I'll work backwards a bit.
A new week, new teacher! Today was the first day Gonzalo was here - we got a reed class and a how to play the oboe lecture. He sounds like magic. Velvet magic. He had a lot of great things - NEW information - to give about both reed and oboe. It's pretty rare at this point in my education that someone comes in and says something I haven't heard even part of before in other terms, but he did! Interesting points about the gouge of the reed and scraping relative to the ratio of the gouge - for instance, at the beginning, there's no point in working on forming a tip, because the gouge already ensures that the sides will be thinner than the tip! Huh! Probably everyone else has realized this without having been told, but I certainly needed to hear it! Changes the way I think about making the reed. And something EVERYONE says, and I am taking very much to heart - RESPONSE is FIRST priority. Period. Always. And forever.
About playing, Gonzalo had some great stuff about breathing to share - he explained how normally, breathing at the peak of our inhalation, we "hold" our breath while we're playing. But if we allow the ribcage to disengage first, we can just blow forever and the brain doesn't freak out that it's not releasing carbon dioxide or taking in oxygen! Cool. Also, voicing in the high register. Low to high, oooo to eeee. This is what Ms. Henderson was talking about. My sound up there is sooo much more beautiful when I do what he's saying there.
Made my first Baroque reed! Unfortunately, I forgot that it's okay and even normal for Baroque reeds to leak (SO bizarre). And the reed played by itself, but not in the oboe, so I kind of freaked out a little and started scraping way too much out of the heart and back, and clipping, clipping, too far. All the poor thing needed was some Teflon tape. It does vibrate beautifully, and the response is quite nice. Just, you know, sounds like a duck. Wanna buy a duck?
Anyway. I'm in a big girl chamber music group this week - Handel Trio. So that's me, a violin, viola da gamba (Baroque cello for those of you non-musicians), and harpsichord. Oooo we sound prettttty awful. Although I have to say, yesterday I sounded about like a fifth grader, and I'd estimate that today I moved all the way up to sixth grade! The intonation is the most difficult part, because I'm not sure of which fingerings are totally going to work for where. Though now that there is a team of oboists here who play on my type of instruments, I am going to get a lot more help in that area, as they are familiar with this type. But I still have a lot to work out on my own, and I think singing my part a lot is really going to help.
I didn't practice my part very much at all between yesterday and today. What I did do, however, was to really work on my reading on Baroque oboe, in a fantastically fun way. Eric (cello), Kanad (flute), and I read through some trio sonatas by Telemann and Vivaldi. Stuff that was way more difficult than I should be playing, even with ample time to work on it. But I think I really needed to stretch myself way beyond what I thought I could do to prove that I could do it. And I really do think it helped enormously in chamber music today - I was MUCH less worried about the notes, and could exert more of my brain power thinking about the groupings and cadences. (WEAK CADENCES, LINDSEY, STOP SLAMMING INTO THEM.) Ahem.
I do need to open my ears more now. No excuses! I'm way too much in my own little bubble. Actually, funnily enough, I'd say I'm listening really, really well to the gamba and harpsichord, way more than I usually listen to harmony and bass. Which is awesome! But oddly, not listening so much to the violin, the character I am supposed to be in conversation with! Usually, all I hear is the treble/melody! So again, this should be an easy thing for me to do, now that I have noticed and reflected on it. Observe, observe. No judging.
Oh, I must write a little bit about the concert, shall I? It went really well! Marc was very proud of us. The warm up with him was really rough, but I hadn't warmed up at all and was not mentally in a calm, relaxed, focused state. But we weren't going to play for another two hours...that's right, the chamber concert was four hours long. So I had plenty of time in the real warm up room to get myself right in line. Played for about ten minutes or so, lots of open, relaxed G's and D's, some scales, checking some spots. Then did some meditation, some Alexander (rolling down and up, shoulder moves). Hung out a few minutes longer, warmed up for the final time, this time playing some chord tones with Heike for tuning purposes.
I was. Nervous? This was very bizarre. Understandable, I suppose, considering I had been playing this new instrument for four days, and now all of the sudden I am about to go onstage and perform on it for the first time in front of a ton of experienced Baroque players. I haven't been nervous for an oboe performance...ever, actually. I've definitely gotten nervous for certain auditions, but never for a performance. But it was nothing unmanageable, and definitely didn't affect my performance very much at all.
But we were so cute in our matching outfits (black shoes, skirts, and BPI tshirts) and so smiley and laughing that they LOVED us. We were out the green room door and someone came in yelling for us to back on stage, they were still applauding! Not too many people got double applause! I think they also were very appreciative of the fact that we were real beginners at the instrument. Our bows were VERY well coordinated. Best bows of the concert I would say.
Other recent highlights include the faculty concert. Marc really rocked the Bach aria solos, totally stole the show away from the vocalist, poor thing. I mean, in my opinion. My friend Annie, who I spent seven weeks at Banff with last summer, is here this week (she goes to Oberlin and is a counselor for the flute institute), so that's been very exciting. Went to Olive Garden yesterday! Have been going out at night and hanging at Eric's house a lot with lots of people, probably should be getting more sleep. Tried Woodchuck's Spring cider, has aftertaste of maple syrup. Would highly recommend it. Even sweeter than the other ciders though, so be warned. Kanad and I have been very artistic in our refrigerator poetry - there's lots of word magnets on the fridge in the dorm kitchen.
Those seem like the most important bits! I'll certainly re-update if I remember anything else I feel is essential.
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