" - Caldwell

2009-07-30T14:18:00.005-04:00

My least favorite place to get water? Probably the G key (or the A key, if you name that way). The one that allows you to play a tuning A for the orchestra. In rehearsal the other day, I went to tune, and instead played "ffffgurglethp AAAA gurglesdffffffff AA ffthss". I actually had to have the second oboe tune for me.

The Shostakovich 5 concert, was pretty amazing. There was a full, enthusiastic house (so much stomping on stage, and shouting in the audience), and we played really well. We did have some tuning issues, but the performance turned out to be so emotional and forceful and musical that it hardly mattered. I was really happy with my performance. I hadn't played badly in rehearsals, but I'd never really been happy with my solos. I had a hard time getting the glassy, smooth sound needed for the first and third movements, as well as finding the proper depth of emotion. At the concert, though, I absolutely could not have played them better. I was really satisfied with my performance, and I got reassuring feedback from my teachers and fellow orchestra people. It's certainly among the best concerts I've had, or maybe even the best performance; it's rare that everything goes the way you want it to. I had one person tell me that my solo in the fhird movement made her tear up, which is an incredible compliment, and very unexpected. (The oboe does not fare well in Shosty 5: after getting "punched in the face" in the second movement, in the third movement I was to play as if I'd been stranded in Siberia and was contemplating committing suicide before I froze to death. I spent all afternoon trying to figure out how to play the solo so it sounded like I wanted to die. But it seemed to work.) It's amazing how powerful music can be.

Last week I played second in a Mozart double piano concerto and in Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances. And let me tell you, I got some payback for being so pleased with myself about Shostakovich. The Rachmaninoff is probably the hardest piece I've played in orchestra, aside from Daphnis et Chloe. I spent most of my practice time last week making pained and frustrating noises. That said, I loved the piece, particularly the second movement, which is a Tim Burton-esque waltz. The Mozart was obviously much simpler, but we had a lot of tuning troubles which only ended up half resolved. Or, rather, they were resolved until my reed cracked on stage immediately before the concert and I got water in all my keys. I feel that the Rachmaninoff was a poor choice for this situation, but while the concert was certainly not the best we've played, it was still fairly hypnotizing. I only wish we'd done the piece justice.

Mr. Ellis left camp early to perform in the Mostly Mozart festival, so Katie Young is replacing him these last two weeks. I had a funny moment in last week's lesson where she complimented my sound by telling me "you don't sound like you play a Howarth!" I was a bit non-plussed. I was hoping to work on reeds with her, but unfortunately didn't have a chance. I enjoyed my lessons with her; she was very nitpicky, but in a nice way. She was complimentary of my tone, but told me to work on being more expressive, particularly in Bach. I have a problem finding the middle ground in Bach. I tend to either switch off and play far too squarely and pedantically, or to go to an extreme. And while I'm perfectly comfortable with being dramatic in, for example, the unaccompanied Bach piece I played on my recital, I'm much less able to interpret cantatas correctly. I also discovered that my interpretation of one of the phrases in the Vaughan Williams concerto is something that only I do. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I'm taking a class here called "The Business of Music," taught by Karen Birch Blundell, the EH faculty. The class is really fantastic. We've covered resumes and publicity materials, community outreach, freelancing, orchestral auditions, and keeping your orchestral job once you've won it. On one hand, I can practically hear people's bubbles bursting, but on the other hand, I find the number of jobs, the number of quality gigs, the fact that so many people are able to play music in a way that makes them happy all very reassuring.

Last night we had an oboe studio dinner, which was pretty awesome. So much insanity in so small a space. If you have never tried playing excerpts (for example, Haydn Variations, Concerto for Orchestra, Don Juan) on only your reed, you are missing out. Plus, Susan Eischeid, the 2nd oboe faculty, made us all personalized oboe reed cupcakes.

Lastly, if you have not listened to the Curtis commencement speech by Robert Levin, you should as soon as possible. "The real question is, “what do you have to say?” [...] Your job is to keep people up at night."

"Do not give my secrets away to conductors! ... [diabolical laughter]" -Tabuteau

2009-07-17T10:02:00.003-04:00

Last week I played 3rd oboe/EH in the first movement of Mahler 2 (the other half of the concert was Beethoven 5, which I was a little sad to miss out on, though I have played it once before), again under Mr. Schwarz. I was really happy to play the EH again, and Mahler (unlike some composers such as, say, Dvorak) seems perfectly capable of writing a good doubling part. Although there is a lot of very rapid switching, I'd rather that than two measures of EH somewhere in the middle. And while it's nice to play with new people and under new conductors, it was nice to have two weeks in the same orchestra. I've gotten to really like Mr. Schwarz. He's picky without being mean, offers specific compliments and suggestions, and is a fabulous rehearser. We didn't ever run out of things to work on (certainly not in a week!), but I didn't ever feel like we'd run out of time either. He also seems to work very well with students; he managed to drop a lot of information, both about the pieces and about the workings of orchestras, into rehearsals.

Our concert went well, and I got some very nice compliments on my EH playing. I feel like I'm playing much better here than at school, on both oboe and EH, and my reeds are turning out surprisingly well also. (Knock on wood!) I don't know what, if anything, I'm doing differently, or even if the difference is only in my head. I think the change in location and humidity has given my reeds a boost, though. Regardless, I'm enjoying it. I love being able to play in orchestra every day; if I could do that forever, I would. I also like the fast turnaround of new music. I'm going to be very sad to leave and have a month and a half until my next orchestra rehearsal.

This week I'm in the other orchestra, working with Jose-Luis Novo. He's a very good conductor as well, and I must say a lot easier to follow, particularly immediately, than Mr. Schwarz is. I do feel like we're a little more rushed in trying to get everything done this week, but some of that is due to having a pops concert in the middle rather than to Mr. Novo's rehearsing skills. My favorite thing about working with him is that he's incredibly evocative, both in his analogies and in his conducting. He's very dramatic and emotional, and it works for him. The fantastic thing about orchestra this week is that we're playing Shostakovich 5, and I'm playing principal. The piece is gorgeous and sarcastic and so, so sad. Plus, it has some great solos, and is a lot of fun to play. I think my favorite movement is the second, a twisted Viennese waltz.

I will say that I have never played so many tuning As in my life. I give 5 every rehearsal (winds, brass, basses, low strings, violins), which I feel is a bit much...but I bow to the will of the conductor! We had an interesting discussion in masterclass one day about giving the A; Mr. Ellis feels that it's fine to have a little bit of vibrato in your A, as long as it is still clear and on pitch. I STRONGLY disagree. I find it incredibly distracting, and also much harder to tune to. I'm curious what other people's opinions are, though.

Last week in masterclass we did excerpts; we were given several to work on, and then each were assigned one to play in class. I ended up playing Tombeau (first mvt only), and it went better than I think I've EVER played it. I wasn't expecting to bomb it, but I was surprised by the fact that it went so well. I got all of the tonguing in, all the low notes spoke properly, and I even managed to add in some phrasing and musicality! It made up for the fact that in my lesson on Tuesday, Randall handed me the principal part on Shosty 5, after which I proceeded to become completely incompetent.

This week we had a brief history of the oboe and the Tabuteau lineage, and we got to try several shawms and similar instruments, including one with a quadruple reed. It was fascinating, and a lot of fun. We got very, very silly, though. :-) The most interesting part for me, though, was getting to try a French scrape reed. It was actually very easy to play nicely, much easier than the German reed I tried. That reed had a gorgeous crow, but I had a lot of trouble controlling it and having any sort of tone. On the French reed, though, I could get a sound very similar to my own using my normal embouchure.

"The [tuning] A should be the Voice Of God" : John Mack

2009-07-05T11:17:00.002-04:00

We had our first concert of the festival on Friday, a joint concert between the two orchestras. (There are two student orchestras, and one faculty orchestra. We rotate between the two student orchestras, and fill in the faculty orchestra if necessary. The nice thing about this is that it means there's no "top" orchestra, and we get to play with more of the studio. Plus, it gives the teachers more power to assign us to specific pieces. Normally one orchestra plays on Thursday and one on Friday, but since this week was abbreviated, we shared.) This concert was Roman Carnival and Foote's Symphonic Prelude to Francesca Rimini by the ESO, and Copland's El Salon Mexico and Ginastera's Four Dances by the GSO.

As I mentioned, I played EH in the Berlioz. I felt really solid about my solo all week, a few cracks here and there, mostly on the first G, but my reeds were behaving and I tried to follow every nuance of Mr. Schwarz's interpretation. The rest of the piece I was a little shakier on; tonguing is not my strong point, and that piece is nearly made up of only tonguing. But I did my best. Plus, the orchestra was having a lot of trouble staying with Mr. Schwarz. I know that many of the winds were playing by ear to find the tempo and the beats, rather than going off of the baton. I watched really closely one rehearsal, trying to figure out why we were having such difficulty, and I have to say, I'm not sure. Taken out of context, Mr. Schwarz's beat pattern is clear and precise, and the problem is certainly not a lack of personal force. But for whatever the reason, every time the tempo picked up, we became uncertain and confused. This isn't to say that we were falling apart every rehearsal. We certainly weren't. But there was an uncomfortable undercurrent in every run-through.

The concert went well, though. We rushed a bit in places, and ended up rather dragging the slow section, something which may have been my fault, but we sounded flashy and brilliant and completely in style for Berlioz. All in all, a very good performance. I was pretty happy with my solo; I didn't crack the opening G, and the acoustics in the hall are brilliant, but I got a little cocky and cracked that first slur to the F#. Still, I think I sounded pretty nice, and had I not cracked that note, it would have been my best performance. I know that Mr. Schwarz was very happy with my playing in general, at least. (And I got some great applause, particularly from the orchestra, which really made me feel good about it. Of course I want the audience to like my playing, but getting recognition from my peers means so much.) I've gotten out of the habit of thinking of myself as a good EH player; there are so many people in my studio who are better than I am, or who I at least percieve as being much better, but I really enjoy playing EH, and I think that I'm playing it better here than I ever have.

Speaking of orchestra, I have never played somewhere where they were so considerate of our ears! Every wind player sitting on the stage left end of the row has a sound shield, as do the back row of violas, protecting us from the brass. He also had the brass move from two rows to one for rehearsals so that it wasn't as loud for them, and he told the percussion to move over so they weren't playing directly at the horns. I still wish our strings sat 1st/2nd/vla/cello, rather than 1st/cello/vla/2nd, but at least I won't go deaf! :-)

Each student here plays in a chamber group, and I'm doing the Neilsen quintet. I'm a little disappointed to be playing the Neilsen, because I played it in spring quarter with my quintet at school, but it is a great piece. The first rehearsal was a little bit awkward, since it was coached and we hadn't received the music beforehand. I think it would have been much more productive to either have time to look at the parts before having a rehearsal or to have a coach the second rather than first rehearsal. However, our second rehearsal was much improved, and my quintet is pretty great. The flutist in particular is a really good player and a fantastic rehearser and leader. This piece does make me miss my quintet, though! Two of them graduated and are moving away.

I got to have a short EH lesson with Karen Birch Blundell before the concert. She looked over my reeds and fixed one up a bit (though I didn't end up using that one for the concert).I played the solo for her also, and while she didn't really give me any musical/interpretive advice for the solo, that was all right. I wasn't really interpreting it myself anyways, just following the heck out of Schwarz. But she gave me a few tips for making notes speak more easily, and double checked my adjustment. She suggested that we have an EH reed making lesson after the concert when it'll be okay if I completely screw up a reed. I'm looking forward to it, because my EH reed advice has pretty much been "It's easy! Go do it!", and her reeds are fantastic. Very unique also, with a very long tip, much longer than I've ever seen on an EH reed. I'm interested to try making one.

We have masterclass once a week also. We didn't play in class this week, but we've been given several excerpts to learn for next time. He's going to draw excerpts out of a hat and have us each play one. I found out also that Mr. Ellis has subbed a bunch in Wicked on Broadway, and that the Wicked book is oboe/EH/bass oboe. Now I really want to play that show! You know how much I love playing in pit orchestras. :-)

My work study here is ushering, which I actually enjoy. All of the patrons are so excited to see us, and it's of course nice to have such an enthusiastic audience. Plus, by ushering I automatically get to see any faculty performance for which I'm working. So far I've worked a piano concert and last night's faculty concert, and attended a chamber concert. I'm trying to go to as many as I can, though sometimes I just have to take a night off and make reeds.

Hello from Eastern Music Festival

2009-06-29T16:18:00.004-04:00

These last couple weeks have been filled with exams, and then a couple family emergencies, a lot of stress, and little oboe playing.

I have no such excuse for the last couple weeks of the quarter. Very shortly after my recital I had excerpt boards (Mozart concerto, Bach, Bartok, Beethoven, Brahms, Ravel, Rossini, Strauss, Tchaik), which we ran like a mock audition. Theoretically. In reality, they turned out to merely be blind boards, with no winner selected or anything like that. I do appreciate that they were done blind, though; I think that I got more blunt and thus more accurate comments than I would have otherwise. I also managed to get a (one-time) paid gig, playing at the high school for the arts downtown. Fun to play, and a good place to get my name out.

I also got to play in two Masters conducting students' independent project of two Bach cantatas done one on a part- 140 (Wachet Auf, aka. The Most Famous Cantata Ever) and 78 (aka. One Of Those Ones No-one Knows). I had a lot of fun, and they came together really well; I really love playing Bach. We played in the atrium, which surprisingly enough provided good acoustics for once. You'd never want to play chamber winds pieces there (though we do, oh we do), but it approximates a large church quite well. I was a little nervous, because the other oboist and I alternated playing first, so I was playing the aria in 140, and in the two rehearsals it had been a little...subpar. But it went really well at the performance: a good reed and good musicality too. :-D

I know my promises are fast becoming worthless, but I'm going to try really hard to get back in the swing of things while here at camp and to post regularly. I've been "finding myself," I suppose, this past year, as well as living a lot farther from my friends, and the result has been, as you are well aware, a lack of regular oboe blogging as I adjust to my new, increasingly adult life.

I promise to try, though, to start back up again. I like having this blog, and I don't want to disappear! The problem right now may in fact be too much to say and too little time (as well as too ineffective internet)!

I arrived at EMF on Saturday evening, and most of Saturday and Sunday were spent roaming around with little to do except go to meetings (welcomes, dorm meetings, work study meetings, orchestra meetings, etc) and take a placement audition. I was pretty happy with how my audition went; I played the second movement of the Bach partita I played on my recital and the EH excerpt from Roman Carnival. I wasn't expecting to win an EH solo, really, since while I love playing EH, I'm not one of the top EH players at my school. But I must have done well, because these first two weeks I'm playing 2nd/EH in Roman Carnival, and 3rd/EH in Mahler Symphony 2 mvt 1. While I'm sad to miss Beethoven 5 and Bartok Concerto for Orchestra (expecially Bartok), I can't really complain about Roman Carnival!

Today we began the festival proper. I had a very good lesson this morning with Randall Ellis, who I have lessons with for the first three weeks of camp. We worked on Roman Carnival and then the first movement of the Vaughan Williams concerto. It's been a while since I've looked at the Vaughan Williams, but due to the placement of my recital as well as things in the rest of my life, I don't really have something new worked up. At the end of the year, I was working on excerpts, etudes, and reeds, mostly. I'm really looking forward to learning the concerto, though. Such a gorgeous piece. We worked on musicality: phrasing, vibrating pick-ups, making sure every note has motion, etc. It was pretty helpful, and I'm glad to see that while Mr. Ellis is very nice (& complimentary), his critiques are apt, and his compliments are very believable. Sometimes you run into teachers who are uncertain enough of your abilities and temperament that they let it get in the way of being helpful. I would rather have a harsh teacher than a overly complimentary or patronizing one.

This afternoon, then, we finally had our first orchestra rehearsal: Roman Carnival. I was a little nervous, as our conductor is Gerald Schwarz and each time I'd seen Mr. Ellis he had warned me to be very meticulous in following Mr. Schwarz's directions. I will say that Mr. Schwarz is a little intimidating, but he was very understanding of our rather messy (sight-reading) rehearsal today, and as I was very careful to follow his directions to the best of my ability he was very complimentary of my solo. I'd forgotten, somehow, just how exposed and important that solo is, but oh, I had such fun. It was a very good first rehearsal, aside from one glaringly obvious wrong note. But I'm pretty sure I made a good first impression, at least. :-D (The issue, I think, will be tuning. We alternate between two rehearsal spaces, and the hall where we were today was exceedingly hot, to the point where I began to get dizzy when repeating sections of my solo over and over. I will be sure to bring water tomorrow.)

I'm really excited to be here. Orchestral playing really is my first and only true love.

(It was also a little bit exciting to finally have a need for my fantastic BAM oboe/EH case. I got it just after my last doubling concert of the year. It's fabulously light, and the backpack straps are really convenient. The only problem is a lack of room for music and reed tools, but the convenience more than makes up for that. Here are a few pictures of my shiny case and of the campus here at EMF.)

Program Notes: Recital, Spring 09

2009-05-16T21:40:00.004-04:00

(In the post below this one, I have linked to a recording of my recital.)

Partita in a minor, BWV 1013; J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Originally for solo flute, Bach’s Partita in a minor (c. 1720-1725) shares a style with much of Bach’s music for solo wind or string instrument, such as his cello suites and violin partitas. The piece is a dance suite, and the movements (Allemande, Corrente, Sarabande, Bourrée) are all popular Baroque dance forms in rounded binary form. Bach combines simple, arioso melodic writing, as in the Sarabande, with highly contrapuntal and complex passages, found throughout the Allemande and Corrente. The prevalence of arpeggios and wide leaps, which emphasize the chordal nature of Bach’s writing and allow his counterpoint to come to the surface, is reminiscent of writing for string instruments.

Each movement begins with a statement of the theme. In the Allemande, the arpeggiated theme repeats often, and is generally unaltered save for transposition. The music surrounding it, however, is altered each time for a great deal of variety. The Corrente is more fantastical, with a longer, more melodic theme. The theme here is treated more loosely, rarely coming back in its original form. The calm, regal Sarabande provides a striking contrast to the almost frantic motion of the other three movements, in which it is left to the performer draw melody and harmony out of strings of constant sixteenth-notes. The Bourrée Anglaise features the most distinct theme of the three fast movements. As in the Allemande, the theme comes back verbatim frequently, and makes good use of the distinctive bourrée rhythm, short-short-long.

Three Piece Suite for Oboe and Piano; Madeleine Dring (1923-1977)

Like the Partita, Dring’s Three Piece Suite (1984) was originally written for another instrument. The piece was adapted by Dring’s oboist husband, Roger Lord, from her Suite for harmonica and piano, and the result is both showy and idiomatic. Dring studied with Vaughan Williams, and the influence of his style, and that of the early 20th century school of British composition, pervades the Suite. This is particularly noticeable in the lush, pastoral Romance and the quirky, rustic qualities of the military Finale.

The opening Showpiece pairs perpetual motion with hints of seductive Orientalism. With few exceptions, the piano is distinctly secondary, providing an off-kilter underpinning for the oboe. A brief contrasting lyrical section near the end of the movement emphasizes the energy and drama of the movement’s close. The Romance features a serene melody over slow piano chords and arpeggios; though the piano occasionally shares the melody, the oboe is distinctly in the foreground of the movement. A more intense middle section pairs a slower tempo with more rapid notes to increase tension and emotion, but the movement ends as it began, in a lullaby or a gentle love song. The Finale is everything the Romance is not: boyish, energetic, and mischievous, the movement is filled with dramatic dynamic and stylistic changes. The piano plays a more active role here, adding to the excitement. As the movement drives to its close, Dring interrupts with short tranquillo interjections, rather than a single contrasting section. Three of these interjections lead back to the energetic mood which pervades the movement, but rather than closing loudly and brightly, the piece fades away into the distance, lento e dolce.

Concerto da Camera; Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)

Born in Italy, Castelnuovo-Tedesco immigrated to the United States shortly before World War II, and found a new home in Hollywood, where he composed for many films and strongly influenced later film composers like Henry Mancini and John Williams. His Concerto da Camera (1950) is a dramatic work with many Baroque influences. Unlike the Dring Suite, the piano (originally orchestra) plays an active and equal role; each movement contains fugal sections.

The first movement, Moderato-Grave, opens with imitation between the oboe and piano, and the oboe’s solo entrance is replicated to some degree in all four movements. This movement is relatively sparse, and generally melancholy and calm, alternating between similar yet distinct tempos and themes. Nevertheless, there are moments of emotional strength. The Giga again opens with a solo oboe and fugal material upon the entrance of the piano. The movement has a frantic air, and uses the high register of the oboe to great effect. A contrasting middle section transforms the movement’s main theme into a dolce song, before returning to the original energetic, dance-like mood. The Aria is reminiscent of trio sonata texture, the piano functioning both as a fugal voice and a steady underpinning of eighth-notes. The movement’s two themes work together, the flowing initial theme consistently leading to resolution in the more active and emotional second theme, and the movement ends with a quasi cadenza on the second theme. Though the fourth movement does contain some fugal material, in general the division between the oboe and piano is more distinct. Abrupt tempo changes and exaggerated effects increase the energy of the movement, while a heavy emphasis on the first beat of each measure lives up to the movement’s initial marking, pomposo. The movement ends with a flourish; as each of the first three movements fades away, the bold ending of the piece is all the more effective.

For citation info, please contact me by leaving a comment on this post, or emailing racheloboes [at] gmail [dot] com. Please credit Rachel Becker if using quotes/specific information from these notes.

My recital!

2009-05-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

I've uploaded the videos of my recital here.

(This was recorded on my digital camera, and I did not know before hand that my camera would only record for three minutes at a time, or that the battery would only last for 45 minutes of a 50 minute recital. Thus the questionable sound quality, the odd breaks in the middles of movements and the fact that the Concerto only has three movements. )

I'm particularly happy with the first and third movments of the Bach, and the first and third movements of the Concerto. The Dring is by far the weakest of the three, partly because I changed reeds and partly because it was the point at which my nerves caught up with me, though I must admit I'm much happier with it after listening to the CD of my recital.

I do think that this is a fair indication of my playing ability, which I'm pleased about. Yes, I can play the pieces with fewer wrong notes, and yes, my tone slipped a few times and my reed started to go a few times, but in general, I played near the best of my ability, especially in terms of tone and intonation.

Any and all comments are welcome, whether praise or concrit. :-)

If anyone would like to hear the fair copy of my recital, I would be glad to get you a copy.

2009-05-12T20:42:00.002-04:00

I'm sorry, I had intended to have another post before my recital, but unfortunately I had a family emergency which took up at least all of my spare emotional time.

In short, both of my dress rehearsals went really well, and I had a reed break-through. We're each allotted 3 hours of dress rehearsal time in our performance space, and I split mine up so that I had one rehearsal a week before, and one a few days later. This was nice because it meant not only that both my professor and one of the symphony guys could come hear me play, but that I had time to process and alter anything specific to the space.

My reed breakthrough was a bit embarrassing, actually. It turns out that I've spent my whole life tying on my reeds backwards. I've always tied reeds "overhand," though with the typical overlap, which means that my tying did not push against the overlap, but rather slid it further to the right. Having fixed this, I'm surprised at the immediate difference. I haven't yet made very many reeds since, but every one I've made has had a distinct low crow, and I can tell that the opening is more stable. I'm very excited; I think this will really make a difference in my consistency.

I was lucky enough, also, in the time leading up to my recital, to have time to work not only with my professor and two of the symphony oboists, but with Petrea Warneck, who has come up for several weeks to give lessons and teach masterclass. I found that working on reeds with her was particularly helpful, as her reed is built a little more similarly to mine than my professor's. For example, both hers and mine are on the longer side. I was hoping to play my recital on reeds which I had made independently, but it turned out that both of the reeds I played on were ones which I had made and Ms. Warneck had polished up. And in the end, I couldn't refuse to play on the best reeds in my box because on (hazy) principal.

I haven't recieved the fair copy of my recital recording yet, but I asked one of the oboists in the studio to record it on my tiny digital camera. Overall, I'm quite happy with how I played, and I thought that I maintained good tone and phrasing even when I was pretty tired, though of course I can nit-pick it to death (tempos, bizarre missed notes, fatigue, tuning slips, etc.). Once I figure out how best to do so, and once I have a chance to listen to a good recording, I will upload a few of the videos (along with more thoughts on them) for anyone who's curious. I'll also post my program notes, which are much less extensive than last year's.

I'm incredibly relieved that my recital is over, but I can't fully relax quite yet; I have an excerpt board on Monday, for which I have to learn excerpts from The Top Ten, plus the exposition of the Mozart Concerto. Luckily, I've played the majority of the excerpts before. I do have to learn the opening of Don Juan, though. I love playing it, but I need to get my tonguing up from 72 to 84.

I'm sorry, I haven't quite gotten to the commenting on other people's blogs stage yet.

2009-04-29T22:40:00.007-04:00

Last Tuesday, I had the hearing for my recital. What this involves is (theoretically) playing your whole program through for a panel of three professors, who ensure that you won't embarrass yourself at your recital. This is also what you are technically graded on. What this comes to in reality is closer to a coaching, at the end of which your teacher signs off. Or at least that's how it goes in the oboe studio. At any rate, I played my two accompanied pieces for both my teacher and Dwight (with piano), and was checked off by both.
I offer proof:

The week before your recital, the scheduling office, which is in charge of printing programs, prints a copy of your program and pins it to a bulletin board. Now, as I have posted a picture, you can see that my program clearly states "Rachel B*, oboe" and that one of my pieces is titled "Three Piece Suite for Oboe and Piano." This wasn't clear enough for the office, however. They've printed my program as "Rachel B*, flute." Tomorrow I shall go to the scheduling office and Have A Word with them.

On Saturday we had our orchestra concert, at which we played Saariaho's Oltra Mar, which I liked, and every other person in the orchestra and choir hated intensely. They also did the Mozart C minor Mass, which I didn't play in. The concert went just fine, and we're all excited to be moving on to Mahler 1. And the soloists in the Mass were really fantastic, particularly the mezzo.

I'm feeling intensely melodramatic now, as I do for approximately two weeks preceding my recitals, but in reality my recital prep is going just fine. I've managed to run through my program one and a half times in a sitting, and it's quite reassuring that I have that endurance. This week at some point I'm going to run through the whole thing twice in a row- what I've been doing mostly is running through the piece once and then working small spots. And my accompanist is great- there's always a risk, of course, working with a new pianist, and even more when you've asked them because they're your friend, but she's very good and everything's going really well with putting the parts together. This week we've finally reached the point where we can start being musical together, rather than just counting furiously to avoid coming in at the wrong place.

I had a lesson yesterday with the second oboist in the symphony, and my schedule from now until my recital looks something like this:
Thursday: lesson, dress rehearsal
Saturday: dress rehearsal
Sunday: quintet performance
Monday: midterm
Tuesday: two lessons
Wednesday: midterm
???: writing program notes
Thursday: RECITAL.

I really liked working with Lon, the second oboist, though he's very dry- so much so that it was a bit hard for me to tell when he was being complimentary and when he was being sarcastic. I wouldn't say it was one of the most helpful lessons I've had, but that was more because I'm at the point where I'm a) only playing recital stuff and b) know exactly how I'm going to play those pieces. 9 days before is no time to be changing anything substantial. As a result, it was mostly a "let me play for you to get over my nerves" lesson. Those are good too, but I wish I was able to have a lesson with him that wasn't two weeks before my recital. I think I would have gotten more out of it. I felt very much at ease with him; he's very unassuming, if that's the word I mean, and so it's easy to talk with him in a relatively equal way.

I had a very small lesson last week with Petrea Warneck, who came to do a masterclass. I was meant to play in the masterclass, but we ran out of time, and instead I had a half hour lesson with her directly before my hearing. We worked on interpretation of the Bach, as I do with every teacher I encounter, and she, Chris, and Lon have been really helpful in helping me find ways to moderate the conflicting interpretations which I've been trying to mesh in the piece. She's coming again on Monday, and I'll have another lesson with her.

My goal for between now and my recital is being more fluid and lyrical. I know all of the notes, and I can play them. I know what my interpretation of the pieces is. I know how my part fits with the piano. Now to get just a little bit closer to that higher level, that last layer of finesse that makes everything sparkle and sing.

Don't eat a pink marshmallow Peep before playing.

2009-04-19T20:27:00.002-04:00

They do unfortunate things to the color of your reeds.

Last week I had a lesson with the symphony English horn player, as we're rotating between teachers. I unfortunately didn't play any English horn rep for him, just recital music, but it was a pretty good lesson nonetheless. We worked on Bach, and he helped me merge some of my (rather more Romantic) ideas with some of Dwight's (rather more straightforward) ideas, which was really helpful; I have trouble sometimes finding the middle ground. It was also nice simply to play the piece for another person, because it definitely shows all of my nerves, particularly in the Allemande, the opening movement.

The lesson was a little awkward just because I had never worked with him before. He didn't really have a sense of how I usually play, and so he tended towards overly explaining concepts, but it was still certainly a helpful lesson. Plus, he gave me a reed, though it is dramatically different from mine and very short, and he let my lesson run for an extra half an hour. I think that I would really like studying with him if we had more time to get to know each other; his specific comments on the Bach were really musical and also very individual. We did a lot of work, for example, on finding less predictable and more intuitive breathing spots.

My recital is in two and a half weeks, and while most of last week I was feeling very pessimistic about my playing, in the past week I've done two run-throughs of my program (alone, not with piano) and had two more rehearsals with my pianist. I feel really good about how the music is going together with the piano, which is wonderful. On Tuesday I have my recital hearing, where I will play all or part of my program with my accompanist for Dwight, who is standing in as my professor, and have my program signed off. By Thursday I then turn in my signed program and program notes to the office.

I'm very excited to have orchestra rehearsal tomorrow, and not only because we're rehearsing with the choir. I haven't gotten to play in orchestra since the 8th! That is far too long.

2009-04-09T22:41:00.002-04:00

On Monday I had another really great lesson with Dwight. I definitely like working with him. I played some more Bach for him, and we did work on my ornaments; he helped me edit them so that they add to the line and direction of the piece rather than just overwhelming it. Although both my professor, who was sitting in on about half of the lesson, and Dwight liked a lot of them to begin with. I'm glad that I'm doing this, because I really have no previous experience in ornamenting music, and it's certainly a useful skill to have. (...upon listening to the absolutely fantastic recording of Alex Klein playing the Bach, I appear to have spontaneously used about 75% of the same ornaments. Dr. O actually commented on this in my lesson, but I didn't know what he meant. I suppose there are only so many different ornaments that you can feasibly use in any given spot?) We worked on the Dring some too, and I have since been spending most of my practice time working up very specific parts of this, a half hour on those 4 measure, 20 minutes on those 5, etc. I need to get all of my fingers more automatic so that I can concentrate more fully on making music.

I can't articulate exactly what it is, but Dwight is a really good teacher, and regardless of whether or not I agree with his larger interpretations, his smaller musical ideas are always spot on and really well articulated. Plus he inspires me to practice a lot, though some of this is from the fact that my schedule this quarter is much more convenient than last quarter's, and so I can space out my practicing more effectively. Still, I want to impress him, and I feel he's likely to notice if I'm not playing my best.

On Tuesday, I had a lesson with Scott Bell of the Pittsburgh Symphony, who was visiting this week and conducted our masterclass on Monday. We worked on the Bach and Dring, and I got some really good feedback about all important issues like not losing the line. Mostly just basic things, but he phrased all of his comments really well, and I needed to be called out on all of them, particularly in the Bach. I get so caught up in all of my as yet conflicting interpretations in the Bach that I forget to maintain on my tone and phrasing and all of the good stuff that makes the piece sound, well, musical rather than like a bunch of crazy notes. (This is also why I've been doing very specific practicing. I need to be confident enough in my fingers that I can think on my feet. Obviously by the time of my recital I will have a specific interpretation, but right now several different versions are warring in my head and trying to trip up my fingers.)

When I first came in he had me just play a fairly slow scale (E flat, two octaves) to get a sense of how I played, and he was apparently really impressed by how I sounded on that. Unfortunately, he was then...disappointed in comparison by my actual playing (he said "when you played the scale, I was like, this is a real oboist, a real musician," and then he sort of trailed off in a loaded way). So, yay! But darn. It's no good to be able to play a scale with great tone and phrasing and control, but to then be unable to replicate that in anything else. I have actually sort of noticed this as I begin to be more confident in the Bach and the Dring, as well as in the Castelnuovo-Tedesco, that I can have trouble maintaining my tone and the line of the music. This is definitely something for me to fix. Some of it is the stage I'm at in learning the music, but there's certainly a larger lesson here. I think on the whole, though, he thought I played well. It was a little hard for me to get a sense of that, though, since I was sort of on high alert after his comment.

I finished The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross, after a 6 month long hiatus during which it got lost on my bookshelf. It was fascinating and well written from start to finish. It's a mix of:
-intense descriptions of compositions ("The swan hymn, now carried by the trumpets, undergoes convulsive transformations and is reborn as a fearsome new being. Its intervals split wide open, shatter apart, re-form. The symphony ends with six far-flung chords, through which the main theme shoots like a pulse of energy. The swan becomes the sun." p. 168),
-general and specific information about so many composers ("In his later years [Stockhausen] revealed a mystical streak, bordering on the hippie-dippy; it turned out that he had lived many past lives, and that he claimed to be extraterrestrial in origin." p. 394),
-quotes, quotes, quotes ("When music is heard, it is shot through with time, like a shining crystal; unheard music drops through empty time like a useless bullet." p. 357),
-and some bonus awesomeness ("Black-and-white categories make no sense in the shadowland of dictatorship. These composers were neither saints nor devils; they were flawed actors on a tilted stage." p. 218).
I highly recommend it.

Well...hello again.

2009-04-05T21:34:00.004-04:00

Spring quarter began last Monday, and with it I'm back to writing, reading and commenting. Winter quarter was stressful and a little overwhelming, and I just needed to take that little bit more time for myself. I'm sorry for disappearing for so long without any warning. My last quarter in brief: my academic classes were history, which was unfortunately simplistic, and theory, whose professor was unfortunately difficult to please. I rotated into band, and also into chamber winds. Chamber winds was really enjoyable, and I got to play second in Mozart's Gran Partita, but band was, well, less enjoyable. I did play in the Strauss competition, though I didn't make it to the second round, and unfortunately I didn't get to sub into Also Sprach. But such is life.

My teacher was very distracted all quarter, as a result of planning a "Loree Fest," featuring guest Alain de Gourdon, the head of Loree, and the oboists in the symphony. We had masterclasses, an oboe petting zoo, a couple store booths, and a concert. It was really a lot of fun and quite a success. I played the Sarabande from the unaccompanied Bach suite in the Vade Mecum, and was unusually happy with my performance.

I spent the first month or so of the quarter furiously practicing the exposition of the Mozart concerto, Don Juan, and La Scala for my audition for the Lucca Opera Festival, which is a CCM summer program, though it's open to the wider public. I was incredibly excited at the program and anxious that nothing would go wrong in my audition, playing in masterclass, etc. I was very proud to work up La Scala to 120; I seem to have finally cracked, or at least put a big dent in, my very longstanding tonguing issues. But out of the blue Lucca was cancelled, which left me scrambling to find other summer programs to apply to and other audition material to work up. I ended up applying to Brevard, Chatauqua, Sewanee, and Eastern. I was waitlisted at Brevard and, oddly, Sewanee, but I found out last week that I was accepted to Eastern. I've applied twice in the past to Eastern and gotten waitlisted, so it's fantastic to get it. I'm really looking forward to going.

This quarter, my professor is on sabbatical, so we're being taught by three of the four oboists in the symphony. I end up having 7 lessons with the principal oboist, Dwight, and 3 lessons collectively with the other two. I'm really looking forward to it. I had my first lesson last Monday, which was a little nerve-wracking simply because I'd been out of the country and away from the oboe all of the preceeding week, leaving my out of shape and playing very old reeds. But while I didn't play to the best of my abilities, I didn't outright embarrass myself, which counts for something. I played most of the unaccompanied Bach sonata we stole from the flutes. Now, the thing about this Bach is that it tends to be very polarizing in terms of interpretations. I've played parts of it for four different teachers now, and they have alternated between interpreting it very Romantically, with a lot of rubato and such, and very straight. I had been working on it with my professor last quarter, and he'd shared my opinion, the former. However, Dwight decidedly does not see the piece that way. I'm having a lot of trouble deciding how I ultimately am going to play the piece, but I'm trying very hard to be able to play it both ways. There are a few things I absolutely refuse to give up, and in one mvt I actually really agree with Dwight, but the rest of it...well, we'll see. I'm grown up enough now to realize that perhaps my teacher does know better than I do, even if I have strong opinions, but I also know that it's all about making your own interpretation, and if you can't convince yourself, you can't convince anyone. I do recognize that his is a musical and valid interpretation. I'm just not sure that mine isn't also. We shall see. It's at least a good exercise for me to play it in what frankly is a much more period appropriate style.

This past week I worked on that, as well as modifying the articulation of the first movement and writing ornamentation for the fourth movement, which has been very difficult. I find it very hard to write ornaments for any music, and Bach (fast Bach, too) is no exception. I have another lesson tomorrow, so I'll see what input he has for me. (My recital is in just over a month, and I'm playing the Bach, Madeleine Dring's Three Piece Suite, and the Castelnuovo-Tedesco Concerto da Camera. I'm nervous, because May 7 seems very, very soon indeed, but I'm really excited about all of the pieces.)

I disappeared on purpose this time...but I did mean to leave a note.

2009-02-25T22:17:00.002-05:00

I'm on oboe blog hiatus until next quarter, which starts on March 30, after several more summer program auditions, another concert or two, and a week long trip to visit my friend in England.

Sorry to have vanished! I will return.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

2008-12-03T22:54:00.007-05:00

As for me, I had a lot of fun hanging out in Cincinnati with fellow crazy musicians. :-)

The Bach concerts went really well, on the whole. We were performing in a church, which had a really great space for us, with plenty of room for the orchestra, the choir, and the movie projector. Unfortunately the sanctuary was freezing cold, but you can't have everything. We had three rehearsals in the space, one to run through each solo movement for each set of soloists, and two dress rehearsals with the movie running in order to both triple check tempos and let us get our distraction and gawking out of the way. And gawk we did. I'm not sure what I was expecting the movie to be like, but it was not like the actual movie, which is 27 short films, one per movement of the Mass. There was a loose connection between the movements, but in general they were free-standing, and their material ranged from kaleidoscope shots of trees and leaves to children playing to Bach himself to the 3 wise men to an Escher-like scene of birds morphing into fluorescent blue crosses to break-dancing to the "Et resurrexit". Some of it was cool, some kitsch, and some rather disturbing. You can find a trailer of it here.

The nice thing about the format of the film was that we had some leeway between the movements, which gave us oboes enough time to comfortably, though quickly, switch between oboe and d'amore, and also allowed us to remain very closely synced with the movie. In terms of our playing, I thought both performances went really well. The soloists were really supurb, the choir fantastic, and the orchestra definitely holding their own. :-) And though we were dealing with slightly subpar instruments, the d'amore duets turned out really well, and the first oboe played really beautifully on the d'amore solo.

It was interesting playing first with the movie and then the second concert alone, because they felt so very different. When we played with the movie all of the lights in the sanctuary were out, and we played with stand lights. Every time the lights went down and we breathed and opened the Kyrie, I just was swept away by the music. For the second concert, though, we kept all of the lights up. We could see the audience, and it was wonderful to see the looks on people's faces as we played. There was one man in the front row who would have made the entire performance worth it had he been the only person in attendance.

We got a complimentary and lengthy (though heavily focused on the movie) review of Friday's concert here.

Since then we haven't had orchestra rehearsal, until today. We met to read through student compositions, which were surprisingly unobjectionable, and also to read Also Sprach Zarathustra. Now, as we rotate the wind sections through the top three ensembles, I won't be playing Zarathustra next quarter. However, there's so much confusion among the oboes right now regarding the rotation that I stuck around in the (likely) event of one of the four not showing up to rehearsal. I'm so glad I did, because I ended up playing 3rd oboe.

It was stunning. I could not for the life of me stop grinning in utter joy. If you don't know any more of the piece than the opening fanfare, please go and listen to it immediately. It will be completely worth it.

(I would do anything to be playing in that piece next semester. It's the same concert as the Oboe Concerto, so there may be some shuffling of players out of normal rotation. I don't think I'd be the one asked to play if they needed an extra, but I swear, I would take myself out of the competition right now if I was guaranteed a part in that piece.)

Speaking of the Strauss competition, I've been slacking too much on learning and polishing up that piece. It's daunting to practice, but I really do want to do the competition, so I need to buckle down and get to work. I'm pretty happy with the first and second movements, but I feel like I lose the sense of each movement as a whole. I need to work on having interpretation and technical integrity at the same time in those. And on getting all the way through the pair of them! Plus I'm still learning the third and fourth, though I'm actually less worried about those two.

I'm nearly done with the Gillet etude book, which is rather exciting. I only have three etudes of 24 left! I'm also continuing to work on a couple English horn pieces, and thinking about what I want to play on my recital this spring. I would sort of love to play one piece each on oboe, English horn, and d'amore, but I think that trying to practice on three instruments at the same time for a recital might be a little too much. I'm definitely going to play a piece on English horn, though.I was disappointed to find that our music library doesn't own a copy of the Dring trio for oboe, flute, and piano, but I did find her Three Piece Suite for oboe and piano, which is really nice as well. It's very much like twisted British folk music, and it's fun and flashy without being super hard or way too easy. It would be a nice piece to round out a recital, I think.

Enjoy the freedom to listen to holiday music sans guilt!

It's been snowing on and off all day!

2008-11-17T22:16:00.007-05:00

I've never had snow before Thanksgiving before; at home we rarely have any at all before New Years. And I overheard one boy today saying that this was the first time he'd ever seen snow in real life. That made me smile. Unfortunately, the school seems to have taken this as a cue to turn off the heat in the practice rooms. My fingers got so cold today that I could hardly play. But that can hardly be blamed on the snow. :-)

I've been feeling very down about oboe most of the time lately. It's not continual- I'm generally quite pleased, for example, when I play the Strauss- but it's unfortunately prevalent. A large portion of it is my reeds, which have been rather highly unsuccessful lately. Nearly all I do in lessons is work on reeds, and while I certainly like my teacher's style of reeds, and I appreciate him fixing up my reeds and showing me (quite clearly and in much detail) what it is that he's doing, I find it incredibly difficult to replicate on my own reeds. And trying to do so is playing havoc with the way that I generally make reeds myself. I do like playing on the reeds of mine that he fixes up, but I find that they die really quickly, becoming very bright and squished, and are nearly impossible to revive.

I've been thinking, though, after hearing my teacher play in another prof's recital tonight. He played incredibly well, very smooth, with lovely and subtle vibrato, and with absolute control. But it felt very closed off. I felt like I couldn't get in to most of the emotions in the piece. It would have been perfection for second oboe, or maybe even first, and I only hope that I can play like that in orchestra. For solo playing, though, it wasn't enough for me. And while I do like his sound, I'm not sure that that is what I want to sound like. So I'm going to do some thinking about that, and try to find a happy medium for reeds.

Another side result of spending all of my lesson time working on reeds is that, well, I spend very little time in lessons actually playing music. As a result I find myself either not very focused in preparing specific pieces, as by now I know that I won't end up playing them, or frustratingly stuck in my attempts to learn pieces. (In fact, my time management in general right now has been lacking. Some of the problem is that I've been working too much, some of it is that I'm being lazy, and some of it is mysterious, possibly mid-semester malaise.) I've been trying to learn Gillet #21 for about 3 weeks now, and while I can't guarantee that it would be going better with input from my teacher, I feel that it couldn't hurt. In that specific case, I'm just going to move on and come back later, but I feel stuck in a rut technically and musically. And after all, isn't the reason that I'm in grad school, other than that I want to avoid real life, so that I can continue to study? I certainly have my own ideas about pieces, but I like having other ideas to bounce off of, and I just need input. Sometimes a few words, critique, observation, or compliment, can make all the difference in how I view a piece, or a phrase, or my playing.

My teacher says that he's not worried about my musicality or technique, as long as I have reeds that I can fully express myself on. But dear Prof, I am worried about my musicality and technique.

However, life has not been all bad. I played the third movement of the Rathbun 3 Diversions for 2 Oboes in masterclass, playing 2nd instead of 1st, which was a lot of fun and a big hit. Interestingly enough, while I didn't have any trouble learning the second part, when I got up to play my fingers remained very attached to the 1st part. Muscle memory is a powerful thing.

Also, I'm playing 2nd oboe/ 2nd d'amore in Bach's B minor Mass with the chamber orchestra and chamber choir, which is amazing. We have two performances, one alone, and one as accompaniment to the film The Sound of Eternity by German director Bastien Cleve'. I think it will be pretty cool, but it makes the performance a little more nerve-wracking, as we must exactly sync with the movie, and a little more frustrating, as we are tied to the exact tempos picked by the director, rather than those our conductor or soloists prefer (or those at which we can play the runs!). I'm a little nervous about having enough time to switch between instruments, but we have two dress runs, so everything should turn out alright. The choir is really outstanding, and the soloists I've heard so far have been as well.

I recently found a fabulous piece, Madeleine Dring's Trio for Oboe, Flute and Piano, which I'm now dying to play. The only problem? I heard it at the recital my teacher played in, and now the entire oboe studio is engaged in a race to see who gets to it first. You can hear clips of it here in the sidebar.

Plus, I really love the other oboists here. I get along well with nearly all of them, and they're pretty much all very friendly and welcoming. I really enjoy my time spent in the reed room. :-)

We're having a Concerto Competition in January with the Strauss, the winner of which gets to perform with Philharmonia, the top orchestra. I wasn't originally planning on entering, as I was feeling outclassed and also as I just don't generally prefer solo playing, but I've changed my mind. It'll be really good experience, and I'm coming to like the Strauss quite a lot. (Not as much as Vaughan Williams, but Strauss can't have everything.) Besides, I feel that I can in fact play as well as quite a few of the people who are entering. I don't expect to win, but I'm certainly still going to give it my all.

Speaking of solo (and "solo") rep, I've worked out how I'm going to space out the performance aspects of my degree. We're required to do one recital, one excerpt board, and one more performance, either a second recital or a solo board. My plan is to play one recital this spring, one (late) next fall, and the excerpt board the spring of my second year. I do feel much better having figured this out. The nice thing is that they're fairly short recitals- 3 pieces instead of 4- which makes the fact that they're fairly close together a lot more manageable.

My most exciting news, however, is that I now have an Innoledy gouger! After being on the waiting list since January, about 2 or 2 and a half weeks ago I got an email that one was available. About a week later, it showed up on my door step. It's fantastic. For anybody who's never encountered an Innoledy gouger, here is a little vido I made demonstrating, though without a piece of cane. I'm planning on making another one when actually gouging.

This is about (liberal) politics; I completely understand if you do not read it.

2008-11-05T16:17:00.001-05:00

In many ways I'm very proud of my country right now. I'm disappointed in California and the other states who passed propositions limiting the rights of gay Americans, but I'm proud of the US for electing Obama, and of my two states. Both Ohio and Virginia went blue, Virginia for the first time since 1964.

I wasn't intending to post anything here, but I came across a few things which perfectly express how I feel about this election.

"...for a very long time we have been told, if you do not support every action your government makes, you are unpatriotic. If you are against war and militarism, you are not a real American. The real America/fake America argument wasn't something that just came out of the woodwork a couple of weeks ago, it has been there all along. And I will say, that I think that for a long time, we, on some level, believed it. I did. I suppose I accepted it, thinking that, "okay if that is what patriotism is, I guess I'll plan my future as an expatriate."What Obama did is phenomenal, not just for the history he's made, but for making it possible for all Americans to be patriots again by demonstrating that there is no "real America" or fake America, just America. He really has given something back to us, and in giving him the presidency, we've given it back to ourselves."

"I couldn't believe how fast it had happened. One minute, Wolf Blitzer was saying the polls in the west coast were about to close, and then seconds later, they called it for Obama. I thought "no, wait, make absolutely sure, don't jinx this for us!" …
... I've always liked Obama (I remember watching his speech at the 2004 DNC and saying "that man is going to be president someday"), I just didn't understand what he meant to do with nothing more than hope. I wanted pragmatism. I wanted details.When he became the nominee, … I still didn't get my hopes up, because I was terrified of being disappointed; surely, something would go wrong."

"I truly honestly believed that we would be hashing out the election results for weeks. I was even prepared for what happened in 2000 to happen again. A clear, decisive victory was the last thing I had expected. I flipped over to CNN, and I wish I could remember the exact phrasing for posterity's sake, but the text at the bottom of the screen actually had "Barack Obama" and "president" in the same sentence, and I stared at it for the longest time. It was real, and it was happening, and it was happening now. And then I was reading y'all's reactions, and I found myself unable to feel any of the same joy or excitement or jubilation. I think I was shocked, mostly. My eyes were a little wet. And the thing is, I don't think I had realized until that moment how much I had lost over the last eight years, until the moment that I got it back, and that loss was suddenly what I was aware of. I realized right then that I had lost faith in pretty much anything this country stands for.
…
It's not over. One election doesn't solve anything--no matter who you elect, that candidate still has to live up to his promise. No matter what change you want, you have to get out there and make it yourself. But for the first time in a very long time, it felt like the country had opened its eyes again and remembered its name."

I was 13 in 2000, and 17 (just 6 months too young) in 2004, and I remember election night, sitting in the dorm room with everybody so incredibly hopeful, almost sure that Kerry would win. I wrote the next day, "all I can say is did you honestly think that Kerry was going to win?" It's been four years, but I can say that I probably did, certainly more than I admitted to anyone, including myself. This election, I didn't even dare hope. I honestly didn't believe that the majority of people (and actually of people, no interceding electoral college issues this time around) in the US, let alone so much of a majority, would support Obama. My sister called me immediatedly after they started to call Virginia as blue, and my friend after they announced Obama. Both times (I hadn't seen McCain's concession at that point) I couldn't muster up any excitement- what if it reversed, if they were wrong? I couldn't deal with having my hope up. This morning, then, when I looked and saw that Ohio was still blue, Virginia was still blue, Obama had still won, so many states had swung to blue, was amazing.

I know that change is going to be slow, but I've been walking around all day with a grin on my face, and I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

Nothing like the oboe...

2008-10-28T19:30:00.004-04:00

...to knock you out of Oboe Angst. Recently I've felt entirely unhappy with my time management, reed making, playing abilities, and musicality. However, a good practice session, helpful lesson, orchestra rehearsal and a successful masterclass shook me right out of it. Thank goodness.

Last night in masterclass I played the first page of Gillet etude 20, which was quite a kick of adrenaline. I was pretty pleased with how it went, especially since I was actually able to play it through twice. The first time my nerves really got the better of me, but the second time I was able to be expressive, and not too pinched on the high notes, and really emphasize and be musical at the spots where I wanted to be rubato. So all in all, a success. I actually played last week in masterclass as well, the first two of the slow movement excerpts from Beethoven 3. Those went very well- they're some of my absolute favorite excerpts, and I try to be incredibly sensitive to the mood of the movement and express all of the little changes. I got a compliment from one of the other oboists on being appropriately gloomy, and really evoking that the movement is a funeral march, which was lovely, but a little bit funny to me. I've never had a problem with not being melancholy enough in those excerpts; I actually tend to get too bogged down in it and have trouble sticking around the proper tempo.

We're doing the excerpts out of John Ferrillo's book, though, and I think that having the piano play along with you on excerpts is actually incredibly helpful, both for the person performing and for those listening. I find that I am frequently guilty of not really knowing how my part fits in to the orchestra as a whole.

Yesterday I also finally had orchestra again- all of last week my orchestra only rehearsed Tchaik 6, and I'm playing 2nd in two excerpts from Tchaik's Eugene Onegin, and 1st in Tchaik's Rococo Variations instead. I appreciate the need, but, well, I was already jealous of the people playing the symphony, and then to not have orchestra for a week! Plus, we have a concert next Wednesday, and this was the first rehearsal for two of those three pieces. Unfortunately, Rococo Variations was one of those two, and yesterday was also our first rehearsal with the soloist for the piece. And our first rehearsal with the student conductor who's conducting it. It was a bit nerve-wracking all around, but tomorrow's rehearsal will be much better. Still, it struck me as a bit unprofessional, and rude as well, to not have even looked at the piece as a group before bringing in the soloist.

My classes have in general been entirely boring and uninteresting. However, we did have one thought-provoking article for my music history class, "The Good, the Bad, and the Boring," by Daniel Leech-Wilkinson. Honestly, it made me furious. Here's why:

"But it is hard to see what can be the purpose of musicology if not to advise people on what to hear and how to hear it."

"...the work of "primitives"- composers deliberately ignoring mainstream compositional principles in favor of something equally consistent but less refined."

"[A good piece]...stretches established notions of good style just far enough to be recognizably new, without going so far beyond the norm as to alienate the listener."

My comments to that are pretty much that the second quote there has invalidated, to me, any point that this author ever has made or will make in the future. Yes, because the purpose of analyzing literature is to make sure that nobody ever reads pulp fiction, the avant garde isn't real art, and anything that doesn't conform to the exact bounds of mainstream Western-European art music is "primitive".

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the class, we couldn't really have a good discussion about the article.

In my lessons, I've mostly been working on reeds. While I find my teacher's method of reed making very easy to follow when he is demonstrating, and I absolutely love the results, I find it both very difficult to duplicate and very difficult to completely ignore when making my own reeds. As a result, I've been spending a really large amount of time on reeds recently and been quite frustrated about my results. However, my teacher's comments have been getting more and more positive, so at least I'm improving. I'm confident that eventually it will all start working together, rather than at cross purposes. We've also been working on reeds because I've had to make reeds for oboe d'amore, and also started making English horn reeds. While I was incredibly frustrated by my d'amore reeds, which my teacher helpfully rescued for me, I have to say that I was blown away by how easy it was to get a functional English horn reed. Now I just have to make a functional English horn reed that doesn't leak copiously. :-)

I'll fill you in on all of the d'amore goings on on Friday, after our workshop performance of excerpts of the Bach B-minor Mass, but I will put up a link here to some pictures showing off the school's d'amore and some rough recordings, for anyone who's never heard a d'amore, to give a feeling of the difference between it, oboe, and English horn.

Six things about me:

2008-10-22T22:52:00.002-04:00

Patty (www.oboeinsight.com) tagged me to post "to write six things about me, personally, that my readers might not know."

1. I hate mayonnaise with a burning passion.
2. I lived in Germany for two years.
3. I have very long hair. I wish it were a dark reddish-brown, but it's actually a sort of generic very dark blonde/light brown color.
4. I'm absolutely crazy about fantasy and some sci-fi, both books and tv. Some favorites include
Robin McKinley, Buffy, Neil Gaiman, Doctor Who, etc.
5. My favorite color is jewel tone red, and I like to dress my bedroom up like I live in a Pre-Raphaelite castle.
6. I collect elephants. I have absolutely no idea how or why this started, other than the fact that I made a stuffed elephant in 8th grade Home Ec.

I would have posted this sooner, but my sister came to visit me this weekend, and was able to switch her flight to one five hours earlier than her original one. While this was very nice, and much more convenient, it meant that many things I'd planned for Friday afternoon did not get done. She was here until Tuesday, and I've been catching up on things Tuesday afternoon and today. I do have a post to make about my first (surprise) Bach rehearsal, and playing on masterclass on Monday, but it will have to wait. If I go to bed now, I have time to practice before class tomorrow. :-)

A whirlwind of a week (and a half)

2008-10-15T11:30:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday I got sick, last Tuesday I started working at my non-music job (I do research for a company that creates websites), then I had to run around like crazy to get all of my homework done because my cousin came on Friday to visit me over her fall break, and left on this Tuesday, the day of our first orchestra concert.

On top of that, I've been under the impression from Friday until about 15 minutes ago that I had a rehearsal today on oboe d'amore (I'm playing in the Bach B minor mass), so I've given myself a crash course in making d'amore reeds. I'm glad that I have some more time to get my reeds polished, because I really like to make good impressions on new conductors but I also feel a bit cheated.

Last Monday we had our first "real" oboe masterclass (since the first was mostly an oboe petting zoo), and I played part of the Strauss concerto. From rehearsal 9 to rehearsal 17, to be precise, which is the B theme and recap in the first movement. I felt absolutely dreadful, but I was fairly happy with how I played. I need to work on not playing the 32nd note runs too fast. They turn into lazy glissandos in which you can't hear individual notes. I also need to work on bringing the high notes into the phrase. I'm pretty happy with the bell-tone sort of sound I'm getting on them, but they don't connect across the bar.

I also have my lessons on Monday. I'm not thrilled about that, because Mondays are by far my busiest day (I have my first class starting at 9 AM (8 if I go and practice, which I have been) and my last ends at 9 PM), but my lessons have been going pretty well. The last two we haven't been working on reeds, which I prefer, since while I love my prof's reeds I haven't been able to make reeds anything like them on my own, and instead we've been working on the Strauss: the portion I played in class, and the second movement. He has a computer program (I believe called Smart Music) which plays a piano accompaniment along with you, with a huge list of repertoire. It doesn't follow your tempo changes generally, but it does wait at ritards and cadenzas and the like. Plus, because it doesn't follow you, it really gives you a chance to pay attention to the accompaniment while you're playing without having to worry about leading. Obviously that has some negative aspects, but it's nice to do a few times. I've also been working on a Gillet, which I'm trying to get musical and melodic, without losing my fingers. My prof wants me to prepare it for a masterclass, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get that comfortable with it. I suppose I did play one for my auditions, though.

On Sunday I met for the first time with my woodwind quintet, which was fun. We just read through a few pieces (Neilsen, Ibert, and one other I've forgotten), but the others are all really fantastic players, and we'll be able to do a lot together. We have another rehearsal on Friday, so we'll get to do a little bit more work.

Last night, then, we had the first Philharmonia concert, which was both the gala concert opening CCM's season (with $150 seats and a champagne intermission to accompany them) and the start of our Tchaikovsky festival. It was incredible.

I was up in the balcony for the first piece, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto 1, and when the piece opened I was struck by so many things. That sound was coming from from the group I play in. That's what we sound like. I get caught up in being busy, and frustrated with classes, or reeds, or my fingers, or any other number of little things, and I forget that I'm here, I've made it this far. And while there's so much farther to go, this is my dream, and exactly what I want to be doing with my life. I don't know how to express it in words, exactly, but it was an intense moment, both the music and that on top of it. That sort of sigh exhale where your hands come up over your mouth.The pianist was fantastic. She's a student here, either masters or doctoral, and she played beautifully. She was confident, polished, and musical, and managed to lead the orchestra exactly where she wanted to go. It was perhaps the first solo I've heard that made me think "Wow. I want to do that, to play with an orchestra as well as just in one." It was inspiring.
Romeo and Juliet was the best we've played it, and I know that if it wasn't my personal best it was at least very close. It's a woodwind heavy piece, between the opening chorale, small passages throughout, the large melody section in the middle, and the closing chorale, and we managed to be very well in tune with each other. And we played our hearts out. While 1812 wasn't consistently the best we've played it, the end was certainly powerful, in the way that 1812 is, and the opening cello chorale was beautiful and intense. At that point there was nothing to save ourselves for, and we ended with a bang. Literally, since they had cannons rigged to shoot confetti into the audience at the end of the piece. Plus, we had an approximately 20 person brass choir standing in the aisles of the auditorium for the last section of the piece.The intermission was interminable, and the stage was boiling hot, but the concert was such a wonderful experience. I realize a lot of my reaction was because I hadn't had a concert since the middle of April, but I was very pleased with both myself and the orchestra.

Oh, I also was able to go hear a concert by the Cincinnati Symphony. They did Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini and Shostakovich's 8th Symphony, which I'd never actually heard all of before. It was very good, though there were some odd acoustics issues. However, I was on the floor, rather than in the balcony, so perhaps some of it was just my seat. I also don't approve of their concert dress, which is white tie and tails for the men, and either all black or black skirt/pants and jacket with a white shirt for the women. It tends to look very uneven in terms of level of formality, since the women have much more lee-way in their dress and the men are wearing the most formal outfit possible. Still, that's not particularly relevent to their playing, which was really great.

My next projects, other than learning my new orchestra and quintet music, are to make some English horn reeds, and finish my d'amore reeds. I ordered some gouged and shaped EH cane staples, so I'm going to see what I can work up. Although my d'amore reeds (which, for those who don't know, can conveniently be made with oboe cane and a d'amore shaper) aren't finished, I'm hopeful that they will turn out well. And if not, I now have much more time before I need them for a rehearsal.

Plus, now that my schedule, with me now working and all, has settled down, I'm going to try to regularize my practice schedule. I'm not getting as much done as I need to be, and I want to be able to play the Gillet in my next lesson. (The fact that my reeds seem to have settled down a bit- knock on wood- after having returned to my own way of scraping will help with this too. There was a while there where I felt that every spare moment I had was spent merely trying to get reeds I could play on.) I also need to find an EH piece to work on. Any suggestions?

"If we play those measures any faster, the strings' arms will fall off.

2008-10-01T16:54:00.004-04:00

There're more of them. And they'll come and get you." So says my orchestra conductor.

Orchestra continues to be fantastic, though unfortunately I don't get to play in Tchaik's Symphony 6. I'm amazed by the quality of the strings, though of course I shouldn't be. We're playing Romeo and Juliet, which you may know has intense, fast, bowed scale runs, and the entire string section can play them cleanly and together with each other. This compared to my previous orchestra's strings, who tried their hardest, but, well, hardly any of them were music majors.

It's still intimidating to be playing first, if only for the counting issue; there's much less chance to follow on entrances, and no-one to blame except myself if I screw up. However, I think that playing first in this orchestra is one of the best things musically to happen to me in a long time. The conductor is really pushing me to be more expressive, more expansive, more exaggerated, and just more audible as well. And of course I'm also being pushed by the rest of the woodwind section, who are very talented. The bassoons in particular are wonderful to sit in front of.

In my lesson this Monday I once again didn't play a note and we worked on reeds. My teacher makes reeds which are wildly different from mine, much shorter and with a longer, more defined tip and a stronger spine, and while I love the way his reeds sound, and play, in trying to make my reeds like his I'm about zero for 15. So I'm temporarily reverting to my normal reeds in order to fill up my box and give me something to play on in orchestra. (He also makes reeds using completely different steps, which compounds the problem. His first scrapes are very concentrated on the tip, which he gets to the point of clearly playing a c before taking more than just the bark and a few brief strokes off of anything else. I like to get my heart and back started before concentrating too much on the tip.)

I did manage to get music to prepare for my next lesson, though. I'm going to go through Barret from more of a teacher's perspective, and keep working on Gillet. Plus, I'm working up the Rathbun duet with another girl in the studio, playing the second part, and preparing part of the Strauss Concerto for next Monday's masterclass.

This past Monday, we had a presentation on the making of Fossati oboes, and got to both hear and try out seven different Fossati oboes. Coming from a Howarth perspective, I found most of them even more extreme than Lorees in terms of sounding narrow and bright, and feeling very resistant. There were a couple that were more open, but I have to admit that I wasn't thrilled with any of them. I did also try the oboe of the girl I'm playing duets with, which I really loved. It was a Loree, but a little bit older (unfortunately I don't remember the serial number), and felt very dark and open, yet controlled. Really lovely. I also introduced her to the trick of switching bells on oboes- I discovered summer before last that a great deal of an oboe's sound is in the bell, and that if you play another oboe with your bell on it, it will sound very close to your own oboe.

I ended up dropping my Broadway class, not because of the amount of work or time it required per se, but because of that time and work didn't fit well with my required schedule. I was really sad to give the class up, since it was my only discussion class, and on a topic I find really interesting, but the professor is letting me stop by his office and pick up all of the articles which he hands out to the class. So I'll still get to read analysis of Les Mis and Superstar, even if I won't get to discuss it.

In terms of my other classes, I've had two of the three of them cancelled in the past two days. History and theory continue to be pretty basic, and I haven't really had a class of piano yet. I think the most frustrating thing about classes, actually, is the lack of discussion, as there's no room for me to argue with the professor. :-)

Classes begin!

2008-09-25T14:53:00.004-04:00

After yesterday and today I've gone to each of my classes for the quarter, with the exception of oboe masterclass. I have to say, I'm a bit underwhelmed with my classes. I think that my expectations were too high.

My history class will be very close to the two medieval and renaissance classes that I took in undergrad, and the professor is quite scatterbrained. Plus, her comments, though probably not meant that way, got me all up in arms about not putting modern musicality and musical sensibilities onto the ideals of the past. My theory class will in fact be much easier than it was the first time around, as the class isn't a seminar and doesn't require a 14 page paper. Piano will be enjoyable and friendly. And my seminar on Broadway and opera will be both interesting and frustrating. The subject matter is great; we're talking about 9 musicals, including West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Mis, and Rent. However, I don't get to write any actual papers. Instead we have a class long "journal" and 9 one-page papers on topics that would suit much longer ones. I'm still a little unsure of the professor, who came in and wrote an outline on the board for such topics as "class introduction" and "syllabus," but who seems pretty funny and engaging, and a little bit eccentric: he looks exactly like a tall Joel Gray, and since taking a class in poetry at age 16, he has written his name all lowercase in imitation of e. e. cummings.

But while my classes were a bit underwhelming, orchestra was fantastic. I'm playing first on Tchaik's Romeo and Juliet, and second on 1812. Rehearsal started with Romeo, and I have to say that I was completely terrified the whole time we were playing that piece. It was the first time I'd played first in a real orchestra since, well, high school, and I'm so used to having my teacher there in rehearsals to give me helpful tips. (I was also nervous because I'm told that the conductor is very intense and can be sort of mean. Yesterday, however, probably because we were all sight-reading, he was very nice.) AND YET. AWESOME. The cellos started going, and I started grinning madly, and all was well. 1812 was obviously less nerve-wracking, partially because of the fact that you can only hear the winds as a whole about three times in the entire piece. (I have to say that Tchaikovsky? What is up with that piece? That whole extended full-orchestra-unison section on running scales in the middle? It is very strange and boring.)

The brass! The bassoon! The STRINGS! Oh, the strings. We have so many of them, and they are all top notch players, mostly masters and doctoral students. Unfortunately they're sitting 1st - cello - viola - 2nd, which is not an orchestra arrangement that I care for, but they're rocking it. Plus, it means that I'm sitting smack in the middle of the middle/low strings, which I love.

I held my own in both pieces, which made me feel pretty good about my playing. That was nice because the few days before Wednesday I'd been very frustrated at my inability to concentrate when practicing, and I was feeling very unmusical and disconnected. And then I got to rehearsal, and all was well. I need to get some louder reeds, though, playing first, and with that large of a string section.

This morning (far too early this morning) I also had a short lesson. I watched my audition tape, and was very pleasantly surprised to hear myself. I was unhappy after the audition because I had perceived my tone as being very flat and heavy, but on the recording (and in person at the auditions, according to my teacher) I actually sounded quite vibrant and sparkling. I do still need to work on having a more consistent tone, though, and on making sure both that my fingers and tongue are absolutely lined up and that I don't let my fingers get in the way of my air on pieces like the Strauss. I also got a compliment on my vibrato which absolutely shocked me, as I have to really work for my vibrato, and I've never thought of it as particularly fluid. Apparently my work over the spring and summer has really started to pay off. :-) I also got some tips on reeds, and I'm going to try making some that look more like my teachers, with a shorter scrape and heavier rails.

Things to work on this quarter, then, include:
Consistency and fluidity
Tonguing
Not scraping the rails off of my reeds
Dynamic range
Emphasizing the small notes

The waiting is finally over!

2008-09-23T12:06:00.004-04:00

I've passed my history and theory diagnostics, and taken my audition. Tomorrow classes and orchestra start. And I am so excited.

The diagnostics weren't nearly as bad as I was expecting, merely because they were multiple choice rather than the short answer I'd been led to expect. I only wish that I could find out more specifically how I did on each test- you only needed an 80 percent to pass, and "P" or "F" was all the information you were given. Nevertheless, I am very glad to have passed out of the remedial classes, since the classes you're required to take are another round of review classes. I begin with 801 and 801, Early Music and Post-Tonal Theory. While I was expecting the history and theory classes to line up, I will say that these are the two classes respectively that I'm most looking forward to finishing with. While I like early music, I've had two overview classes on it in the past two years, and one of my classes my last semester at school was post-tonal; we even used the same book. At least, though, I'll do well in the class.

I'm also taking a seminar on Broadway and opera, which I'm excited about. I love writing papers connecting music on the pop side with music on the classical side or modern music with historical music, and hopefully I'll get to write one for this class.

Oh, yes, I'm taking "piano for dummies" as well. I'm actually looking forward to it, as I do enjoy playing piano, musical books and such, but have long since forgotten most of my training.

Having signed up for classes, I have also now been able to purchase Microsoft Office for a ridiculously low price at the bookstore, access library resources, and pay my bill. I still have to find a work-study job, but now that I have Word I can work up my resume and do so.

I had my audition on Saturday, and found results out yesterday. Orchestra and band placement here uses rotations, so audition results are almost meaningless, but I'm perfectly happy to start out my year playing a lot of Tchaikovsky in the top orchestra. I only wish I knew what part I was playing in each piece! Rehearsals begin on Wednesday, and there's no sign of music. Unfortunately, my rotation means that I probably won't have any chance to play in the pit for an opera, but perhaps next year.

I wasn't thrilled with my audition, missing the high F# in the Mahler, and losing the more sparkling tone that I'd been cultivating in my practicing, but it wasn't a bad audition either. Clearly it was serviceable, at least.

I've been enjoying Cincinnati's culture the past couple weekends, going to the Celtic Festival and Oktoberfest with some of the other CCM students I've met and having a really good time. The Oktoberfest in Cincinnati is apparently the second biggest in the world, second only to Munich's (the original).

And I've even found another oboist here who plays on a Howarth! Success. :-)

Tomorrow I'll let you know how my first classes and rehearsal turn out. Today I'm going to make reeds, as all of mine practically committed suicide yesterday.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy.

2008-09-08T17:33:00.004-04:00

Until yesterday I'd only lost one plaque in the, oh, seven years I've been making reeds, and I only lost that plaque after I bought an extra one, just to be safe. So I've never really worried about having an extra plaque, despite the fact that most people seem to keep several on hand and lose them frequently. Well, yesterday I lost my second one, and no backup. Luckily I was able to borrow one for a few days from another oboist while the new 3 I've ordered come in the mail.

I tried out both of the gougers in the reed room- unfortunately neither is well labeled and so I can't tell you what kinds they are- and they're really lovely. Unlike the gouger at my old school, both have handles, making the gouging process a lot easier on your thumb as well as your wrist, shoulder, etc. And while so far I've only made reeds with cane from one of the gougers, I must say that that gouger works very well with my shaper and my oboe. The next batch of reeds is going to be from that same machine, but I'll try the other one soon and see how it goes. Then when I've actually met some of the other oboists here, I'll be able to say what the makes of the two gougers are.

I'm actually having reed luck so nice that it's making me nervous. This is good for my practicing now, and I just hope that it continues to be good when I have my all important audition-for-everything.

I've finally listened to recordings of all of my audition excerpts, something I know I should have done much earlier. I'm very glad I did, because I had the tempo for mvt 3 of Mahler Symphony 1 completely wrong. I also was pretty far off with the Strauss Concerto, but there was at least a reason behind that. My freshman year for my spring jury I played the first movement of the Strauss. I was nowhere near good enough to play it, but for some reason I was working on it at the time, and so it was my jury piece. I played it pretty slowly, in part because of my teacher's personal aesthetic but mostly because I had to in order to get the right calm and pastoral sort of sound. Anyways, that was the way I learned the piece, and I haven't played it again since then. I'm glad that I listened to a couple clips of it though, because now I have the fingers to play it at the proper speed...and it's much easier on your lungs that way! I'm pretty happy with the way my preparations are going, and what with having to play from mvt 2 of Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, my double-tonguing is progressing nicely.

When I'm not practicing I've been...well, a lot of my time has been spent watching House, listening to the score of Jesus Christ Superstar, doing nothing much on the internet, and, this past weekend, going to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. But my other time has been spent reading Burkholder, Grout, and Palisca's A History of Western Music in order to pass my history diagnostics. It's a very dull book directed at freshmen music majors, but it is at least helping me remember all of the little bits of music history that I haven't had for three years. Plus, I have learned at least one interesting piece of information. It seems that in 17th c Spanish lyric theater most parts were played by women. So while, as in most opera of the time, both leading roles were generally soprano parts, rather than being played by a woman and a castrato, in Spain and Spanish territories both were played by women.

Also, for those who don't know Mahler's 1st Symphony, a recording of the third movement can be found here. It's absolutely gorgeous.

Counting down the days...

2008-09-03T16:39:00.005-04:00

I have now moved into my apartment in Cincinnati, and begun my two weeks of waiting until orientation, which starts on the 15th. I've discovered that I don't have a bill until I register for classes, I cannot use my student ID to buy Microsoft Word from the bookstore for a very low sum until I register for classes, I cannot use the library proxy until I register for classes...the list goes on. This is slightly frustrating. However, I was able to get my student ID (in which I look approximately 15) late last week, and as of today I have a very awkwardly sized locker and a key to the absolutely lovely reed room. They have TWO gougers! And three pregougers! And lovely cubbies so that I don't have to do strange things in order to fit both my instruments and my music and whatever other various and sundry items I need into my locker. I believe that tomorrow I'm going to soak some cane and go try out the gougers. I'm quite excited about this. :-) I've also discovered the music library, which is quite nice and full of spooky little corners, strange staircases, and flickering lights. And a huge amount of instrumental music. My only complaints are the lack of comfy chairs and the fact that it's not actually in the music building- UVA spoiled me with that. Still, those pale in comparison to the much larger number of books.

I have also learned that I will never need to attend a football game, because if I choose a strategic practice room I can in fact see the scoreboard from there. I in fact learned this not by accident, but because they have been testing the speaker system in the stadium. They've chosen to do this by playing a clip of recording cheering/yelling/chanting that's about two minutes long. On a loop. With a half second of silence in between. I say they're testing the speakers because the reason must either be that or that they're trying to slowly drive the music students insane.

I made several reeds just a few days before moving here; I know that reeds always change drastically in different locations, but I figured that since Cincinnati is pretty much parallel with Fairfax, and has pretty much exactly the same weather, it might be all right. It was not. My reeds dramatically died, after which I revived them for a day, after which they all dramatically died again. Especially in the upper registers. I have to say, that wasn't the best start to my "practice very, very hard for your scary conservatory orchestra auditions" schedule. And in fact the first batch of reeds that I made here also were significantly lacking in their upper registers, which is problematic, considering some of the music I need to play. Mahler 1. The Strauss concerto. However, the fact that I made a reed today (*knock on wood*) that can handle the entire Poulenc sonata, I think perhaps my reed making, and particularly my upper register reed making, is acclimating itself. Thank goodness.

I must go now, as the music library in which I'm typing is about to close, but I'm back for good with my oboe blogging.

Back in business. Well, almost.

2008-08-07T16:35:00.003-04:00

Hello all! I'm back from my awesome three week vacation to the UK, during which I visited Canterbury, York, Edinburgh, Oban, Inverness, Stratford-upon-Avon, Cardiff, and London. It was generally short on music, with the exception of listening to Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and Scottish Symphony while at Fingal's Cave and to music of all sorts on long train rides, and going to a concert at the Proms at Royal Albert Hall. We heard Toccata and Fugue in D minor (Bach, orch. H. Wood), Concerto for Horn and Violin (Smyth), Prelude in C sharp minor (Rachmaninoff, orch. H. Wood), Symphony No. 2 (Rachmaninoff), played by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

You know why I like the British? Because they really have no shame. The arrangement of the Bach was for organ and full neo-Romantic orchestra, including 7 French horns, tuba, 3 parts per ww plus auxilaries, and gong. It was an interesting arrangement, based around pairing instruments with their respective organ pipes, but, well, Bach it was not.

I wasn't wildly impressed with the concerto, as the violinist wasn't able to project in the hall and the horn wasn't given enough of a part, but I liked the idea behind the second and third movements, a romantic duet and fae fox hunt respectively.

The Prelude was quite similar to the Toccata and Fugue, though less jarring as a result of the fact that it was a heavily Romantic piece to begin with. It also sounded exactly like the soundtrack to Disney's movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Honestly, if you want a taste of what Wood's arranging is like, just listen to that soundtrack.

Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 is one of my favorite pieces of music; my first year of undergrad the orchestra played in for the final concert of the year, and while I didn't get to play in it in concert, I did get to sub for one rehearsal. Ever since then, I've been hooked. It's melodramatic and heavy, sweeping and romantic, and contains both beautiful light ww and string melodies and powerful brass fanfares. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra played a very interesting version, some of which was very good and some of which I didn't like at all. Their tempos were pretty extreme; all fast sections were race-speed, which I rather liked because of the slightly manic air it gave the piece and because the orchestra played them very well and together. The slow sections, however, tended to either be rubato to the point of ridiculousness or entirely too moderato. I also would have liked to hear the orchestra play in a more standard hall, because there were quite a few balance issues, such as a strange obscuring of the opening theme of the 4th movement and overly loud clarinets and percussion, which I can imagine were at least exacerbated by the very large round hall and the risers on stage.

Despite these various issues, I really did enjoy the concert and the orchestra. The sheer power, hanging masterfully on the edge of loss of control, and impeccable balance of their brass section really made the symphony, even though they were occasionally too loud for the rest of the orchestra. As a section, they were sublime. As far as the oboe section was concerned, I liked the sound of the first oboist, though unlike the last time I heard the orchestra I wasn't entirely impressed; there was nothing specifically bad about her playing, but nothing specifically noteworthy either. I was much less impressed with the English hornist. He had a very choppy sound which made him sound quite amateurish, and while I liked his (very British) tone, I thought it was obscured by the above. There was no real sense of direction in his playing: it didn't sweep you up and forward, and as a result the English horn solos sounded a bit odd and stagnant rather than passionate. I also wasn't pleased with the first clarinetist, who had a very strident tone which reminded me of German players; it didn't match with the rest of the ensemble.

My final thoughts? The power and drama of the music and the passion of the brass section made up for the shortcomings of the group as a whole.

I've bought a new "Double hollow-ground, razor-style" reed knife (Philadelphia Reed Knives Co.), which I will like once I get used to hollow ground knives again, and a new sharpening stone (fine grit diamond stone), which I love. I have the excerpts for my auditions in September. Aside from the fact that I leave early on Saturday morning for a week long family vacation to the beach, I'm ready to get back into the swing of things and practice up a storm.

My audition excerpts: Bach, St Matthew's Passion; Mozart, Symphony 41; Mahler, Symphony 1; Saint-Saens, Organ Symphony; Tchaikovsky, Symphony 5; Strauss, Oboe Concerto pp. 1-3.

Happy Fourth of July

2008-07-04T23:18:00.002-04:00

The reason for the lack of posts is that my life has been very full lately. I've had my sister's graduation, helped my roommate move, packed, moved up from my apartment down at school, gone back down to clean and help my roommate finish moving, and done a lot of shopping for things for my new apartment. Now I have to finish shopping for my apartment, move into my apartment, and then a week later leave for my trip to Britain.

Oboe practicing seems to be getting left by the wayside (along with computer use), and now it's caught up with me. Oboe withdrawal. This combined with my whirlwind last week has finally resulted in my feeling cranky and anxious, so tomorrow I plan to sleep late, and practice. And possibly read a book, depending on what else I have to do.

I finished work last Friday, and as a going away present, my boss bought me a gig bag. I've never had one, resulting in the awkward oboe-music-purse-waterbottle carry, so this is really a love gift. I'm quite sad to leave the job, and look forward to my name showing up on a couple of pieces as they get published, and on the Mozart Society website as credit for my mad German proofreading skills. :-)

Music is the brandy of the damned.

2008-06-10T22:02:00.004-04:00

Lately I have been making a lot of reeds and gouging a lot of cane, and honestly, reeds are pretty much the ultimate evil at the moment. I'm having a lot of trouble getting my knife sharp, and it seems like all of my cane, regardless of how it felt when I gouged it, is either far too soft and flexible or cracks as soon as I start scraping. Granted, early cracking is better than cracking the moment before the reed reaches a playable stage, but I'm beginning to get frustrated. Regarding my knife, I've always had trouble getting my knives really sharp, and I'm actually using what was my second best knife right now, and have been for several months since I lost my good knife. I think that I'm going to buy a new knife. (Suggestions? The one I lost was RDG's double hollow ground knife, which used to have a different name, and which I liked, but having options is always nice.) Regarding my cane, though, there's not really anything I can do except have a lot of patience and go through a large number of early stage reeds.

I must admit, my wonderful practicing plan is, well, not exactly going on schedule. I keep getting distracted by my shiny (metaphorically- it's actually second hand and in many, many pieces) Vade-Mecum, and deciding to play that random new etude instead of the Ferling I'm meant to be working on. Ah, well, such is life. I was practicing English horn the other day, running through my book of English Horn Solos edited by Thomas Stacy, and I came across this piece, Faure's Sicilienne. Take a listen (the actual piece starts around 1:10). Sound pretty much exactly like the Harry Potter soundtrack to anybody? Oh, John Williams...the truth is, I absolutely love John Williams. I know that he steals his themes from anyone and anywhere, but the results are so wonderful that I can let it pass. Plus, I actually think it's very cool when classical music gets reused or redone in popular music, so who am I to complain when Tchaikovsky shows up in Star Wars, or Faure in Harry Potter?

I received an email from CCM letting me know that I have to take a piano proficiency test. Obviously this isn't a strange and shocking turn of events, but I had forgotten about it, and I have to learn a real piece of a certain level, know all my scales 2 octaves, sight-read, and transpose. Conveniently I have all summer to practice, and the internet, from which I can get free sheet music. Plus, after my orchestration class this past semester, my thoughts end up along the lines of "at least I only have to learn a piece meant for piano, with only two staves and no transposition!'

I've been going home every weekend to visit my friends, parents and sister, but this week it's for a rather more exciting occasion: my little sister is graduating from high school! I'm very happy for her, especially since she's incredibly happy to be done and excited about college, but boy does it make me feel old.

That's rather a change, really, as recently I've been having moments of "wow, I'm going to be in grad school next year; people are going to expect me to know things!" While I felt like I knew what was going on, and could give advice about all sorts of music related things, this past year, next year I'll not only be at a brand new school, but I'll be at a brand new intimidating conservatory-like school. I don't feel old enough to be a grad student! I don't feel knowledgeable enough, or advanced enough. And yet, they let me in, so clearly I'm doing something right.

I'm actually very excited. It will be weird, though, to be at school and have graduated from undergrad. Besides, they don't even know about my school up there. Oh, I am so very much looking forward to being at school in the fall, to being in the middle of that atmosphere.

I thought I'd found a way to easily get my recital recording up online (I don't know if anyone else is interested, but I did have one person ask me), using muxtape.com. Unfortunately, even though my files fit the size limit and are the correct format, it's not working. I'm going to try again later, but is anyone interested in hearing my recital? And does anyone have a suggestion for a place to upload them? What I like about muxtape is that rather than, like sendspace or some such website, having to download the files, you can just stream them and listen to them online. (You in fact cannot download the files, but I'd rather have that than being unable to listen except by downloading.)

I bought myself an Ipod with the money from my music department award, and decided to have the back engraved, which you can do for free. I wanted to find an appropriate music quote, something a little bit melodramatic, to fit my personality, without being too too. I finally, after long deliberation and wishy-washy-ness, decided on the quote in my title, "music is the brandy of the damned." Upon typing the quote into the order form, however, I was informed that I had chosen "inappropriate text"! Come on, Apple! So, I settled for "music is the literature of the heart." It's not quite as good, but I rather like it.

At work, I've been entering Niccolo Jommelli's Miserere into Finale. I leaned the other day that there may actually be enough interest in the piece to have a real edition made; usually the work I do is for a specific production being done by someone who has contacted my boss. In this case, as the person who inputted, formatted, and edited the piece, I would get my name on the edition. I also, as I found out today, get to write the opening note for the edition. It won't have any lovely program note stuff - I'm not in charge of that much - but I do get to write the information like "the voices were originally notated in soprano clef" and "while dynamic markings have been distributed among the parts, articulation markings are for the most part as notated in the manuscript". I find it rather exciting, really.

There are two problems which eternally belong to summertime.

2008-05-26T17:05:00.005-04:00

Sunburn? No. Too many bugs? No. Heat? No.

First, practicing and advancing without a teacher. As, I think, many people do, I have trouble practicing specific things, rather than whatever catches my fancy that day, when I don't have a specific event (lesson, audition, concert, etc), and so I don't end up getting much done during the summer. I tend to start many things, and not work up any until the last few weeks, when I have to get ready for my audition or what have you. This summer, though, I am making a plan. I'm going to work on remedying my rather spotty knowledge of Fehrling, and go through the etudes two by two, and also work on Le Api, which has been neglected pretty much all year on account of auditions and the recital. I'm also going to pick a solo, possibly the Vaughan Williams Concerto, which I love.

Second, surviving months without orchestra rehearsals without insanity. I don't really have a solution for this, other than going to lots of concerts and listening to classical music a lot. I noticed this year in particular that I'm really liking every piece of classical music I listen to. That said, this year will be even worse than usual, because my classes don't start until the end of September, rather than at the end of August.

Speaking of UC, I went with my mother to Cincinnati this weekend to find an apartment, and found a lovely and affordable one. (Pictures here of the apartment with someone else's furnishings, and of the Music Hall.) While there, I managed to get free tickets to two May Festival concerts. One was Faure's Requiem and Vivaldi's Gloria, the other Berlioz' Romeo et Juliette. While they were suffering from the problem, as many festivals do, of too few rehearsals with the soloists, both concerts, and especially the Berlioz, were very good. The hall was huge - it apparently sits around 3500, and as the home of the Cincinnati Symphony I find myself wondering approximately what portion of seats they typically sell - and the choir correspondingly vast, with about 225 singers. It was a bit overkill for the Faure, though they had a smaller choir for the Vivaldi, but for the ending of the Berlioz it was spectacular.

I've been reading Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks, which is pretty interesting, though slightly frightening. The conclusion of each section, dealing with things ranging from synaesthesia to musical hallucinations to the sudden acquisition of tone deafness, can be summarized as "well, we know what causes this, but not how to prevent it or fix it." A few interesting facts, though: According to one study, 1 in 23 people is synaesthetic. The number of people with absolute pitch is wildly higher in countries, such as China, whose languages are tonal.

Ah, yes, graduation. Having had a little over a week to get used to it, it isn't quite so strange to have graduated college, but it is still a little bit bizarre. For instance, late last week I was unsubscribed from the music major mailing list. And of course the fact remains that when I go back to school in the fall it will be in another state for another degree. Though the day before graduation and the day after were perfectly lovely, it rained the day of and was about 5 degrees too chilly to be entirely comfortable at the morning ceremony. However, my department ceremony was inside, in our hall, so it didn't affect me too much. After the chaos of the morning, backstage with only 25 music majors and 12 professors was lovely and well-organized, and the ceremony quite short.

You may remember that my recital was a "distinguished major project," for which I would graduate with no distinction, distinction, high distinction, or highest distinction. My English major roommate had been assured that she would know what she'd received before graduation, but knowing my department's track record, I was skeptical that I would. Sure enough, the professors were wandering around before the ceremony looking smug, and I didn't find out until I was standing on stage. I was well and truly shocked (my mouth literally dropped open) to find out that I received highest distinction. Although I was quite pleased after my recital (admittedly a little less so after listening to my recording), I was really surprised. Also, the benefit of a small department, I was one of several to receive an award that came with a $250 check. I believe I've written in here before about "departmental recognitions", for which you are nominated by a professor. Usually they give them out in the fall and winter, but obviously graduating fourth-years won't be around come next October, so they gave ours at graduation. I've gotten them before, once for course work and once for my third year recital, but I have to say that this one meant the most for me. I got one for my term paper for theory, and then one for my two big English horn solos in orchestra, in the Ravel Piano Concerto and in Symphonie Fantastique. Obviously as someone who aspires to be an orchestral musician, it meant so much for me to get a recognition for my orchestral playing.

After the ceremony, they had a lovely reception and I got to say my good-byes to my professors, with many promises, which I firmly intend to keep, to keep in touch. And then it was back to my apartment for a joint family party, exhaustion, and melancholy. It's a very strange thing, graduating college, because the way in which you grow up during college is so different from the way you do in high school, and also because college is so very strongly tied to a specific place. I love this campus, and the buildings and the hall, etc, and it is strange and sad to think that I will not be playing in our hall again. That said, while it will be sort of hard at the end of the summer, I've gotten over my maudlin for now, and the lasting emotion, I think, is accomplishment. Which really is as it should be, now that I've gotten my last statements of "ooh, look what I got" out.

If you're interested, I have a few pictures from my recital and from graduation (you can see my long-suffering roommates, unless they mind) here.

Not Dead Yet!

2008-05-20T22:48:00.003-04:00

It seems like all I do lately is apologize for disappearing. (Not that I'm planning on it, but I promise if I ever do discontinue this blog I will let you know.)

My life recently has been fairly boring and unmusical, until Sunday, when I graduated and it started being taken up with work and a side of maudlin. Now that I've got a schedule going again, though, I'm going to get my practice schedule back on track and gouge a lot of cane before I leave and have to give the school's gouger back. Mostly these past two weeks haven't been worth writing about, but I do promise that soon I'll let you know about graduation. (And my graduation day surprises!)

One brief note before I go get some sleep:

I learned in this podcast about the Dies Irae that the score to Disney's The Lion King was written not only by Elton John, but also by Hans Zimmer. I've always like that score, and now I just like it more. The (a?) use of the Dies Irae in the movie can be found here around 2:20; also note the opening English horn solo. Now that's why I love my instrument.

Again, I will be back! Hopefully tomorrow!

Hello again.

2008-05-05T15:33:00.003-04:00

Having free time is pretty wild and crazy, and I'm taking advantage of it by being very bad about practicing and making reeds.

Orchestra is finished for the season, we had our last concert on the 13th and then two additional rehearsals, one with the youth orchestra and one reading new compositions from composers at the school. The concerts went brilliantly. Despite the fact that Golijov's Night of the Flying Horses is pretty poorly organized and so not much fun for the orchestra to play, the audience enjoyed it. The cello solo, Schelomo, was gorgeous, and the orchestra part much fuller than is typical for a concerto, so they had fun with that. And the Berlioz. Oh, it was lovely. I thought it went really well at the time, and after listening to the recording I definitely think it was a top performance by us. AS for my solo, on Saturday I got water in my G key, and so on the loudest of the solo, the high A, I burbled. On Sunday, though, there was no water and everything went smoothly. I was really pleased with my playing at the time, and I got cheered by the audience, which was a wonderful surprise, but I have to say, having listened to the Sunday performance on recording, that my vibrato was pretty weak. Still, aside from that I was quite happy with my playing.

At the rehearsal with the youth orchestra we read The Planets. I'd never played the piece before, so I was really excited. We had probably 120 people on the stage- we had to play at the high school in order to have enough room. Of course it was pretty rough, but it was still a lot of fun, and I hope that the high schoolers enjoyed it and maybe even got something out of it. I felt really bad for the girl sitting next to me, who was playing the third oboe part (I was on E horn), because her part was over half bass oboe, which we obviously didn't have for only a rehearsal, and her oboe was having severe and strange water problems the whole night, mostly in the low octave which was of course where bass oboe and third oboe fall. She basically couldn't play anything.

The next Wednesday, which was the final orchestra rehearsal, after which I got a little teary, we read new compositions. It's always hard to do that; we don't get the pieces before hand to look at, and frequently the pieces are quite complicated or unusual. The results can be pretty funny, and I feel bad for the composers, who really want to hear their pieces performed. We do try, but a lot of the time things go wrong, and people get frustrated. I try very hard not to laugh, funny results regardless, because it's so hard for the composers sitting in the audience to know that the orchestra is laughing at the antics of our concertmaster, or because the flutes got very confused, or what have you, and not actually at their piece. We also read through the orchestrations from the class I took this semester, which was interesting. Despite many pre-cautions, a good number of the parts had impossible notes, or were lacking key pieces of information and such. Playing these was made even harder by the fact that my orchestration professor conducted them. He was having a lot of trouble getting enough information across to the orchestra, and he was hard to follow as well. So those pieces didn't go very smoothly, though it was still nice that we were able to play them. It was a little unfortunate that the close of our season was so awkward, though.

Since then, I've been writing very long papers, and otherwise finishing up the year, including fighting with the music department over getting the recording of my recital. Well, less fighting and more being bemused over how long it seems to be taking them to get the recording moved from the office to the music library a whopping two floors down. I was told on Friday that the librarian would come and get it that afternoon, but it's still not there. I want to hear it, and there are a lot of other people asking me for it as well.

I have also, of course, been starting to figure next year out. I have now been officially accepted, and given an 85% scholarship, which means that my tuition costs for a year are around $3350 and makes me very happy. I've started looking for an apartment, and resolved to start actually practicing again, rather than the rather weak imitation I've been doing this last week.

I learned from my friend, who sent me a science magazine in the mail in order to inform me of this, that a certain species of hummingbird makes noise with its tail, which vibrates much in the manner of the reed of a musical instrument. More.

It was my 21st birthday yesterday, and I got a lovely little collection of oboe related things, as well as a couple books and some earrings. I now have sheet music for the Paladilhe Solo and Saint-Saens Sonata, two Moleskine staff paper notebooks, and three new colors of purple thread for reed-making (I may have mentioned before that I can only make reeds with purple thread).

Such a tease.

2008-04-30T01:49:00.002-04:00

I know, I've done it again...disappeared with no trace. Since my recital, I've been catching up on all the work that I didn't do before my recital, and finishing up the semester. I promise a post or two after Friday, at which point my last paper of my undergrad career will be turned in, with the fairly interesting things that have been going on.

This is just a quick post to say that I found out today that I got accepted to CCM! (And just in the nick of time, as my deadline for GMU was May 1st.) I'm pretty stunned, and wildly happy. So thanks to everyone for their well wishes. :-D Now I just have to, oh, find a place to live, and work out how I'm going to pay.

Recital

2008-04-19T23:58:00.005-04:00

It's a very strange feeling, finishing the last piece of your recital. You bow, walk off, and...it's over. What? People come up and ask "How do you think it went? Are you glad it's over? Bet you're going to relax next week," and my head is still going "Wait, it's done? Really? What just happened?" It's sort of an extension of the performing mindset- the pieces have never gone by so fast as they did today.

I was intensely nervous this morning, but I ate a banana (Bananas contain some chemical that apparently makes you feel calmer. I heard this from a reputable source, though I recognize the effect may be all mental. Still, I actually find it very effective, so I don't really care.), and got to the hall quite early, and had time to do some sound check/warming up which made me feel a lot better. Being able to hear your reeds and your fingers working really helps. And speaking of reeds, I had such good reed luck, better than I ever do. I had options, and the reed I ended up playing on really did everything. High, low, reedy, sweet, soft, loud, multiphonics. Which, needless to say, made my recital a lot less nerve wracking. (...Reed gods, please do not now curse me because of my boasting. Please.)

But as to my playing. With the exception of a few spots, I was actually really happy with how I played. I was a little nervous in the first movement of the Poulenc, so I had quite a few squeaks from lazy jumps, but after that I got more into the swing of things. I honestly am not sure I've played the second and third movements better than I did today. I didn't have any tonguing issues in the third movement, and I think that all of my dynamics and registers were musical in the third. (I hit all of the notes in both the ff and pp low Bb-Eb sections!)
The Pasculli went well too, especially the death aria (slow, melodramatic, minor) section. The only problem I had with the piece was that the end, an extended and difficult triplet run, which I had worked very hard on this past week and finally been able to play, ended up far too fast, and so I flubbed a lot of the notes anyways. Luckily, that was the (only) part of the recital where I was covered up by the piano. (Cooper, I used one of your reeds; I really like them. Very covered and warm, just the sound I aim for!)
The Rathbun duet was great, and everybody really liked it (possibly cause it's only 7 minutes long :-P), though my teacher had a counting Moment (tsk tsk). But we really hit on the bouncy, vibrant mood of the piece today. (Options for a description as told to me by audience members afterwards: two robots having a conversation, or two ducks having an altercation.)
The Bax quintet, because of the acoustics, was really hard to hear from onstage. But I have been assured that it sounded together and balanced from the audience. I thought that my cadenza-solos turned out well, especially the one which opens the piece. There were a couple scary moments, and I wasn't holding together in the second movement - which is slow, lyrical, and high and has forty measures with only a single quarter rest, the hardest part of my program to get through - as well as I would have liked, but all in all I was happy, and the ending was great.

I'm a little surprised with how pleased I am with how I played, but I'm really not going to complain too much about that.

Next? Finding out if I've gotten in to Cincinnati.

14 hours to go...

2008-04-19T01:35:00.002-04:00

I've had a lot of exciting oboe adventures lately, from my final orchestra concerts (at which I was actually cheered for the EH solo in the Berlioz) to a side-by-side rehearsal of The Planets with the youth orchestra, to, as of tomorrow, my recital. I have lots of things to say here, but right now I'm going to go to bed and try not to stress too much.

Wish me luck! I'll let you know how it goes.

Arnold Bax, Oboe Quintet: Program Notes

2008-04-17T23:13:00.002-04:00

Quintet – Arnold Bax (1922)

Arnold Bax (8 Nov 1883 – 3 Oct 1953) is best known for his tone poems, which take their subject matter from Celtic myth and scenery. However, his compositions in many genres reflect Bax’s obsession with Ireland and Britain. The Quintet, dedicated to the British oboist Leon Goossens, is no exception to this, featuring folk-like melodies which invoke England, Scotland, and Ireland.

While Poulenc’s Oboe Sonata gives a rather intimate portrayal of personal grief, the overarching narrative of Bax’s Quintet is more nationalistic. The main theme of the first movement is a long, sinuous melody introduced by unaccompanied oboe. Heavy with accidentals and augmented seconds, the exoticised theme seems foreign to Bax’s musical tendencies, but it in fact references a side of the pastoral frequently investigated in Bax’s works, that of Pan and fairies, “dangerous, unpredictable, sensual, and libidinous creatures,”[1] even as it calls up images of Milton’s “gorgeous East”[2]. While this theme forms the majority of the movement, the movement ends with a sunny G major molto tranquillo coda, foreshadowing the banishment of all exoticism through the cheery folk-tunes of the third movement.

The second movement of the quintet serves as an intermediary between the orientalism of the first movement and the nationalism of the third; the strings open with a lush pastoral melody before the oboe interjects with an ad lib “melancholy” solo featuring augmented seconds and sinuous lines. The very slow tempo, low tessitura, soft dynamics and uneven meter invoke a sense of quiet and pervasive sorrow. Despite an increase in ornamentation, intensity, and chromatic tones in the middle of the movement, which create the sense of a B section, the movement is deeply unified. As in the first movement, the return of the A section is followed by a molto tranquillo tonal coda.

Bax contrasts the feminized, exoticized melody dominating movement one with the final movement’s masculine British folk songs. The themes of movement three are three rollicking folk-song-based melodies. The first is a newly-composed jig which uses Scotch snaps and uneven phrase lengths, against a duple counter-melody, to slightly unbalance the listener. The second theme, similar in feel to the first, again sets compound meter against duple accompaniment. However, it lacks the first theme’s snaps and irregular phrases, and has the feel of a rather square march instead of a lively jig. The final theme, slower and more restrained, is a variant on the folk song “The Lament of the Sons of Usna,”[3] and is perhaps more famous from its appearance in Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. The B section of the piece consists of an extended, cantabile version of the third theme for the cello under oboe embellishments recalling the orientalism of the first movement. At the return of A, references to Bax’s earlier exoticism are replaced by aggressive repetitions of the first and third themes. The piece ends with a vivace statement of the first theme by the oboe which leads to a strong, full G major chord.

In one sense, Bax plays the stereotypical roles of the oboe, the “pastoral, melancholia, and orientalism,”[4] to the hilt in his Quintet, but the piece also provides a clear example of Bax’s tendency to emphasize the “musical evocation of nature”[5] over personal expression. Here the “chillier violence”[6] of his pastoral landscapes has unsettling overtones. Movement one, in which the opening modal/minor melody is subverted in the major tonality of the final two measures, and movement three, in which the B section references the first movement’s exoticism before falling back into folk songs, serve as small-scale pictures of the piece as a whole, which moves from the melody of movement one to those of movement three. Written in the years following the First World War, perhaps as a statement of nationalistic support, Bax creates a narrative in which feminized music designed to evoke Eastern cultures is conquered by masculine music which represents the West, and specifically the history of Britain.

[1] Musicweb.uk.net/bax/biosketch3.htm
[2] Milton, Paradise Lost, 2.3
[3] Foreman, Lewis. Bax: A Composer and His Times, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2007. p. 212.
[4] Burgess and Haynes, The Oboe, p. 240
[5] New Grove Encyclopedia of Music, "Bax", Works
[6] Musicweb.uk.net/bax/biosketch3.htm

For expanded analysis or citation info, please contact me by leaving a comment on this post, or emailing of [dot] polyhymnia [at] gmail [dot] com. Please credit Rachel Becker if using quotes/specific information from these notes.

Jeffrey Rathbun, 3 Diversions for 2 Oboes: Program Notes

2008-04-15T20:05:00.002-04:00

3 Diversions for 2 Oboes – Jeffrey Rathbun (1987)

The second piece on my recital composed by an oboist, 3 Diversions for 2 Oboes was written by Jeffrey Rathbun, Assistant Principal Oboe of the Cleveland Orchestra. An active composer as well as performer, Rathbun has written orchestral and chamber pieces, many featuring the oboe, and teaches at schools including the Cleveland Institute of Music and Baldwin Wallace Conservatory. 3 Diversions for 2 Oboes was written at the request of fellow Cleveland Orchestra oboist John Mack and premiered in July, 1987 by the composer and Mack.

Diversions is a set of three miniature movements, neo-Classical in feel, arranged in the traditional order of a sonata (fast-slow-fast). Here Rathbun isn’t writing an elegy or telling a love story; the piece is called an “interesting, listenable, and challenging oboe duet,”[1] and it’s an apt description. Pasculli wrote in order to remedy a lack of virtuosic oboe pieces, and Rathbun, a similar lack of clever, playful, accessible new music for the oboe. The two oboe parts share melodic and accompanimental material fairly equally, the lines dove-tailing, overlapping, and swerving around each other, and both explore the high and low reaches of the oboe as well as multiphonic effects. As a whole, the piece plays with the range of effects available to the oboe, and also explores the unity of sound which the two instruments can achieve.

Characteristics of the first movement, marked Allegretto, include wide leaps, syncopation, grace notes, and snappy 16th-note interjections. Neither conventionally tonal nor decidedly atonal, the movement and piece as a whole move not through chord progressions but instead through a series of pitch centers.

The second movement, Lento, pairs a slow melody, lyrical despite plentiful leaps and a series of tremolos, and the two parts are extremely unified here As the movement progresses, after a brief increase in energy it becomes ever more restrained. The range of the melodic theme is lowered and condensed, and the movement ends on a multiphonic approximation of a major triad.

The third movement, marked Vigoroso, is the most energetic of the three. With a syncopated and jazzy (theme 1), perpetual motion (theme 2) feel punctuated by rapid arpeggios (theme 3), and multiphonics, the movement looks back to the second movement of Poulenc’s Sonata. The themes, rather than being developed, are fragmented and reduced; for example, the first and third themes combine into a three-against-four pattern of scale fragments, and the second becomes almost purely rhythmic. Despite the multitude of motives, there is a steady and dramatic drive to the piece’s finish, where aspects of all three movements combine and whirl into the piece’s final note, a unison middle C.

[1] Jeanne Belfy, review of Color Factory, www.idrs.org

For expanded analysis or citation info, please contact me by leaving a comment on this post, or emailing of [dot] polyhymnia [at] gmail [dot] com. Please credit Rachel Becker if using quotes/specific information from these notes.

Antonio Pasculli, Fantasia due sopra motivi dell ‘opera “Un ballo in maschera” di Verdi: Program Notes

2008-04-13T10:40:00.004-04:00

Fantasia due sopra motivi dell ‘opera “Un ballo in maschera” di Verdi – Antonio Pasculli (c.1900)
Antonio Pasculli (13 October 1842-23 February 1924) began his musical career as a performer, and it seems likely that most of his impetus for composing was the lack of sufficiently virtuosic music for the oboe and English horn. Pasculli declared himself the “Paganini of the oboe,”[1] and the title seems to have been well deserved. His extant compositions, which include ten fantasias, nine of these on operatic themes, are mostly for oboe and piano, but Pasculli also composed many arrangements, now lost, for the wind orchestra of Palermo, which he conducted.[2] In addition to his solo career, which began in 1856 and lasted until 1884 when he was forced to retire because of sight problems, Pasculli was professor of oboe and English horn at the Regio Conservatorio di Palermo from 1860 until 1913.[3]

The opera paraphrase or fantasia for solo instrument and piano was a popular form at the end of the 19th century, and the virtuosity of Pasculli’s compositions is characteristic. While the choice of English horn rather than oboe for both this piece and Pasculli’s first Fantasia on “Un ballo” is rather unusual – of Pasculli’s nineteen surviving pieces only three include English horn – Verdi was the composer most frequently used in Pasculli’s fantasias. Fantasia due uses six themes from “Un ballo,” focusing on the love triangle between Ricardo, the hero; Renato, the villain; and Amelia, the heroine and Renato’s wife. However, Pasculli changes the order in which the themes appear in order to manipulate the narrative of the opera.

The piece opens with the opera prelude’s opening theme, but the English horn melody and piano accompaniment give way quickly to an English horn cadenza which leads into a prolonged statement of Ricardo’s first aria, “La rivedrà,” in which Ricardo sings of his love for Amelia, his “star”. Here the piano plays a florid accompaniment as well as a low, ominous statement of the music from Ricardo and Renato’s duet. The English horn remains unconcerned with this hint of tragedy, launching into a second cadenza and restatement of Ricardo’s aria, here accompanied by jaunty music from Amelia and Ricardo’s love scene in the second act. However, this reprieve is short-lived. While the English horn continues to elaborate on Ricardo’s aria, the piano plays both Renato’s music and the melody of Ricardo’s aria, drawing the English horn into the ominous duet. This slowly fades out, and after a pause, Amelia enters the scene.

Here Pasculli breaks from chronological order, introducing the music from Amelia’s Act Three aria, “Morrò, ma prima in grazia,” in which Amelia, threatened with death by Renato, asks that she be allowed to see her son before she dies. This theme is the emotional heart of the fantasia, opening up the English horn’s dynamic and expressive range. “Mournful English horn obbligato…is a traditional pointer of the isolated heroine,”[4] but here Pasculli merges the two, giving the English horn a note for note statement of Amelia’s lament, complete with phrasing, articulation, and many of the aria’s dynamics. The col canto piano alternates between simple chordal accompaniment and short echoes and harmonizations of the English horn melody. The section ends with a reworked, though vocalistic cadenza, before an abrupt change of mood occurs.

The tragedy of the opera seems imminent, with Ricardo and Amelia dead as a result of Renato’s jealousy, as music of Ricardo and Renato’s duet returns in the piano under a virtuosic sixteenth-passage for the English horn. However, despite the flashiness of this section, which implies a drive to the piece’s close, Pasculli is unwilling to submit to the opera’s story. The music of Ricardo and Amelia’s love scene returns in the English horn, and though the ominous music of Renato’s duet briefly surfaces in the piano it is quickly surpassed by additional themes from Ricardo and Amelia’s scene. Over these, the English horn’s second virtuosic passage expands on a sunny F-Major arpeggio. A final statement of Renato’s duet music, rhythmically augmented and sapped of energy, is overcome by four measures of repeated tonic chords. In the world of Pasculli’s fantasia, love at last triumphs over tragedy.

[1] Days of Bliss are in Store, Anna Pennington, Dissertation, The Florida State University College of Music, p 1.
[2] Days of Bliss, pp 58-9.
[3] Preface to Hofmeister edition of Fantasia due, Christian Schneider.
[4] "Un ballo in Maschera," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition.

For citation info, please contact me by leaving a comment on this post, or emailing of [dot] polyhymnia [at] gmail [dot] com. Please credit Rachel Becker if using quotes/specific information from these notes.

Francis Poulenc, Oboe Sonata: Program Notes

2008-04-10T22:35:00.004-04:00

Oboe Sonata – Francis Poulenc (1962)

Francis Poulenc (7 Jan 1899 – 30 Jan 1963) was a prolific composer of secular and religious music, including operas, ballets, orchestral and chamber music, and music for choirs and solo or chamber voices.

Many of the compositions of Poulenc’s later years are religious vocal works, including Dialogues des Carmelites, Gloria, and Sept Repons. These pieces were representative of Poulenc’s mental state, one of religious intensity coupled with a fear of death, decay, and illness, and have been described as “Poulenc’s own death music.”[1] His explorations of the multiple aspects of religion are evident in the “sweetness and transfiguration” of Sept Repons, the “sedative” and “consciously escapist” qualities of Gloria, and Dialogues’ “fear of death.” [2] Yet as he aged, it was this last aspect, as well as the portions of Sept Repons which deal with rage instead of joy, which prevailed, and these ideas appear in his instrumental works as well.

Following in the tradition of fellow French composers Debussy and Saint-Saens, whose last works were wind sonatas, the Oboe Sonata was Poulenc’s last composition, premiered in 1963 after his death. Written in memory of Sergei Prokofiev, the piece follows in the footsteps of Sept Repons, angry, urgent, and “very interior.” Despite his religiousness, in his later pieces Poulenc creates “a religious atmosphere [that is] no consolation, faced by the proximity of death,” and this is evident in the Oboe Sonata.

In the Sonata, the traditional sequence of movements is inverted, resulting in a slow-fast-slow pattern which allows for a somber conclusion. As with Sept Repons, here the music is very personal, creating the feeling that “we overhear as much as hear.” The movements move from Elégie to Scherzo to Déploration, from the melancholic to the frantic to pensive grieving, creating the feeling of a memento mori.

Following a short, unaccompanied fragment, Elégie, written in a modified ABA form, opens with a lyrical, nostalgic oboe melody which recalls the frequent use of the oboe in pastoral writing. Following this the mood abruptly shifts, moving into minor and introducing a ff theme in double-dotted rhythm which rages against the reality of death. This B section alternates between ff and pp before returning to a p statement of the A theme. However, this is not long lasting, and the B theme returns in a short coda before the movement dies away, ending on a pp long tone in the oboe.

The second movement, Scherzo, though also in ABA form provides an abrupt change of mood, introducing a “perpetual motion” feeling that is perhaps a nod to Prokofiev. The perpetual motion machine here is a bit off, interspersing 9/8 measures into the 6/8 theme, and clipping or adding to the ends of phrases; the effect is one of slight mania. The second theme of the A section reintroduces the first movement’s arpeggio motif, here uneven yet cyclical. A rude outburst closes the A section, and the movement abruptly changes mood. The B section presents a gentle, tonal contrast, featuring an expansive melody in which the angry arpeggios of the opening are transformed into an airy, peaceful theme. However, this reprieve is short-lived, and the frantic perpetual motion machine returns, leading to a closing outburst.

In another dramatic change, Déploration takes the airy B theme of the second movement and condenses it. The melody has a high tessitura and falls completely within an octave. The music in this movement varies widely in dynamics, moving rapidly from pp to ff, as well as from major to minor, but the effect is neither show nor mania. Instead, the movement is a lament, and the effect is of intense, intensely personal grief. Again in ABA form, the B section quotes the first movement, themes condensed in range and stretched in time, creating a mounting plea. Here the emotions of the movement reach their peak. Following this, the A section returns in an exact though transposed quote of the movement’s opening material. After this the melody is further condensed in range, and the final statement of the piece is contained within a diminished fourth. The dynamics are similarly reduced, ranging from pp to ppp, and the music dies away on a long tone in the oboe, harmonically unresolved.

[1] All quotes from Francis Poulenc, Benjamin Ivry
[2] Final quote from “Dialogues des Carmelites,” Claude Gendre, Francis Poulenc: Music, Art, and Literature, ed. Buckland and Chimènes.

For expanded analysis or citation info, please contact me by leaving a comment on this post, or emailing of [dot] polyhymnia [at] gmail [dot] com. Please credit Rachel Becker if using quotes/specific information from these notes.

11 days

2008-04-08T16:08:00.002-04:00

There are 11 days until my recital, so I'm alternating between feeling very prepared and panicking. Last Thursday I started doing full run-throughs, which are making me feel much better: I can feel myself making progress as I end up less and less utterly exhausted by the end each time. I don't have much to say right now about audition preparations, but I don't hate my music and I usually don't despair of my musical abilities, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

I've submitted my programs, and sent my poster off to the copy shop, I have a stage manager (though no ushers yet), my strings have finally got what they're wearing straightened out. All I have to do now is organize the reception, and keep practicing, which is good because my week is about to get quite a bit busier.

It's concert week for the Berlioz concert, and my last of my undergraduate career. I'm not sure yet if I'll get sniffly after the concert or if I'll move straight on to "6 days until my recital!"

I hardly want to say anything about reeds, because at this point I'm worried about jinxing myself, but I'm certainly having good luck with the school's gouging machine. I was actually quite worried that, as the results are quite different from the cane I'd been purchasing from Jeanne and liking, I would suddenly be unable to make any successful reeds. But I think that my reeds have actually been better for the change. At the very least they've been better suited for the highly dramatic (and frequently a little wild-edged) music on my recital program; the tips are longer, I think, and the reeds are coming out brighter but somehow more controlled.

Last week and weekend I played a gig with the school chorus, which was great fun. I played second oboe on Beethoven's Choral Fantasy. I had never heard the piece, which takes the emotional tricks which frequent the symphonies and removes everything else, but I really loved it. It was a little insubstantial, and Beethoven blatantly stole from it to create his Ninth Symphony, but it was certainly effective. And the moment when the full chorus, 6 soloists, piano, and full orchestra played a fortissimo chord which shifted from c minor to C major? Utterly wonderful. It was a really good gig, actually. The orchestra was very small (strings in 3s), and, with the exception of three students, all professionals. Plus, it was pretty amazing to be able to play accurate dynamics in a piece with a choir.

I'm still waiting to hear back from CCM - though Dr. Ostoich did return my email and let me know that he's still waiting to hear final decisions, but that I'm among the top students on the waitlist - and still vacillating about what I'll do next year assuming that I don't get off of the waitlist.

Over the next few days I'm going to post the program notes for my recital up here. It may seem a little presumptuous to think that anyone wants them, but when I was doing my research I was really struck by how little information there was online about the pieces (For example, a few times when searching this blog came up fairly high just from me mentioning the pieces), and program notes are a very convenient format.

Artless and gay in the major, pathetic and sad in the minor.

2008-03-29T13:19:00.002-04:00

The above is Rimsky-Korsakov's description of the oboe in Principles of Orchestration...not nearly so verbose as Berlioz, and much more ambiguous. (Found here, which, though in awkward and unprofessional looking format, has the whole text of the book.)

I've heard back now from all of the grad schools I applied to. I was rejected from Mannes, which I was expecting, and waitlisted at Cincinnati, which was both a pleasant shock and a disappointment. I sent an email to the oboe teacher at CCM asking a few questions along the lines of "how many people would have to choose not to attend before I would get to go?", though I haven't heard back yet; the deadline for acceptance at CCM is April 15, and (as far as I can tell- I've sent an email, also as yet unanswered, asking) the deadline for GMU is after. Unless, then, I hear back differently from GMU, I can conveniently wait and see if I get in to CCM, which, though not exactly likely, wouldn't require a miracle either.

I've had several people suggest that I could take a year off and re-audition, and I'm also thinking about taking a year off and applying to music history programs, or going for performance and possibly transferring. If I got in to CCM off of the waitlist, I would definitely go, but I'm less sure about GMU. The teacher at GMU is one of my role models, and one of the people I respect most, but I am well on the way to having my own strong opinions by now and the combination of her very strong will and the fact that I've only had a few scattered lessons with her since high school makes me unsure if I could stand up for myself to her. With my teacher now, for example, I've gotten to the point where I am able to argue my interpretations, and I think that I would be able to do so with a new teacher, but habit is hard to break. For example, I'm not sure that, if I went to GMU, I would be able to bring myself to transfer either to another oboe program or to a music history program.

I've been thinking about music history for a while now, and more seriously since I've had so much fun writing my recital program notes and since the experience of auditioning. I love the oboe, I love playing it and playing in orchestras, and certainly playing Berlioz right now (and getting the EH solo) is not helping to dissuade me, but I really got burnt out over audition stress and preparation, and that isn't promising for trying to make that my career. At the same time, I come back to the fact that I just can't seem to let it go. I'm afraid that if I went after music history, I would have a hard time being successful because I would still be spending all of my time practicing instead of researching. What I really want to do is both. I want to get a masters in performance, and then get a masters in music history. But, people don't really do that. Well, I have to make a decision eventually, but not today.

Speaking of Berlioz, we've had our second Berlioz rehearsal, and it was still wonderful; the brass had a sectional before the rehearsal, and we did movements 4 and 5. The mad grinning of nearly everybody in the orchestra (including my teacher) continues, and I personally am just about in heaven. A tip for the trilling part in the fifth mvt: one person plays only the trills, and one person plays straight eighths. According to my teacher, this is what the Chicago Symphony does, and it's really a brilliant cheat. Much easier and much cleaner to the ear, with no important difference in volume.

And speaking of disagreeing with your teacher, I've continued to have rehearsals of the Bax Quintet with my strings, and my teacher has been helping us. Which I really appreciate, don't get me wrong. However, my teacher and I have very different opinions of what the right tempos for the Bax are, and this leads to slightly awkward rehearsals in which we butt heads while the string players sit there noncommittally. I tend to like things fairly slow (read: Romantic and overwraught), while my teacher wants everything to go faster. Granted, faster tempos make the piece much easier to get through, but at the expense of sounding wrong (to me, and sometimes to him as well). We've ended up compromising a bit, but more on my side. After all, it is my recital. And I think the string players are slightly more on my side, though possibly only because we've been rehearsing things at my tempos for quite a while now.

A question about EH reeds. I don't make EH reeds, and I have always ordered them from Stuart Dunkel and been pleased with the quality. Lately, though, I've found that I just cannot get a decent dynamic range out of them, which is problematic since I'm playing a very dramatic (operatic) EH piece on my recital. Since learning to make EH reeds in the next three weeks is not a feasible option, does anyone have a suggestion of where to order good EH reeds?

BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM, BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAHM BAAAA BA BAHM

2008-03-20T15:09:00.004-04:00

Sorry to be absent so long- after getting back from spring break I had a very busy week and even busier weekend. (Papers, church gig, concerts, work, etc, you know.)

The orchestra started Berlioz rehearsals last night. It's amazing what a difference people's attitudes make in both the energy of a rehearsal and the quality of the music. Everybody's excited about Symphonie Fantastique, and you can tell. I'm playing EH, so I get the lovely solos in mvt 3, and we're doing the oboe not only off-stage but in the balcony. It's a very neat effect, but we'll have to do some placement fiddling because our hall is round and you get a "whispering wall" effect- the oboe sounded much louder than I did. Our conductor passed out Berlioz' exciting Programme, which, if you've never read it, you can find here. Ah, Berlioz.

(If you'd like to hear recordings from my camera under my chair (made at the request of my violist roommate for a sort of experiment) of the 5th mvt Dies Irae, I have two here. I will say that next week we will hopefully be actually playing in tune, and the trumpets will hit at least 3/4 of their notes.)

Speaking of orchestra, our Tchaikovsky concerts were last weekend. Neither were bad, but Saturday's just a little off in many ways. We weren't really prepared, having had spring break in the middle of our rehearsals, and nobody was thrilled with the music. That said, with the exception of one bit in the Tchaikovsky which, according to my string playing friends, nearly fell apart, Sunday's concert actually went quite well. The unfortunate thing about this concert was that while Tchaikovsky is an incredibly emotional composer, I was too concentrated on notes and playing in tune and not missing entrances or key signatures or dramatic dynamics to really get involved. The result was incredibly draining concerts (emotionally and physically) with little satisfaction in my playing. But, as I mentioned, the energy of the group is so much better with Berlioz, and so I think it will be a truly exciting concert.

In other news, I was rejected from Northwestern. As with Temple, I'm not surprised, but I'm more disappointed as I really loved the school and thought it was my best audition. I'm still waiting to hear from CCM and Mannes, which happen to be the two auditions I was least happy with.

I do sort of have exciting news, though. The school's gouger has finally returned! I got a short lesson from my teacher about splitting/pre-gouging/gouging, and I'm pretty proud of my reeds made from tube cane that have resulted. It's a very different gouge from the one I was ordering, which is Jeanne's .48-.60 gouge, and the cane I have seems to have a fairly large diameter, so my reeds have seemed unusually closed and thin, but I'm getting used to it, and I do think I'm going to get a successful reed or two even out of my experimental batch. Plus, it's just so much fun. (Actually the best part was the glee of my roommates when I let them watch me split and pregouge cane (*bang* "Whoa!" *shove!* "Let me try?") and then let them do some as well.)

And now for some waiting.

2008-03-10T15:47:00.004-04:00

On the one side, I am now completely done with grad school auditions, and can concentrate completely on my recital. On the other side, I was incredibly disappointed in my audition at Mannes. I didn't realize how much the school was over my head until I walked into the practice room hall. It seemed to be the day when all of the oboes where there, and I got psyched out and couldn't get centered again before I went into the audition. Also all of my reeds (nine of them) stopped working. I don't know what the cause was, because NY was about the same temperature as DC and didn't seem wildly less humid, but all of the opening squished down and I couldn't get my nice warm and controlled tone to come out, only my whiny and squeaky one. Well, that's not entirely accurate. After the first piece I played I used a second reed, which sounded much better, though still not my best. (Back in C'ville, two of the reeds have died, and all the other seven sound lovely.) I'm just really disappointed in myself- I loved the school, and, though the reeds impacted my audition, I completely let my nerves get the best of me. Also, I didn't get to play either of my two best pieces. They let me choose my first piece, so I started with the Mozart Quartet, which is a good warm-up/ feeling out the room piece as it's not nearly so touchy as Paladilhe or Poulenc and not so finger intensive as an etude. However, they then only had me play the Gillet etude, during which my nerves ran away from me with embarrassing result, and two excerpts, Ich habe genug and Roman Carnival. At least I sounded really nice on the etudes, particularly English horn, which I closed with. Also, I got to "meet" Elaine Douvas (principal oboe, the Met) and Tom Stacy (EH, New York Phil), not that the audition panel even took the time to introduce themselves to me.

Aside from that, I've had a gig playing EH in a Bach cantata with the Rockbridge Choral Society, which went very well. It's a good group, and all of their instrumentalists were very talented. The other two oboists and I decided that oboists have a "look"- we all looked familiar to each other despite never having met. Thoughts? I also had a gig playing a piece with choir at a church, which was unremarkable.

I've just come back from spring break, during which time there were very few people in the music building. This, then, would have been the perfect time to paint the floor of the building containing the practice rooms. The first day after spring break is NOT the perfect time to do this; it's not very fun to practice when you feel sick from paint fumes.

Next (and final) orchestra concert we're playing Symphonie Fantastique, which I am incredibly excited about. I'm playing 2nd/EH and picked up my music today.
-No EH except for the mvt 3 solo
+MVT 3 SOLO
-I'm tacet for mvt 2, the ball, which I really like
+I get to play the Dies irae theme and the witches sabbath idee fixe theme
Anyways, it's one of my favorite pieces, and a great way to go out with my orchestra.

At last, my last audition; Authenticity

2008-03-04T12:11:00.003-05:00

I have my last audition, at Mannes in NYC, on Thursday. I'm playing the same pieces as every other audition I've had, so I'm nervous but not unduly so. Last night I was pretty stressed, but night-time is always when my nerves come out to play, so I feel much calmer today. And I must say that the above-par practicing session I just had was also really helpful in banning some of last nights nerves. Good luck wishes, as always, are welcome.

A few Orchestration classes ago, we analyzed two arrangements of Boris Gudonov: one (the original) by Mussorgsky, and one (done after Mussorgsky's death in an attempt to revive the opera) by Rimsky-Korsakov. (I put the second parentheses because I think it's much harder to demonize R-K for re-orchestrating the piece if you know his motives, that he was trying to make the opera successful, and also that he stated that should the original become successful, his should be discarded. But it's not really relevant to what I'm discussing.)

My professor gave us a brief description of the two composers; Rimsky-Korsakov was "the most educated and Westernized" of the members of the Mighty Five (a group of Russian composers) and Mussorgsky was "the least educated, most authentic, and most original" of them. Then I was angry for the rest of class: authenticity is one of my biggest pet peeves in musicology.

He later, when discussing differences between the versions of the piece, said that some consider Tchaikovsky and R-K to have used tones/timbres that are "too bright", making them "less Russian" than composers, such as Mussorgsky, who use darker tones.

Now, the trouble with authenticity is that it's an issue across both classical and popular and folk music, and because of this it's very hard to talk about coherently and without saying something that becomes problematic, which I’m sure I will. Authenticity deals with issues of power, and who has power in society, and this is a very different issue, or can be, when you're speaking about classical music made by "dead white guys" and popular and folk music, a good deal of which, at least in the US, is made by black guys. (If you're talking about Europe, which I suppose I am, the issues are a little different because of the higher percentage of popular and folk music also being created by white guys, but then, race issues in general are different.) HOWEVER. I still have something to say about it. Just as it would be wrong to eliminate a composer from a genre or such because of lack of education, it's also wrong to say that R-K is less authentically Russian than Mussorgsky because he was more educated. Now if he were, say, educated and decided to renounce all Russian ways of composing and start writing French impressionist music, all right then. (Cough, Samuel Beckett, cough, whose wishes over his (rejection of Irish) nationality should be respected.) But this is what Grove says about R-K: "Indeed, it is no exaggeration to call Rimsky-Korsakov the main architect of the ‘Russian style’ in music, a style which is instantly recognizable to a worldwide public today. The sheer volume of his heritage consolidated the common idioms of The Five by dint of constant repetition; his completion and editing of his colleagues’ works established the concert repertory of Russian music; his professorial toil ensured the continuity of the style into the following generation; he was also the first and most important exporter of the style to Western Europe." This is what R-K says about composing Russian music: "Russian traits – and national traits in general – are not acquired by writing according to specific rules, but rather by removing from the common language of music those devices which are inappropriate to a Russian style." Rimsky-Korsakov was not trying to reject Russian music or composition and in fact embraced his Russian identity; thus he shouldn't be excluded from the genre of "Russian composition". It's true that his ideas about the Russian style are much less extreme than many, but this just makes him a different composer, not an "inauthentic" one.

I suppose that my thoughts really are that excluding composers, etc. from genres or styles with which they associate themselves is unfair and a misuse of power. No one should be able to say "Oh, you don't count as this sort of composer, even though you identify as such," whether the genre is pop or classical. (I do know that this gets tricky- what if a composer associates himself with a school completely unrelated to the reality of his music? What if, say, Wagner had decided he was a Neo-Classicist? But then, what if Wagner had composed in a style between the one he chose and neo-classicism?)

Now, it's of course okay to explore differences between R-K and Mussorgsky (again, cough, Samuel Beckett, cough- it’s alright to explore the ways in which his "Irishness" is revealed in his works), and I of course don't object to the statement that R-K had more education and incorporated more Western aspects into his music, but to say that R-K was less authentic because he had more education? That's unfair. The only way then to be an "authentic" Russian composer would be to only use Russian folk melodies and to completely eschew any forms which did not arise without any influence from other countries.

(This almost gets into issues of consciousness in composition; there's a tendency when speaking of non-classical music to remove self-awareness from the composer or lyricist. If Mussorgsky were more authentic because he was less educated, does that mean that authenticity is based on a lack of knowledge? Mussorgsky was certainly aware of the choices he was making.
It also sort of brings up issues of fabricated traditions. If traditions can be created (see country music), where does authenticity even come in to the picture? Why can't any tradition then be fabricated, and why can't a tradition be expanded upon and still be just as authentic?)

Happy February 29th, everybody!

2008-02-29T16:59:00.002-05:00

My thoughts on unreasonable expectations in the classical music industry and about "selling out".

My Post-Tonal Analysis professor (who is a composer) went off on a rant about how nobody wants to play new music and how composers don't make a lot of money, particularly in comparison to conductors, and how most composers teach as well as write because of this. I have this to say in response.

The reason that it is possible for people who are not very very famous to make a living off of playing, or conducting, is that they will play(/conduct) anything. Classical, pops concerts, church gigs, pit orchestras. These people are also frequently required to teach, and even more teach regardless of requirement for extra money. This is the way of life. The number of people who live off of only playing pieces that fit into their personal aesthetic is absolutely tiny. Even if you only play in the sort of group (chamber, orchestra, pit, etc) that is your top choice, I guarantee that most musicians have to play quite a few pieces that they don't want to, or at least wouldn't otherwise choose.

So, go ahead and separate "post-classical" conductors from those who (albeit implicitly stated) sell out by doing films/ads/video games. But you have to make the comparison fair.

I understand that with composing the whole point is to create pieces that are music in the vein of your personal aesthetic. And perhaps the world is less kind to Artists of the composer variety than of the performer or conductor variety; the latter two can sort of play on the classical-musicians-as-rock-star-equivalents idea that's hung over in many ways from the 19th century. But honestly? Unless you're a true genius, there's little room for Artists of any sort if you want to get paid for it.

(My opinions about orchestras playing new music are separate and not relevant to this discussion, but I will say that there's a lot more to take into account than "oh, the poor composers who are rejected by everyone".)

I have two musical "rants" generated by my classes, but I'll post those separately.

2008-02-28T15:20:00.006-05:00

No more grad school news, alas. However, in a week I will be completely done with auditions, which is a rather nice thought, and I have actually been officially accepted by Mason now.

The Waynesboro concerts went pretty well, and with the two combined there were about 150 people in attendance, so good for them. I did have a lot of fun playing first oboe in the dress, and got a few very nice compliments from the director and clarinet soloist. It turned out that the soloist plays in the Marine Band, along with the conductor, and he played the Mozart concerto beautifully.

I've been doing a lot of work recently on the second movement of the Poulenc Sonata, and I'm becoming frustrated. Tonguing is a big weakness of mine, which I am trying very hard to improve. My method in Poulenc was to start at a quite reduced speed, and work the speed up one click at a time. I've gotten it up to 148, and I cannot go any faster. At 148, I hit all of the notes and all of the tonguing, and at 149 I start having flubs and getting flustered. So, any suggestions on how to work on tonguing speed?

A fellow Charlottesville-based oboist sent me some cool reed-making information, so I thought I'd pass it on.

Yes, Rachel, every time I get into a reed-scraping frenzy (which is mostly of late), I am reminded that I was going to write down for you a “standard approach” to tuning as you go … attributed to Valarie Anderson, Jeanne, Inc. I happened by when she was working with some students in her shop at JMOC 2005, and here’s what she said…

1. Test low B slurred to middle B.
If the upper is flat, clip the tip

2. Test low C to middle C.
If upper is sharp, thin the corners of the tip at the plateau
… Go back and test B to B

3. Test low D to middle D.
If upper is sharp, remove cane from back
… Go back to B to B test, then C to C, until all three are okay

4. Test mid-staff G by blowing easily with a loose embouchure.
If it doesn’t sound okay (???), refine the inception of tip off the heart

For advanced players,

a. Test B-flat above the staff against a harmonic B-flat (E-flat with side octave)

b. Test A above the staff against harmonic A (D with side octave)

If either of the above is not satisfactory, there must be something else to do, but it must be embedded in my notes further on.

Now I am so inspired that I may just go and write up the rest of these notes, as well.

If she sends me any further information, I'll post that here as well. She also sent me a website full of oboe-related things: http://www.fredonia.edu/som/hamilton/index.html.

World Beat Music is a piece for what appears to be drums and electric guitar, whose sheet music creates a map of the world. The sheet music can be found here, and a recording here.

Also, here is a gallery of instruments (string and keyboard) created out of various everyday items by Ken Butler.

edit: And, for the easily amused, here is a creative interpretation of the words to "O Fortuna," done vaguely in the style of the llama song. (Vaguely not work safe and certainly strange.)

Can't win them all...

2008-02-20T21:41:00.003-05:00

Last week I got into grad school at GMU, this week I got rejected from Temple. I'm not surprised, obviously, and as you may recall I wasn't thrilled with the school, but I can't help being a little disappointed anyways. Oh well.

Yesterday I had rehearsal with the Waynesboro Symphony. I was just about late because I had to get gas, and then I forgot that it was in a different (farther away) city, and then I almost got lost. But it turned out all right, because I was set up before tuning. Tomorrow I will get there 20 minutes early. I hadn't had the music before rehearsal, so luckily it's all pretty easy, with the exception of one fairly tricky passage in Shubert's Unfinished Symphony. It's a community orchestra, so some of the sections are a little rough, but everyone seems enthusiastic and musical and like they're having fun, so hey. Who am I to argue with people getting to play in an orchestra? I do have one comment, though, and that is that they're playing enough music for practically two concerts. Two marches, Blue Danube Waltz, Clair de la Lune, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, and Shubert's Unfinished Symphony. Whew. Now that's a workout. The concerts are this weekend, and there's a dress on Thursday. I get to play first for that, so that should be pretty fun.

My Bax quintet rehearsals continue, and we sound pretty darn good, at least on the third movement. Granted, we've yet to do more than run through the first and second movements, but seeing as we're playing the third at a "lunchbox recital" in, oh, three weeks, it's good that the third is the easy movement to put together. I was struck today by how much easier my part is when put together with the strings; there's a super low, fast, staccato tongued passage which, when played by me alone, neatly showcases every flub and crack, but which, when played with strings, sounds like lovely and clever writing. Also, at least in the first and third movements, breathing becomes much simpler when there are other players.

Speaking of my recital, I'm thinking of putting both my program notes, once they've been edited, and the longer mini-papers from which I'll be taking them, up here. There really is very little information about oboe works on the internet (in fact, I've had this blog come up several times when searching pieces, which really tells you something about how little there is), and I know that when I'm researching a piece, program notes are among the most helpful resources. So if you're curious what I've been working on all semester, you'll get to see it at some point.

This has been a week of Reed Woes (after 6 bad reeds out of 7 from a 10-piece batch of cane...), but I've finally gotten a new one working, one of those that actually plays well the second day you work on it AND which needs no further touch-ups, and tomorrow I'm going to make up those other three pieces. (Actually, that new reed could do with a touch of tweaking, but, well, considering my luck the past few days, I'm afraid to touch it with anything resembling a knife. It's got a fairly long tip with a considerable burr on the end, which is not nearly how I usually make my reeds, but, although its a little flat and temperamental in some hard to pin down way, it seems to be working.) Also, hopefully the school's gouger will be returned, fixed, soon and I will get to start using all of that tube cane that I bought back in the fall.

I read the section on oboe in Berlioz's orchestration treatise, and it was fairly amusing, so I'll share.
"The oboe is principally a melodic instrument; it has a rustic character, full of tenderness, I would say even of shyness. ... The sounds of the oboe are suitable for expressing simplicity, artless grace, gentle happiness, or the grief of a weak soul.
It can also convey a degree of agitation, but one must be careful not to intensify this to cries of passion, to vehement outbursts of anger, threats or heroism: its thin, bitter-sweet tones then become feeble and altogether grotesque. ... One may find...passages with a passionate intent and martial tone that are oddly at variance with the sound of the oboes that play them. The result is not only that the effect misfires, but that there is a jarring discrepancy between the stage and the orchestra, and between the melody and its instrumentation. The most direct, beautiful and noble march theme loses its nobility, directness and beauty if heard on the oboes."
The English horn:
"It is not capable either of voicing passionate laments, and tones of acute grief are more or less beyond its reach. It is a melancholy, dreamy and rather noble voice, with a somewhat subdued and distant tone. This makes it superior to any other instrument when the intention is to move by reviving images and feelings from the past, and when the composer wishes to touch the hidden chords of tender memories."

I am reassured.

2008-02-14T18:37:00.004-05:00

Today, I got into grad school!

"Dear Rachel:
I am please to inform you that you have passed your oboe audition for the M.M. degree at George Mason University."

This makes me very, very happy. :-)

It's been a fairly eventful oboe week, all things told. We had our orchestra concert on Saturday and Sunday, and it was a big hit. There were gasps and programs dropped at the start of the Kaschei dance in Firebird, and on Saturday some guy in the audience yelled "Woo!!" I love it when we create really dramatic audience reactions. I mentioned subbing in the Brahms on Friday night, and I did indeed end up playing it in both concerts. It's a fairly intense piece, and I had a ton of fun even if I did spend both concerts counting furiously. Because I was for all intents and purposes sight-reading the concerts, I didn't get a good feel for the performance of the piece in relation to rehearsals, but there were certainly some scary moments. Our pianist was amazing, but at the concerts his tempos were a lot more flexible than they'd been in rehearsal. Still, the concerts were a wild success.

On Tuesday I was supposed to have rehearsal with the Waynesboro Symphony, but it got canceled due to weather, which I was fairly greatful about. It's not that I mind playing for them, but my homework this week has been pretty heavy. Next week, though, I have two rehearsals and two concerts with them.

Yesterday we read Tchaikovsky Symphony 5 in orchestra, which was fairly awesome. I of course have heard the piece quite a few times, but it wasn't until I played it that I realized just how intense it is. Twice I have a page with only a single measure of rests, and I'm playing second oboe! I was pretty exhausted by the end of the piece, although that was in part because my reed blew out around the end of the first movement.

Today, I went and saw the Shoghaken Ensemble give a demonstration of Armenian instruments and music. I didn't get to ask any questions about the duduk, but it was still very cool, and the music was gorgeous.

Oh, and I nearly forgot. Monday evening I played in the best masterclass of my life with Frank Morelli, the bassoon teacher at Yale. I played the first movement of the Poulenc, while I was very happy with my playing, the part that really made the class was that as the bassoon can go up to a E in the top space, Mr. Morelli played about 2/3 of the piece for me, all told. It was mind-blowingly exactly what the piece is supposed to sound like; I've decided that Poulenc wanted to write for bassoon, but, since they can't hit those high Es, you know, he switched it to oboe. However, the richness of sound, and the...restraint and connection and longing, was exactly what I want to do with the piece.

Hello again...

2008-02-09T14:52:00.000-05:00

It wasn't until late last night that I realized I hadn't talked about my Temple audition last Monday in here. The audition was better than the one at CCM, but not as good as that at Northwestern. I auditioned in a recital hall, the acoustics of which, while gorgeous, made it very difficult to tell how I actually sounded in the hall, with the four auditioners sitting in the audience. That was a little intimidating. I did my two Ferling etudes, the first page of the Mozart, about half of Poulenc, Bach and Tombeau excerpts. It was hot on stage, or I got nervous and picked a tempo too slowly for my rather long slow etude, so I got out of breath near the beginning and ran out of breath very rapidly the rest of the audition. Also, my reed decided that it couldn't play louder than a mezzo-forte, which was obviously unfortunate for the Poulenc's dynamic range. But I think my tone was very good, and my fingers and tongue were behaving, so I was pleased. If I had been able to actually have dynamic range I would have been very happy indeed with my performance.

I didn't like the school as much as I liked either CCM or Northwestern. It felt very sterile, although that was in part because the building was deserted and in part because they didn't really seem to care about the auditions. There weren't any sort of informational meetings, or even helpful flyers, and the only people there to help were one lady at the desk and one runner. However, I didn't get to go over to what is apparently the main music building, so perhaps I got a skewed view of it all. I also thought that the general impression that Temple is in a bad part of town is exaggerated. I mean, the area wasn't midtown, like, say, Penn, but it was fine.

This morning I had an audition at GMU, which I was quite nervous about. In part that was because I know the teacher (have known her since I was in high school), and I very deeply respect her opinion. It was also in part because GMU is my "safety school," and it would have been very unfortunate for me to screw up that audition. However, I was quite happy with how I played. I didn't get to play very much at all, just the slow etude and about 3/4 of the Paladilhe, and I had a couple finger blurps and at one point my reed got bizarrely spitty, but the auditioners (Lorrie and two others) were quite complimentary in a way that makes me cross my fingers very optimistically. But I in no way want to jinx it, so I'll move on.

On Tuesday I demonstrated oboe and English horn for my Orchestration class, which was quite fun, despite the fact that my presentation was fairly unplanned. (I got back from Temple at about 8:30 at night on Monday.) The professor was helpful about making sure I covered all the necessary things, and I got to show off a tiny bit and rant about all of the misconceptions about the oboe, especially those in our textbook.

I had the first rehearsal of the Bax quintet on Wednesday, and despite the fact that we were all having a lot of trouble counting (it was the first rehearsal, and it's a difficult piece to put together), it was brilliant. There are things that you can do with strings that you just can't with winds, and in my opinion they're pretty much all of the best things, really. My quartet makes me incredibly happy, because I have all of these really great players! And they're playing in my recital and making me sound good! In a beautiful piece! It makes me grin like mad and sometimes make odd squeaking noises.

I've not been having very good reed luck at all lately; all of my cane seems to split easily, or be very spongy or very hard, and so I'm getting a lot of slightly bizarre reeds. However, thus far I've managed to have a reed that was not only playable but which sounded nice for my audition Monday, class Tuesday, rehearsal Wednesday, lesson Thursday, orchestra Wed-Fri, and audition today. So I figure I can't complain too much. And again, I don't want to jinx my luck. (Now, if I could have more than two working reeds at all times, I would truly be happy.)

Speaking of orchestra, we have our concerts this weekend. I'm playing in Firebird, which I love so much that I have to watch my facial expressions. Players should look happy and enthusiastic, but insane grins are a bit much. Last night I showed up at rehearsal to find that the second oboist for the Brahms piano concerto was sick with a fever, so I subbed in. (Sight-reading the whole thing. Take that, Northwestern. Also, I didn't have to sight-read at my audition, but Lorrie said something along the lines of "And she can sight-read like crazy.") I have yet to find out which of us will be playing it at the concert tonight. It's a gorgeous piece, and has a really good second oboe part.

Oh, I nearly forgot. I opened up the paper on Friday and looked at the crossword puzzle and found this:
:-D

"Highly colored oboe timbre becomes tiresome if used for too long"

2008-01-31T15:34:00.000-05:00

So, this is my Post-Tonal Analysis book. I really love the subtext that they're creating with the cover illustration. "Over the course of this class we will strip away your ability to see the entirety of a piece, as well as the intricacies surrounding it. Instead, your understanding of the piece will become dim and out of focus."

Excitingly, I get to present the oboe and English horn to my Orchestration class on Tuesday. Any suggestions of things I shouldn't forget to mention would be helpful. Currently I've gotten thus far in my brainstorming:

For oboe:
A lot of composers seem to give oboes the "easy" part. (This isn't something I've done a lot of thinking about, but I noticed it last weekend when playing Peter and the Wolf and yesterday during orchestra sectionals when rehearsing Firebird.) Some composers (cough Ravel, Tombeau cough) dramatically don't, though.
Tonguing. It works differently from bowing. Also, we have fewer named effects and fewer specific notations, but we can still play notes of just about any length, from incredibly staccato to barely differentiated.
Breathing. Breathing is not optional, and must especially be taken into account during solo passages, where stagger breathing can't be done. Also, breathing for oboe (and bassoon?) works differently than for flutes and clarinets.
Range and changing tone. Low register v. high register. Our range is pretty much low B flat to high F sharp, and nearly all of that gets used in orchestral parts. Don't try to make the oboe come in softly below about E flat or D, especially if it's a first oboe part. Also, try not to really go above E in orchestral parts.
You don't have to worry about reeds, that's our job. This is a personal issue of mine with the orchestration book, which makes a big deal about the trials and tribulations of double reed players. Composers shouldn't have to care that reeds are finicky- pieces should be written for the "ideal" oboist. The players will deal.

For EH:
I'm planning to do a sort of montage of famous solos- New World, Ravel Piano Concerto, Roman Carnival- and say "These are the sorts of things that English horn is famous for playing. We can play fast and technical things, and sometimes it's a fun break, but there's a reason that all English horn solos sound similar."
Transposition.
Tone. EH has a darker and smoother tone throughout the registers. Also, take advantage of the low register.

Suggestions of pieces which I should use to demonstrate would be most welcome.

A close friend of Mozart reported that on the last day of Mozart's life, he participated in a rehearsal of the unfinished Requiem with Mozart.
"On the very eve of his death, [Mozart] had the score of the Requiem brought to his bed, and himself (it was two o'clock in the afternoon) sang the alto part.... They were at the first bars of the Lacrimosa when Mozart began to weep bitterly, laid the score on one side, and eleven hours later...departed this life."

"from the boiling cells
By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook;
As in an organ, from one blast of wind,
To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.
Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet--
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven;
The roof was fretted gold."
Milton, Paradise Lost, 1. 706-717

At least the narrator didn't actually say "mournful" or "melancholy oboe"

2008-01-27T00:36:00.000-05:00

Today I played Peter and the Wolf with the city high school orchestra, who got to play in the Paramount Theater (aka a real theater which has concerts, and theatre, and dance, etc.) in a fundraising/ children's concert, and I had a lot of fun. The orchestra was quite good for high school, the theater was good acoustically and also gorgeous, the winds, all of whom were hired from around town, were great, and I played well on top of it all. (I actually got two compliments about my playing: one from a French horn who complimented me on my dark sound, and one from the conductor, who said I played the part best of anyone she'd had in their five years of doing this concert.) The best part, however, was that after the concert they had an "instrument petting zoo." It was actually the first time I'd done something like that, and it was great. The kids were so cute and small and adoring. It was a little awkward when they wanted to touch all over my oboe, or play it, or when the parents told them the wrong name, but that was all made up for in the kids' utter enthrallment with all of the instruments. Here's to building the future of classical music!

In other news, the duduk is coming to UVA! An Armenian group is coming in February and doing a concert, a dance workshop, and an instrument demonstration. I'm quite excited; I plan on missing class to go to the demonstration (because of course they're holding it in the middle of the morning).

My music classes, Post-Tonal Analysis and Orchestration, are both shaping up nicely. Analysis makes my brain hurt a little bit, but it's interesting and an area I don't know very much about. Also, my oboe teacher is in the class, as it seems he needs one more 400 level class in order to get his doctorate. Orchestration is pretty awesome, especially the instrument demonstration parts- we had our principal second violin come in and talk/show some string instrument specific effects and techniques. The book for that class is pretty great, because while it is indeed informative and easy to understand, it's also given to statements of blatant obviousness (did you know that it's possible to write out a score and parts in either pencil OR pen? and that people also now sometimes use computers and can even input the notes into a computer themselves instead of hiring someone to do it? This book was written in 2002.) and bias (it describes oboes in a passage which reads "In addition to being an uncommonly taxing instrument, the oboe is a sensitive and somewhat unpredictable one as well. Notes must be humored and cajoled; the reed is delicate and must be "just so"; temperature and atmostpheric conditions can produce unexpected and disastrous results. In short, the oboe is something of a temperamental prima donna."). I have in fact already deeply annoyed my roommates with the number of things I've just had to read to them out of the book.

Oboe-wise, I have another audition (Temple) a week from Monday, for which I'm playing two Ferlings, the first mvt of Mozart and the first mvt of Poulenc, and excerpts. I've also started working on my recital program, specifically the second mvt of Poulenc and the Bax. I'm quite excited to start working with my strings. That is, once we figure out a time when we can all five be in the same place.

Prokofiev perpetuates negative stereotypes!

2008-01-21T09:58:00.000-05:00

While at Cincinnati I auditioned for 45 minutes in front of the single oboe professor and his video camera (with a mini lesson, unrecorded, to follow), at Northwestern I auditioned for 15 minutes in front of the three oboe professors and their notepads. This is really rather representative of the schools as a whole, I think.

But first my audition. They had me play the exposition of Mozart Quartet Mvt. 1, all of Poulenc Sonata Mvt. 1, Roman Carnival excerpt on English horn, Tombeau excerpt, and sight-reading from Barrett. I was a little nervous after practicing the night before, because it was quite cold and dry, and my reeds were protesting the fact. However, the next day, though even colder (it was stuck in the single digits all day) according to the weather channel had about 65% humidity, and my reeds revived. In fact, they revived to a state better than the one they began in, dark and full but vibrant not stuffy. This audition, I was very happy with all of my playing- including EH, which went quite well this time after I changed excerpts- except for my sight-reading. I suppose my nerves got the better of me, but I was quite disappointed and surprised at how much trouble I had with a fairly easy sight-reading passage. Usually (and by usually I mean always except for that audition) I am a very good sight-reader, both in true sight-reading and in orchestral run-throughs. I suppose that if I could have picked one part of my audition to mess up it would have been sight-reading, but still.

I was happy with the Mozart, which was not too awkward on the tongued runs, and which was vibrant, bouncy, and dynamic. The Poulenc also went well; I thought I was very lyrical and connected, I had a wide dynamic range, and aside from the low C I didn't have any problems with the high or low notes coming out attractively. My downward runs were a little bit mushy, though. Roman Carnival was perhaps on the slow side, but I had a good tone and good phrasing, and I think I played it very well. Tombeau was quite good, though not perfect. It was one of those times when I was almost watching myself play the excerpt rather than actually playing it myself; I didn't rush, but I did play it a little faster than I was intending, and I was afraid that I was suddenly going to spiral into a trainwreck. However, that didn't happen. Instead all of my notes come out, the tonguing breezed by, my grace notes were quick and appropriate, and I didn't slur the B and C# together in the last three measures. It was still a little scary, though. I'm really very happy with how I played- I think it was pretty close to the best of my ability- but even if all of the applicants are on an even level I have about a 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 chance of being accepted. Still, nothing I can do now. Besides, after being so disappointed about my CCM audition, it was nice to be satisfied with my performance in this one, no matter what the outcome. It's also an assurance that I won't just screw up every audition I take.

And now on to my sweeping generalizations about the school. :-) CCM to me feels very new, almost too much so. The buildings feel almost cold because they're so new and shiny, although the practice building, which is not new, is better. The people, on the other hand, are very warm and inviting. Despite this, I'm not sure it has the right feel for me, though frankly that's not super high up on my list of considerations for where to attend grad school. Northwestern, on the other hand, felt a colder people-wise as an immediate reaction, though admittedly it was much less so on Saturday when I actually had a chance to talk to a few people and when I met the oboe teachers. I think that in actuality it felt less cold and more...professional. I also loved the campus and the feel of the buildings, which were old and broken in. Gothic architecture mixed with weird "modern" building styles, and it just felt right. That seems like a fairly lame way to put it, but what can I say, it's true. I like places that feel, well, old and distinguished, yet broken in and comfortable, and that's a pretty accurate description of how Northwestern felt to me.

In additional oboe news, I get to play Peter and the Wolf on Saturday in a fund-raising concert for the high school here. The school orchestra plays with hired winds and percussion in the big theater downtown, it's all very cool and I'm sure the kids have a blast. So my project this week is learning Peter and the Wolf, and making sure I have an appropriate reed.

Also, while I tried to buy an Innoledy gouger (and in fact got as far as actually paying through Paypal), it turns out that there is a 4 month waiting list. Now, I should, I admit, have suspected this, but there was no mention of it anywhere on the website, which did in fact let me purchase the gouger. It seems like letting people know upfront would be much easier than having to charge and then refund each purchase.

1 down, 4 to go.

2008-01-15T16:49:00.000-05:00

My first grad school audition, for Cincinnati College-Conservatory, was on Saturday. To be frank, I was not particularly pleased with my performance- while it could've been worse, it could have been much much better. The first (and I suppose largest) problem was that I somehow warmed up too much, and so I was tired (though I couldn't feel it and was, I guess, distracted when I was actually warming up) before I even started my audition. I was fairly pleased with my Gillet etude, though I (as always) feel that I could have played it better if I'd had another go at it, and my two oboe excerpts (Beethoven 3 and Bach "Ich habe genug") went quite well. Paladilhe was good but not as good as at my jury, I don't think; the first part went well, and then my embouchure started slipping and my fingers started getting nervous in response. Poulenc was going along nice, although he stopped me partway through. However, my English horn excerpt somehow was really bad. I don't really know what happened, because it was the Ravel Piano Concerto, which I have played in concerts. But, whatever. Bombed that. Also, I played the Mozart Quartet very near the end, and unlike Poulenc, where there are plenty of gaps for getting one's embouchure under control, in Mozart there are not. So I sounded tired and a little flaily in that, since because I was worried about my endurance, my tonguing started to slip.

I suppose on the whole I'm happy with the audition, even though it wasn't my best playing possible, because I really got my nerves under control. And now I'm resolved to rock my other auditions. I just wish that my first audition hadn't been for my top choice of school. Because I'm about 95% sure that I didn't get in.

So...5 more days to practice for Northwestern. Bring it on. I will absolutely not warm up too much.

I'm back down at school now, and while yesterday I practiced in my apartment, today I went to Old Cabell. It's nice to be back in the practice rooms, where there is appropriate light, and a mirror, and a real stand, and acoustics which I know how to work with. Who would've thought I'd be wanting to play in our practice rooms. I also saw quite a few people, which was nice, and found out that although I haven't received my jury sheets yet, they haven't been lost, exactly, just misplaced inside the office, and I will have them relatively soon.

My reeds seem to be working again (knock on wood). I have a new batch of cane, some new silver Pisoni staples (aka the magic staples), and my corners have returned. So that's looking up at least- my reeds weren't exactly bad in Cincinnati, but they were edging on bright and squished, and I felt like I had to protect my sound too much to really get the tone and the dynamic range I was hoping for. In other reed news, I bought an Innoledy gouger! Or, to be more precise, my parents bought it for me. I was really surprised when they told me this, because I had been counting on paying for it myself with the aid of Christmas money, as I told them and they agreed, but I didn't protest too much. :-) I also, of course, effusively thanked them. I'm quite excited to get it and start having a little bit more control about the quality of gouged cane that I'm making reeds out of- I've found lately that a lot of the gouged cane I've been getting from Jeanne hasn't been that great.

Classes start tomorrow, and music-wise I'm taking lessons (obviously), independent study for my recital program notes, musicianship (dictation and sight-singing), post-tonal analysis, and orchestration. Plus orchestra, in which I'm playing Firebird this concert, which starts tomorrow as well. Outside of the music department, I'm taking an English seminar on Milton's Paradise Lost.

This is it!

2008-01-10T18:52:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow morning, my dad and I will drive up to Cincinnati, I will practice that evening, and wake up the next morning to go and take a theory assistantship test at 8 in the morning, warm-up, and go and take my first grad school audition at 11. I'm as prepared as I can be, and I'm feeling pretty confident, although (and when is this not the case? Very rarely) I wish my reeds were a little better. Still (knock on wood), I know my stuff. I'm still terrified and stressed out of my mind, but yesterday seems to have been my freaking out day, so hopefully that will hold. Today I was much calmer, actually, and my practicing went well, especially in the morning, with the last half an hour this evening being finger-tied and weird with my reeds. Which is as it should be-it's like a dress rehearsal. I know I'll be able to pull it together on Saturday, so tomorrow is really the only day to worry about; once it's the morning of, it's too late for anything but intense butterflies in your stomach and really shaky hands afterwards.

My wonderful friends have kindly been distracting me with pep talks:

D: "Your oboe could start playing everything a half step sharp! Or, your hair could catch on fire and all of your clothes could fall off! You could be killed in a freak carnivorous plant accident before you even get to Cincinnati!!"

These are surprisingly effective, actually.

Additional wishes of good luck and/or pep talks are most certainly welcome, and I'll let you know how it went when I get back.

Happy 2008!

2008-01-06T21:16:00.000-05:00

I drove down to school today to have one last lesson with my teacher before my first audition on Saturday. It was helpful, and simultaneously calming and incredibly stressful. I know what I need to work on polishing (basically, being polished, that is making sure my phrasing and direction and connections come out, and, as always, fingers in the etude), which is nice, and I'm feeling fairly prepared. I was especially pleased with my Mozart quartet today. This is partially because I have huge tonguing issues, and I've discovered the magical way to tongue all of the sixteenth-note passages in the piece. I've been doing them slur two-tongue two, and I've discovered that if I do that but play the first beat eighth-slur two rather than eighth-tongue two, it's much much easier. I was also fairly pleased with my Poulenc and my Beethoven 3 excerpt, and considerably less pleased with my etude and Tombeau. My teacher and I decided that I should plan on still practicing Tombeau but on playing "Ich habe genug" instead of it unless I'm asked for a fast excerpt, since I'm showing off my technique in the etude and Mozart. I'm actually more comfortable with this, though I'm frustrated by my inability to play Tombeau when in the presence of any other person. Still, I sound very nice on the Bach, so it's a good trade off.

However, I'm really disappointed with how unfocused and undisciplined I've been over break. My fear of embarrassing myself at auditions is just stress, but I know that I'm not at the top of my game, and had I spent the past month at home in C'ville, I would be. So I'm frustrated that I couldn't manage to get my act together recently- the fact that it happens to a lot of people when they're on break is no excuse. A lot of people don't have very important auditions coming up. Anyways, I spent the whole trip down incredibly stressed out, which at least will cause me to practice like mad for the next four days + Friday morning.

The sudden intensification of my stress is at the very least a reminder of how very much I do want this, by which I mean going to grad school for performance. The past week or so I've been longing after musicology grad school, for several reasons. I do really like music history and researching and writing analysis. My teachers think I write and analyze very well (I may have mentioned Professor Will's opinion about what I should be doing in grad school before). (Nearly) every musician I've ever talked to has told me "if there's something other than performance that you can do, do it." I could probably get in a better school, and get more money. I could still gig and play oboe. These combined make a pretty strong pull. I mentioned this to my mother, who thinks I'm just worried I won't get in anywhere for performance, and my friends, who were very helpful and supportive. Basically, I have not suddenly decided that I don't want to go to school for performance. Thus, I will still practice my ass off for auditions. When decision-making time comes, and I know what my options are, I can a) go to grad school for performance, b) go to school for performance and take additional classes to keep my options open, c) go to school for performance for a year and transfer, or d) take a year off and practice, gig, and work, and apply for grad school in musicology the final year. So I have many options, and need not be stressed about this. I'm grateful for that, because, as I mentioned, my audition freak-out is in full swing. Still, as I also said, it's a nice reminder just how much performance means to me. Because it really is still my first choice for What I Do With My Life. It's just...not the most practical of the options.

I continue to have strange reeds, but I have enough good ones (and will continue making reeds this week) to feel secure about playing my audition. The one problem with my reed-making is that I have suddenly begun to make reeds with very long and sloppy tips, with bad definition from the heart. I haven't figured out why this has suddenly started happening, because I have not consciously changed anything recently about my style of reeds. However, my results are consistent enough that it's not a fluke. Well, perhaps when I get back to C'ville my reeds will spontaneously revert to their usual form.

A very cool website which my friend found: Musipedia. It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like, an encyclopedia of music. However, unlike, say, New Grove, it's an encyclopedia not of music history or theory or such, but of actual pieces and themes within pieces. You can search by keyword of course, but you can also search by melody (intervals and relative rhythm count, but not specific pitch or rhythm), contour, and rhythm. I had a little trouble finding results when I tested it with known pieces, but it's a pretty nifty resource. Classical, folk, and pop music are all included, and if they don't have a song you're looking for, you can add it. Once you find a piece, Musipedia provides sheet music and a recording of the theme, as well as links to a websearch, details including the Parsons code (melodic contour), and Amazon and Sheet Music Plus if applicable.

I had a lot of fun in NYC.

2007-12-31T16:02:00.000-05:00

I got back on the evening of the 28th, and I've been pretty good since then at getting down to work. (Thank goodness.)

My Pisoni staples continue to be fairly miraculous. I only have two, though, and I really need to buy more. However, I have a silver staple and a brass one, one of which is far better than the other. I have them marked with numbers in pen on the cork, but do I ever remember to check which is which when a reed dies? That would be a no. This time I will, though! I will check, and then I will know which is the wonder staple, and then I will buy more of that one. Finally.

My reed luck has been wildly on and off recently, and very hard to predict. I think that the latest batch of cane I bought is kind of off and also more widely varying than usual in hardness of cane and in diameter, so I'm having trouble getting my reeds to come out. However, I'm also finding it very difficult to predict my success with the reeds I do tie on. It seems that every reed which seems as if it will turn out well become horrible and odd, and every reed that starts out strange or unusually bright/dark/hard/soft/etc turns out well. Some of this I attribute to my miracle staples (that was what happened with the magic reed that I had a while back and dyed blue with mouthwash), but some of it appears to just be the cane playing tricks on me. However, better playing tricks than flat out refusing to work. :-)

My auditions and trips to CCM (Jan 12th) and Northwestern (Jan 19th) are all planned out, and my father is being incredibly nice and going with me to both of them. I have to say it'll be nice to have a car for both of them rather than having to deal with a strange city's public transportation on top of audition stress.

I have a couple exciting links, though I found one at Oboe Insight, so many of you will probably have already seen. Still, I thought it was worth posting here.

Fourteen Wacky Events in Musical News This Past Year: Featuring a French hornist who "tramps around the South Island [of New Zealand] dressed in 19th-century attire," "a balcony brawl that stopped the show on opening night of the Boston Pops," "a Genoa 'Julius Caesar' production with an added role, a guy strolling around in a crocodile suit 'representing the timeless spirit of Egypt,'" and many more, including a commission by the Kazakhstan Orchestra from Borat's brother.

Also, take a look at the first record album cover here. A good look. Notice the instruments on the cover. Now look at the album's title.

This is either a little late or quite early: a hilarious recording of the ending of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, found at a website of musical bloopers. Make sure you listen all the way to the end- the problem is not the out of tune strings, although when I listened to the recording the first time I thought that and it made the ending even better. I have to say that I think that this is one of the funniest things ever, and I wish I knew what the reason behind it was. Did the organist go insane? Was he or she drunk? Incredibly confused? Playing a prank?

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! Have fun and be safe. I will be spending the evening dressed as a medieval princess at my mother's costume party. :-)

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T19:21:00.000-05:00

My Christmas Eve gig went fairly well, although it was a long program (a short "concert" followed by a service) and by the end my reed and my chops were giving out a little. Aside from that, though, I was happy with my playing and I thought my tone was pretty good. The tuning was fairly dreadful as a result of switching back and forth between the organ and the piano, and also I think because the strings didn't adequately tune to the organ's pitch. I found it very difficult to play in tune with the organ, and the strings, and the flute at the same time. Also, the flute and I had been moved from where we sat at rehearsal to behind the organ, which meant that the conductor was very hard to see, particularly when he played the piano. This resulted in one near trainwreck in Silent Night, when the flute picked a completely different tempo. I just inserted rests into my part and came in when everything had gotten back together. Still, it went well all in all, and the congregation seemed to enjoy it. The choir also was very good for a church choir; I was impressed. I approve of the director as a choir director if not as a conductor.

For Christmas I've gotten, among other things, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra recording of Tombeau, Beethoven 3 with George Szell and Cleveland, and Leonard Bernstein doing Dvorak's New World with the NY Phil. :-)

Now I'm off to pack- I'm going to New York for two nights with my cousin and my little sister. I hope everyone else's Christmases and Christmas gigs went well!

It's amazing the difference five minutes can make.

2007-12-22T12:48:00.000-05:00

I know I've been going on and on about my recent oboe issues, and I'm not going to start that up again. But I was practicing this morning and got around to my excerpts and started on Tombeau. And it was wonderful. My last lesson of the year we'd worked on Tombeau, and it had just gone horribly, (although that was because I had not known we were going to work on it that day and so hadn't practiced it at all), and this was especially disheartening because generally, well, I rock that excerpt. It's one that I can play well, and musically, and with all of the notes clear and coming out. After that lesson, though, rather than getting into practicing it, I just let it (and all of my excerpts) sit some more. Today I finally picked them back up, and I was reminded that oh yeah, I can actually play the oboe. The Paladilhe was going pretty smoothly today also, as well as my Ferling etudes. The Gillet has reached that horrible stage where my fingers suddenly forget how to play everything, but I will persevere. The first movement of the Mozart Quartet just needs a lot of run-throughs. I suppose that's true of all my pieces, but I feel like I need to do just a little bit more work on musical elements of the Poulenc and Marcello.

I think I've finally kicked myself back into gear.

I saw Sweeney Todd last night, and I have to say I heartily approve. I was grossed out enough that I didn't completely love it, but the cinematography etc is amazing, and I was pleasantly surprised by everyone's singing ability except for perhaps Alan Rickman. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, though, did quite well, and were brilliantly cast. Also, the secondary roles (Johanna, her sailor boy-Antony?, and Toby) were cast for voices, and they were good voices. I was quite impressed, especially by the boys. Johanna was good, and appropriate for her character, but uneven. Tim Burton did take out all of the choir numbers, which I don't like, but as the choir was replaced by organ and a large quantity of brass, I can't complain too much.

Christmas gig rehearsal

2007-12-20T22:50:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned, I have a gig for a Christmas Eve service, and tonight was the rehearsal for it. I was a little surprised to find out that the orchestration was chamber strings, flute, oboe, and organ, but hey- I like people who like oboe. It should have been a fairly uneventful rehearsal; we're playing the usual sort of orchestrated Christmas carols, though they're done in a very English way as the conductor is British and the church is Episcopal. However, the seating is odd, with us in the back of the sanctuary in a corner, and with the flute and me separated from the strings, and there is the aforementioned organ. The organ plays approximately 20 cents flat. Not only is that a hard pitch to tune to and to maintain, it doesn't sound right. Unusually sharp orchestras sound bright and, well, sharp, and when we play with this organ, we sound dull and wrong. Unfortunate.

Additionally, the conductor is very hard to follow, especially when he's conducting a piece in three. This is because while he does 4/4 patterns correctly, and uses a French 6/8, which I at least know, he conducts three with beat two on the inside rather than on the outside. It seriously confused me at first.

I also felt bad for the flautist, who seemed to be a young high-schooler, and who was filling in for whoever will play at the service. The conductor pointed some serious glares at her early on in the rehearsal. Plus I would have had a better time had I not had an intense allergy attack involving sneezing and a runny nose all day.

Still, it's all going to go well, and I'm getting paid, and I do like playing silly Christmas songs. Also, one of the other violinists complimented me on my sound, and asked for my card, for future gigs. The only problem with that is that I don't actually have any cards. Apparently, though, you can buy print-your-own-business-cards, so I think I'm going to do that this weekend. I have been thinking for a while that I should have cards.

I've heard that the Washington Balalaika Orchestra is currently looking for oboists and bassoonists, but I don't really have more information about that. I sent them an inquiry, though, so I'll put anything that I find out here.

My parents' house

2007-12-19T16:56:00.000-05:00

I've been home for Christmas break since Saturday afternoon, and since then I've been wildly unproductive. Coming here always plays havoc on my practicing schedule, at least at first, and it's making me nervous- I have much less time, and a much more important goal, now than I did during summer break. It's not that I've been doing nothing oboe-wise, but it's been pretty much the bare minimum. And it's not as if I've been sitting around all day reading (I wish that I were doing that- I'm about 70 pages into reading Dracula for the first time and loving it)- I've done my Christmas shopping, and helped my mom with hers, and gotten boxes of Christmas tree down from the attic and all sorts of things like that- but what I'm doing with my time is really not what I should be doing.

I do, however, have a gig for Christmas Eve now. I got woken up yesterday morning by a call from Lazo, who is an oboist but who also arranges gigs for a large number of other musicians in the DC area, asking me if I were free to play a Christmas Eve service. One rehearsal tomorrow, at which I first see the music, and then a service on the 24th at 10:15 pm. Pays well, and hopefully will be a good group of musicians. I met Lazo last March or April at a friend's senior (oboe) recital, and he got me a gig up in Maryland in May. It was absolutely the best gig I'd played up until that point- Mendelssohn's Elijah, and quite a few of the instrumentalists were from military bands.

Having discovered Obohemia, I have to say that these two comics (comic one, comic two) pretty much sum up my view of life. Especially the second. :-D

I'm still planning to buy an Innoledy gouger, aided in part by Christmas money and in part by my job, sometime soon. I'm quite excited, especially since using my school's gouger never panned out. As far as I know, the school's is still sitting in the oboe locker, waiting for its repairs to be approved by the music department.

This is an interesting sound recording played on a reconstruction of a Greek wooden aulos. I'm not sure about the authenticity of the piece, but the sound of the instrument appears quite similar to that of the duduk, though not as extraordinary. It's also quite different from the "Hellenic aulos" recordings on the site, as those instruments appear to be made of metal.

Frivolous

2007-12-14T00:20:00.000-05:00

The gift certificate was used to buy a Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas CD. :-D

I feel like I've had much less of what I like to call "oboe angst" this year than I have in the past. Today, however, it was back in force. My practicing slump and the fact that I'm going home for the holidays in two days was amplified by my being all hormonal, and the result? An attack of "I've chosen the wrong track and now it's too late, how could I have been so stupid." Which does just happen sometimes. Today, though, it was particularly aggressive. When I'm practicing less, it's much easier to get swept up in thoughts about doing academics instead of performance, and the possibility of doing the former while still playing and having gigs comes strongly and persuasively to my mind. And it's true, I could do that, but it's also true that I wouldn't be satisfied. My angst, though, adds an "I think" to that last statement. I maybe wouldn't be satisfied, but maybe I would, and it would save me a lot of trouble and money (and failure?).

I also today got caught up on the things that I can't do because I'm choosing performance, like trips to England this summer with some of the best English professors at my school, or visiting my friend in California in January, or taking a trip to spring break. Sometimes I worry that my friends will get frustrated at me for not being able to travel during winter break and spring break because of my auditions. And truly, my friends mean everything to me. But I do what I need to do, because I want to succeed and I know that it will be very difficult to get what I want.

I do still come back to the fact that despite my stray thoughts, pursuing performance is what I want to do, and I can do it and need to do it. I love playing oboe, and I love it in a way that will not be satisfied by making it an "also." It can still be hard, though, to let go of what the people you respect wish you were doing.

'Tis the season to be busy.

2007-12-12T15:34:00.000-05:00

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote something here. Our orchestra had their holiday concert with the choir, which was silly and fun and involved a version of The Night Before Christmas with a narrator and music that sounded like John Williams after a little too much eggnog. Although, sadly, it had grown on me before the end. If it hadn't been accompanying a cheerful poem about Santa I think it would have been a lot better. Because Santa is in fact not an alien.

That week we had the music department party, and I got a department recognition for the recital I gave last year, which made me really happy. They gave me a certificate, and a gift certificate for a music store around here. I haven't decided yet, though, if I'm going to spend it on useful cds or frivolous ones.

Then this past weekend, Thursday through Sunday nights, I was in Roanoke, playing with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra for their holiday concerts. It was interesting, because the three concerts were in three very different locations. One in a cavernous civic center/gymnasium, one in a ballroom, and one in a high school auditorium. The civic center was really horrible to play in, because it was so huge and the stage was so big. They were actually using microphones to allow us to hear each other and to balance the sound within the orchestra and with the choir. The other two concerts were much better in that respect, because I could actually hear the other woodwinds.

They were silly little holiday pops concerts, and the director was more concerned with putting on a show than paying attention to his orchestra, but still, it was nice, especially coming right after juries. Because that, playing in a symphony, is what I want to do. I really can't emphasize enough how much I prefer orchestra to solo performing. And I got to play with very good musicians, although nobody was being particularly serious. It's hard to be, during a concert like that, especially when your conductor is wearing a badly fitted santa suit and zooming around on a scooter. I did feel like I was being taken seriously as a musician; I didn't have people asking me what year in school I was and then telling me slightly patronizingly that I sounded good. I was just one of the players. I really hope I get the opportunity to play for them again. That would be brilliant.

Also, a couple of the principals from my school were also playing in the symphony, and I went out to lunch with the viola teacher and the bassoon teacher and had fun and helpful conversations about music, grad school, reeds, bocals, instruments, double reed things, etc. with a side of (gentle) gossip about both people about my school and the viola section. I brought up the conversation about tone that I had seen on the Oboe BBoard, as well as the idea that almost all oboists are obsessed with having a dark tone despite the fact that most of the top positions are filled by oboists who don't particularly. The bassoon teacher said that it was the same for bassoonists, which I suppose is logical. It was interesting, though. I also had a conversation with one of the cellists, who coincidentally used to work in admissions at Mannes and informed me that a lot of people lately have been unhappy with Tom Stacy as a teacher, which I appreciate her telling me. It's a wonderful feeling to know that all of these people, who you look up to, really want you to succeed.

Last night was the 40th Annual Messiah Sing-in, which I played at, and had a blast. It's really casual, and there are a lot of good musicians who come to play and sing. They fill our hall, minus the balcony, with people who come to sing. Handel, whatever my opinions about his music in general, wrote good oboe parts. He was still in the era where orchestra meant strings plus oboe and horn. Also, I got to play first oboe, which is always nice.

I'm very close to being done with exams; I have only my diction exam and a short music paper for my American music class left. I'm going to write the paper on Copland's Quiet City, which should be pretty interesting.

Unfortunately, I'm having a practice slump, which I need to get over immediately. I have all of my grad school auditions except GMU's, which is nice, but the first one is still on January 12, which is rapidly approaching.

On a different note, I am becoming fascinated with Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, seeing as it's being made into a movie. I approve of casting- I was wary because of the need for, well, singers, but having heard several song clips on the movie website, I heartily approve. In fact, I like Helena Bonham Carter better than Angela Lansbury, which I'm pretty sure is musical blasphemy. I've finally listened to the whole soundtrack (Original Broadway), and there's some pretty cool music. I especially like the choir numbers with the Dies Irae, which I'm a complete sucker for. Include that in your piece, and I am almost guaranteed to think it is pretty cool. In fact, somewhere I came across this podcast about the use of the Dies Irae in music, done by Doug Adams, who wrote extensive liner notes for the complete recordings of the Lord of the Rings movies. I haven't listened to it yet, but it should be really interesting.

Duduk (The Armenian Oboe)

2007-12-02T17:58:00.000-05:00

I came across the name "duduk" in a thread on the Oboe BBoard and I had never heard of the instrument before, so I looked it up in Wikipedia. I have to say that I was expecting it to sound very raucous and nasal, like many of the other non-western double reed instruments. It is completely different. I'm not sure how to describe it; one of my friends said that it sounded like the human voice- that perfect mixture of woodwind and brass sound. It's very dark and wide sounding, and very old. Perhaps like a wooden flute in tone. Wikipedia informs me that the instrument has been used on the soundtracks of Alexander, The Passion of the Christ, Gladiator, and The Chronicles of Narnia, where it's played in the "Narnian Lullaby."

(On a side note, it's especially cool that I found this out because of the Bax Quintet which I will be playing this spring. I worked with my adviser last week on the first movement, going through the score with a recording, and I was struck by how clearly British the piece sounded. You could tell that it was written for a British oboist (Leon Goosens, actually), because of the wild quality that the music evoked. It's very low and intense and "coarsely blown," as one marking says, and starts with a rhapsodic solo oboe line that is very Eastern in feel (Orientalism and all that), but still seems so British to me. There's an intriguing duality in British pastoralism, between the happy, simple pastoral (whether gentle or rustic) and the wild, intense, dark pastoral. Perhaps the latter has something to do with the country's Celtic roots, fairies and such? I'm not sure. Anyways, the first movement of the Bax works within that second kind of pastoralism, though the third movement, in which Bax bangs the listener over the head with folk songs, is a reassertion of nationalist rustic peasant pastoral. One of the key things which that first movement reminded me of, and something that really anchored it in Britain for me, was the Narnian Lullaby.)

Some online recordings of the duduk. I highly recommend you go and listen, because I think this is the coolest instrument I've ever heard, and these songs are stunningly beautiful.
Jivan Gasparian, Hovvakan
Jivan Gasparian, Mayr Araksi Aperov
Vatche Hovsepian, Hovern Engan

Fall semester juries were today.

2007-12-01T11:46:00.000-05:00

I played Gillet etude #15, and Paladilhe Solo de Concert. I've been playing the Paladilhe almost all semester, and I was at least approximately ready to perform it four weeks ago at the masterclass I played in, (I'm still a little mad that I only got to play about 10 bars of the piece the whole time at that thing, but that's really not important.) so I wasn't too worried about it, with the exception of the two note issues that had suddenly appeared yesterday. But the Gillet? Gillet etudes are hard- not as hard as Singer, I don't think (For a while last year I was working on Singer etudes, but they tended to be four pages long and disheartening rather than inspiring.), but still pretty damn hard. So I was nervous about that one, seeing as I have trouble with it when I'm just by myself, let alone being graded for it. It seems it was with good reason. Oh, it wasn't horrible and it could have been a lot worse. But there were a lot of little mistakes and flubs and extra note-slides, which add up. It was certainly not the best I could have played it.

But I played that first, and followed with the Paladilhe. I'm having a really good reed day; this is probably the best reed I've ever had for the jury since, perverse things, they like to all suddenly die two days before, leaving me with that one that kind of leaks, or quacks on the low notes, or just kills your embouchure. Anyways, that was not the case today, and my reed was clear and responsive and played the whole range. Perfect for Paladilhe, where you don't need a super dark reed or a super bright reed, just one that is very clear. And I played the Paladilhe well. Very well. Expressive, and all the notes came out, even that low D which you slur to on piano from an octave up. I had one note disaster about halfway through the fast section, but it miraculously didn't ruin the rest of the piece. I missed another note or two, but ended strong. It's so rare that I'm satisfied by my performances, that they live up to how I sound in the practice room, and that this did made me really happy.

Now I have about 6 weeks to work the Gillet up, along with Paladilhe, Poulenc mvt 1, Mozart Concerto mvt 1, and excerpts, for my first audition, Cincinnati.

Tonight is our holiday concert. Yay! Bring on Sleigh Ride.

A nothing post. :-)

2007-11-28T00:11:00.000-05:00

This is the first "meme" I've posted here, and I don't intend to make a start of it, but I thought it was cute.

I realize that I haven't written anything in some time.

2007-11-27T19:54:00.001-05:00

However, I've been very busy. The weekend after the Carmina concert was the production of Pirates of Penzance, which took up nearly every waking hour of my life. Although the singers were audibly nervous on opening night, they did a really good job, and each performance only got better. The experience was made even better by the most appreciative director I've ever worked with, who bought us joke gifts, and sent out a lovely note afterwards. I'm soon going to start convincing our conductor to do an orchestra, rather than a piano, for the spring opera.

We're now working on our holiday orchestra concert, which is this weekend, and the following weekend I have a gig playing in the Roanoke Symphony for their holiday concert.

Currently, I'm getting ready for my jury, which is this Saturday, a week earlier than usual. I know what I'm playing (a Gillet etude, and the Paladilhe), but I've got only three days to really work the Gillet into performance readiness. I'm not unduly worried, though.

I've been playing English horn in a trio with my teacher and another adult oboist; we performed at a "Lunchbox Recital" (a casual chamber music program around lunchtime, where people can come and go) today and played the Beethoven Variations on "La ci darem la mano" and the third movement of the Badings Trio. It went pretty well, and there were about 8 people listening.

I'm working on the program notes for my recital this spring, as part of my Distinguished Major. I've written a draft of the ones for the Poulenc Sonata, and I think they'll turn out quite nicely. I'm using Michael Steinberg's "Listener's Guides" as inspiration. However, the notes for only that one piece are around 850 words, so I need to pick and choose what I want to emphasize. (A brief snippet:
In the Sonata, the traditional sequence of movements is reversed, resulting in a slow-fast-slow pattern which allows for a somber conclusion. As with Sept Repons, here the music is very personal, creating the feeling that “we overhear as much as hear.” The movements move from Elégie to Scherzo to Déploration, moving from the melancholic to the frantic to pensive grieving, creating the feeling of a memento mori .)

I've also been writing a couple music papers, and and my final personal statements. Yes, I have finally finished my grad school applications, and will mail them tomorrow. Now all I have is the auditions.... Well, that gives me 6 weeks until my first, and 3 months until my last.

I should be making reeds tonight, but I left my plaque(s) in my locker, making that a little difficult. Ah well, tomorrow I will catch up after rehearsal.

My life is crazy right now.

2007-11-13T19:28:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was our Carmina concert weekend, and boy did word get around. Both orchestra concerts were sold out by 12:05 on Friday, and we also had about 400 people sitting in Friday night during our (highly publicized) open dress rehearsal. The concerts were certainly as full as I've ever seen- we actually had people in the standing room.

Saturday night I was oddly detached from both songs, but Carmina was still awesome. Truly awesome. YAY SINGERS.

The Ravel went pretty well, but the conductor was worried about it, and I think it showed in our playing. It was certainly not the best I've played it.

We had a few technical difficulties with things like risers and an unusually large number of brass cracks, but it was still a really good performance.

However, CARMINA. There are no words. The soloists were amazing, and the choir was just absolutely superb, and, so my secret audience connections tell me, was at no times overwhelmed by the orchestra. Success!

On Sunday, though, the Ravel was on- by far the best the orchestra has ever played it, and the best I've ever played it too. The conductor wasn't worried for that concert, and I think that helped. But I think we also just needed that one more time. It was sparkling, animated, alive, one of those words. (As everyone backstage said, wow...that was...good...how surprising.)

Carmina went well the second concert too, of course, though not quite as well as Saturday. Well, it was better for the brass, and not quite as good for the woodwinds. But the soloists were really on- I liked the soprano on Sunday as well as I had in rehearsal and better than Saturday. And the choir was in fine form as well, of course. They've been wonderful every time I've heard them. The end of the piece, though, was truly spectacular. The conductor held the last note just that little bit longer so that we all kind of came up breathless and grinning. I think some people in the audience were on their feet before he'd even truly cut us off.

It was a very good concert.

In conclusion, despite the orchestra parts, playing in Carmina is something I absolutely would not have missed. As my friend said, it's worth it for the very first word. Completely worth it.

(And people want to know why I want to be a musician. For the chance once every how many years to play a piece like this. It makes everything worth it.)

Also, we had fortune cookies with orchestra related fortunes inside, and some free tickets to the chamber concert. (The title of this concert, you see, was "Love and Fate".)

This week, I'm having rehearsals for our (student run) opera company production of Pirates of Penzance. Rehearsal which are every night from 9-12. I don't know how the cast is doing it. I'm exhausted, and having trouble finding enough time to practice and do my homework. Everything will work out, though, and I do enjoy the show. Plus, Thanksgiving is conveniently next week, which will allow me to catch up on my sleep and such.

A failed experiment

2007-11-08T00:11:00.000-05:00

I have this reed. A really good reed. One might even call it a miraculous reed, as it revived itself from mediocrity to be a rich, deep, easy-blowing, full-range reed that has lasted a very long time. In fact, it was starting to look a little...gross. But it still sounded amazing, if slightly past its prime. I was trying then, since it was old anyways, to think of a way to disinfect it with something I could put in my mouth. And I though, mouthwash! It's antibacterial, and it's made for your mouth. So, I soaked the reed in mouthwash. And...well, it still plays, and sounds good, and it is "antibacterialized", but...it's blue. Stained from the mouthwash. I'm not sure I can bring myself to play it in public: who wants to have to explain that story in person to a fellow musician?

I've been doing a lot of playing on English horn lately, what with double reed trio, the current orchestra concert, and Romeo and Juliet, and the one problem that persists is that I am always sharp. Because this holds for all of my reeds, reeds which should play in tune, it stood to reason that the problem was my bocal. I only have one, and when I got it I didn't have much choice. And while I love the tone it gives, it is so sharp. So I decided to try the bocals from the school's English horn, which had two 3s, of different shape, and a 1. (All, I believe, Loree- I don't have them with me.) Mine's a 2, and it's Howarth. I found one of the 3s makes me play pretty much in tune, and it also increases my volume, which is a bonus. I sometimes have trouble projecting English horn. It's a little buzzier than my 2, but I really like it. I may have to, um, switch them. I do have permission from my teacher. :-) I also got distracted, when doing this, with the school's EH. It's a Loree, and while I've never found a Loree oboe that I like as much as I like my Howarth, I do like Loree EHs. I went back and forth between them for about half an hour or so, toying even with the idea of borrowing it for the concert, just for fun. But the keys feel really different, and I would have to do a lot of playing to get Daphnis on a different horn, and at the end of the day, it seems I always come down on the side of my English horn. Which, you know, is nice, since I own it.

For my lesson this week, I had to write half a cadenza (a continuation of one in the edition that I like) of the Mozart Concerto. It was quite hard; I'm really not a composer. I've come up with something which I kind of like, but it's very boring. I just can't get past the obvious to the more cadenza-like material. Mine's stuck in scales and arpeggios, really. But I'm going to take it to my teacher, and see if he has any suggestions.

Tonight was the first rehearsal for Carmina with the choir. It was stunning. I spent the entire time, when I wasn't playing, grinning madly. We've only heard one of the soloists, the soprano, but I highly approve of her, so hopefully the others will also be good. Tomorrow's entire rehearsal (it's orchestra week time again) is Carmina, so hopefully we'll get through a lot more material than we did today. I like the choir conductor (who conducted us for a year), but he does get distracted.