Note to Self

Practice modern oboe tomorrow.

Do It Yourself Oboe

So I've been taking a few days off to do silly things - read House of Leaves, watched cycle 16 of ANTM, started on a painting but failed to get anywhere with it. But in that time, I did do some shopping around for some key oboe supplies that I needed to do some essential things maintenance-wise.

The other side of knowing how to play oboe is knowing how to take care of the oboe. So much of reed making and oboe maintenance is actually a very creative and inventive thing - there isn't one way to fix every problem, and there aren't tools designed for every problem either. Half the time it seems, our tools come from the hardware store or the craft store, and we have to come up with solutions ourselves.

The problem with all this of course, is that the modern instrument is extremely delicate. A half a turn of one screw can throw off an entire mechanism. A bent rod can be beyond the means of an individual to repair. And if anything is too messed up and can't be righted by the individual player, the oboe has to be sent off to a professional repair person, which not only costs $$$ but also, you lose your oboe for a few weeks or even a month or two. So any move made on the instrument must be very, very careful and command the repair person's entire awareness.

All this being said, you can imagine that young players are deterred from touching the instrument's mechanisms or trying to fix it in any way. At least I was, and understandably so. But my mom's paranoia made a much bigger imprint on me than it should have, and I am WAY behind in knowing my instrument as I should. I mean, that's part of the oboist's job, and sometimes one has to clean an octave vent before going on stage for a solo or fix a crack on the airplane. So my goal for this year is to shake off that residual fear and get some hands on experience. As I mentioned before, I was hoping to take the keys off my oboe during this stint at home. I still plan to do that, maybe tomorrow.

But before I could get around to that, a problem posed itself to me, forcing me to face the mechanics and take matters into my own hands. I took my modern oboe out a few days ago for the first time since Longy (didn't take it with me to Boston, hadn't played it in almost two weeks), and the octave key didn't work! Old me would have immediately sent it off to Carlos. New proactive me took the key off to see what was going on, and figured out the problem (I'll spare you the technical talk). I also talked to Jared and Carlos the next day, and both came to the same conclusion - the wood had shrunk. I tried the humidifier, but no luck so far. I might end up having to send it off to Carlos anyway, or maybe there's something Jared can do. But the point is, I was very proud of myself for getting my hands dirty and checking the problem out with no other oboists around! Bravery! And I didn't mess anything up, so I have a little more confidence now to build on.

The other do it yourself event I've been working on is the Baroque oboe staples. Baroque oboe, being much less widespread than modern, has even less tools designed for it, and thus even more of the do it yourself aspect to being a player. In one sense. In another sense, there aren't any keys you have to doodle around with, so that's certainly a relief. But, for instance, the staples I got came just as metal tubes. I had to prepare them myself (ie put string around them). But basically I had to figure out the method for doing so myself, and figure out where the string needed to be thinner or thicker or whatever in order to fit snugly in the oboe. Gonzalo talked through it once, pretty quickly, so I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing, but I think they ended up fitting very nicely and looking very lovely. I mean, not that it was a difficult sort of thing to figure out, but still, old me would have waited to get to Vandy so Jared could show me, despite the simplicity of the task. New me forged ahead and conquered!

Just to give you an idea of some of the weird things we oboists need as tools, I'll write up a list of the odds and ends I've been on a treasure hunt for in the past few days:

Teflon tape (I found pink!)

sandpaper

pipe cleaners

cotton thread (didn't end up using it, I found the nylon thread was a lot easier to work with)

beeswax

calipers

jeweler's screwdriver set

Yeah, it's really awkward explaining to the people at Lowe's or Michael's what I need all this for. Really, I promise that it's better not to ask...

Winding and Unwinding

Home! Got home on Sunday night. I've been taking some time to unwind a little. Things unrelated to music that I've accomplished: finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and finished cycle 16 of America's Next Top Model.

I love that show.

It inspired me to photoshop a picture of myself with various short pixie hair cuts, but I concluded that I don't think I could pull it off. :(

The final concert of IBIL was amazing! I had so much fun, particularly playing in the orchestra. I actually have felt that of all my playing so far, my playing has been best in orchestra. I feel that is true on modern oboe a lot too...I'm definitely a team player, and the extra push of inspiration and pressure I get from having to give the other musicians with whom I'm playing a really strong performance out of respect for their skill and practice time and dedication pushes me to places I wouldn't reach otherwise.

Fantastic after party at Cambridge Commons.

Since being home, I've played a couple hours each day of Baroque oboe. Yesterday, I again practiced while watching ANTM. I wouldn't normally EVER do such a thing where my attention is divided between practicing and something else, but I thought I'd give it a try for some specific skills and lo, it did have some positive effects. I think the biggest thing was that it gave self 1 something to do and talk about while self 2 took over the playing. I didn't work at all with music, just exercises. Primary exercise (basically a scalar long tone type exercise), scales in thirds, and then repetitive practice for some awkward issues, like B to C, Bb to A, Bb to C, F to E, etc. So the controlling, gossipy, negative part of my brain was focused on forming opinions on models and guessing who was going to be eliminated, while the part of my brain that can hear intonation very well and regulates my playing was paying attention to my intervals and finger motion. I definitely was not practicing without awareness. In fact, I'd say in many ways, there was a much more pure awareness. I never let an interval go out of tune without going back and fixing it, and overall, the pitch was fairly decent. And having the controlling part of my brain distracted, I could do some things much better - for instance, letting go of the reed in a way I've not been able to previously achieve, and getting a much cleaner finger control with very relaxed fingers. Of course, I can't rely on being distracted, and it's not a type of practicing I am going to do anymore, except on special occasions if I want to revisit the feeling of the good things that were happening. But I paid attention to how it felt when things were going very well, and when I was most both precise and relaxed, and now that I have identified the feeling, I will be able to regain it in my practicing (sans ANTM).

Interesting little experiment.

Started working on music today, spent a good portion of practice time on solfege (in French violin clef, hooray!). Also, tied two blanks and started scraping them, and shaped five pieces of cane. Probably about two of them are good, two of them decent, and one might possibly make a good reed. Too narrow at the throat, but still, I'll give it a shot for the practice scraping. These pieces of cane are three bucks each. Eww. Ridiculous.

I need to make a shopping trip to the hardware store before I can actually get a good jump into reedmaking.

Hmm, in other news, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was a really fabulous book. I needed to read something fun. Not sure what I'm going to read next, but I did make a goodreads account! I listed as many books as I could remember since high school and the best ones from before that, but I left a lot out that I had from childhood on living social a while back. Woot.

If you don't get it, the title of this post, "winding and unwinding," refers to winding thread around reads and unwinding from a long week of hard work. Get it? Hardy har. I hate naming these things.