Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Response (And Not My Reeds)

I am of the opinion that at a certain high level of oboe playing, everyone really is saying the same thing. After a certain point, there is not a lot of new information that I am going to get about say, breathing, from a single masterclass, or even a week. Of course, I will learn so much about breathing, because every teacher has their own way of explaining things, and each has particular brilliant insights into how to approach the issue mentally, how to visualize, or how to "get into" your own body in such a way that minimalizes tension. But the basic bits - how exactly the ribcage and the lungs work together, how there needs to not be tension in the upper body/shoulders, how the breath should be deep or full or some other modifier - those are the same. Sure, maybe ED says she feels tension in one part of her stomach and JH says it's totally relaxed - you gotta figure out what is right for your body. There are two types of knowing, which we unfortunately have only one word for in the English language.

type A: I know that this bowl is on my desk.

type B: I know Beethoven 7 very well.

I am saying that under the surface, the type A information about playing the oboe, about making reeds, is baaaasically the same. That is not a blanket statement, and I allow for sure for exceptions (ie the European style of oboe playing, completely different beast). But, to really internalize type B knowledge is no easy task. It's super easy to internalize the type A knowledge: "The sides of the tip of the reed should be thinner than the middle of the tip." Sure, I only have to hear that once to know it (type A). And every teacher after the first one is going to say, "Taper to the sides" "Taper off the plaque" "Thin the tip and clip" "Scrape the sides and corners of the tip". So in this case, I am not hearing anything new. This is true. I am not acquiring new information. But I am being reminded. I am hearing the information in new ways, which will make new connections in my brain. The information is being reinforced. I am taking the advice of the second teacher, and his wording along with my first teacher's wording, and having a new physical experience of scraping a tip, with a new mental composite of advice. The type A information, through various points of view and physical experiences, begins to internalize into something natural - something you KNOW, type B know.

So I do maintain, that I probably have acquired 80, 85% of Type A knowledge about the physicality of American style oboe playing and American style reeds. It is rare to get new information. I don't think this is presumptuous. I think everyone in my place, who has gone to the same amount of masterclasses, summer festivals, and taken lessons with the same variety of teachers, could easily claim the same, whether or not they realize it. I would say my dear friend Megan, a performance major a year younger than me at my university, has the same amount of type A knowledge about playing the oboe. "At this point in my education" means - a college level oboist.

Type B? I am so so so so far away from the oboists I admire, teachers and performers.

The good news is, all you have to do is practice. To turn A knowledge into B knowledge. How do you make the transformation? Consciousness. Paying attention. The A knowledge is there, and self 2 KNOWS what to do (going Inner Game of Tennis on you here haha). Self 2 KNOWS. I promise. As long as you paid attention when the teacher said what he or she said, that info is stored away nicely in your brain. The human brain is an amazing thing! The hardest part of playing the oboe, "at this point in my education" (haha I guess that does sound a little elitist, but come on, I know elitist, I hang out with conductors, and I ain't elitist) is trusting myself. I am NOT saying that is the only hard part about playing the oboe. Of COURSE not. The oboe is really difficult! But the hardest part is being aware enough and having enough trust in your own brain.

Again, super easy to say. Easy to have the type A instruction "Trust yourself." Hard to do. Hard to make that into type B knowledge.

Here are some comments Austin made in a convo about this topic with me! Very insightful, and some good examples from the mysterious field of string playing that I know (type A or B haha) verrrry little about.

  • there are only so many ways to say "play with a straight bow"
  • but I think it's totally valid to say you learned something new when you figure out how to make a more beautiful sound
  • by tweaking said bow arm
    • now of course there are rules that apply to everyone
    • you will never (unless you want a certain sound which most people would qualify as inferior) get a better sound by playing with a crooked bow
    • but the translation of knowledge that can't really be put into words... is troublesome

And of course of course there aren't even "rules" for playing an instrument. Of course of course people are always trying to find better ways of doing things, which means they have to break "rules" - I mean, American oboe reed style didn't come from nowhere! But in this narrow context of conservatory playing, orchestral training, or what have you, there is a certain "right" way of doing things that you have to at least start by complying with to a certain extent if you want to survive in the oboe world - and this is the information that we often get in masterclasses, etc. Same thing applies to society too. Some rules you must follow if you want to be accepted by the crowd. Maybe you value breaking those rules more than you value acceptance by the crowd - in some cases, a very, very good thing for humanity. But if this is true, you can't complain about not being accepted by the crowd. So it goes.

There are only 12 pitches and 11 dichords.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Eine Kleine Post

Gosh guys, sorry about that delay there. Got a little carried away. Perhaps being a little too social.

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.


Friday, June 24, 2011

Off Topic



Feeling ever so peaceful. Taking a little break from life right now, just hanging out in my room. Even us ENTP's sometimes need alone time. Spent a good amount of time watching the koi in the pond right outside the music building. Blair should invest in some koi. So beautiful! They all gathered around right where I was, too, probably because they thought they were about to get food...Reminded me of the fishes in Fantasia.

Our French duos are sounding much, much better! And he was nit-picking this morning, which is always a sign of great progress. I can't believe we are performing tomorrow though!

Dang, I feel like I had some real interesting comments to make, but I can't remember any of them.

Check out the new Weird Al polka!


Thursday, June 23, 2011

Do Re Mi

Part of me really wants to practice modern oboe. I don't know if I should. Professor Hauser recommended not. I think my poor battered ego wants a boost. I'm listening to a recording of myself playing principal in the Beethoven octet. That's pretty bad. I NEVER listen to myself playing oboe. My ego must be desperate.

Well, I think things are coming along very well, all of that aside! Today I took a nice long practice session (about an hour) without my instrument. I really need to get on this style train. A lot of the stuff we talk about is stuff I've worked on with Smith, both in class and in our Hertel chamber music coachings. One of the most basic ideas in the Baroque style is that of rhetoric. Music should be natural, like talking, and have the same sorts of natural inflections and emphases that talking does. So I took that idea and spent an hour talking through my music. (Solfeging, of course). At first I was solfeging and singing, but still not exactly getting the results I wanted. I reverted back to just talking the syllables, but concentrating on attaining a beautiful, lilting, well-phrased speech, with the grammar just so and the rhetoric right on target. It was a heck of a lot harder than I had anticipated. And of course this was the right step, because if I couldn't even say the phrases exactly how I wanted consistently, how would I possibly expect to be able to play them on an instrument I have only been playing for two days? Silly. So in that time I worked on all four of the movements in the French duos I will be performing in the chamber concert on Saturday.

Just now, I got back from practicing these movements about an hour and a half on the actual oboe. I have to say, I definitely achieved a lot in a relatively short amount of time. The most difficult part about getting the style is getting the style consistently - getting all of the inegalite just right all the time, not forgetting myself at a phrase. But having a much better idea of how the speech of the piece went, I could really think much more clearly. Sometimes I really had to remind myself by speaking the phrase of how I wanted it to go, but then it would be fixed when I played it after speaking it. Didn't entirely help the squeaks and whatnot...I'm still looking for a reed I really like. The second teacher coming next week plays on the same type of oboe that I do, so that should be pretty helpful.

We learned to play a scale in gamba class this morning! Definitely...the two hands at once bit is a little difficult. It's funny though. I notice that I want to stop the bow when I change notes. It's exactly the same problem with oboe! A common oboe problem is stopping the air (our "bow") between notes instead of speeding it up, which is what we really need to do in order to make a seamless connection, particularly over large intervals.

We had another oboist join us today! She's been playing Baroque oboe for about 4-5 years. She started after her kids left, etc, but she had played modern oboe before she had kids.

Gee, I sound pretty good in this Beethoven recording. But anyway, another reason I kinda want to practice modern oboe is so I can brush up on the Vivaldi enough to maybe have twenty minutes of my lesson on style, even though I'd be playing modern oboe. But I think it would be well worth it.

Oh my gosh, the sleep really did the trick. After that three and a half hour nap yesterday, I also slept from 10pm-7am. I was awake all day! And could focus! Yay! Now I just have to remember to bring snacks with me in the morning, since we typically have oboe class from 10-1:30 with no breaks for lunch. I get a little eeeee if I don't have lunch.

In Baroque dance, we've learned the German/English and French minuets. And some other fancy step, I think we danced it to a Gavotte and maybe something else too. So much fun!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Crash

It's been two days and already equal temperament makes me uncomfortable.

So, I completely crashed today. Napped three and a half hours. Straight through dance class (well, my alarm went off in time, but there was no way I was getting up at that point). But I really needed it. I haven't gotten a full night's sleep in three weeks now. This morning was a real struggle, especially during the Music of Bach lecture, at which point I almost fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Had been a little irritable all morning and not really accomplishing what I wanted to be accomplishing with Baroque oboe in class.

I keep wanting to complain to myself that it's impossible to play stylistically correct while I'm still worried about the mechanics of the instrument. But I know that's an excuse, and that kind of thinking is NOT going to help me. When so many notes inegales start coming all at once though, my brain turns on panic mode, I get all tense, and nothing works mechanically. Wait, that isn't true. It's not true that nothing works mechanically. I just don't sound as beautiful as I would sound were I relaxed, open, and resonant. Hopefully, I will get to bed early tonight, and start mornings off with some Alexander from now on.

One of the major challenges for me with technical passages - in Baroque oboe playing, you don't blow equal air into all the notes. On modern oboe, a good, fast, steady stream of air will get me nicely through any crazy passage. But on Baroque, that strategy breaks down. In fact, it seems easier to get all the notes out if the beginning of a difficult phrase of inegalite is really lengthened and blown through, but the subsequent notes are played on hardly any air, relatively speaking. It also sounds better, not forced or driven. It's difficult to get into this mindset, but I just have to keep gently reminding myself.

Overall, I think I have been doing a pretty good job of being non-judgmental about my playing in practice and class. Class is much more of a challenge to achieve this state of mind for me because there is an external judge (my teacher) who does place value judgments on my triumphs and failures. The importance to me of his approval sometimes gets in the way of actually doing something the way he wants it to be done. I will focus more on being wholly observational in class of my own playing the way I am in the practice room. The real danger in the practice room is unconsciousness. There's so much to think about in playing this music on this instrument that instead of keeping an awareness of everything, I focus too narrowly on one skill to the neglect of other, basic skills. Or I just space out. Spacing out = not good. But I suspect that largely has to do with my lack of sleep, since it is not normally a problem for me.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Bach in a Minuet

Just got back from my first ever Baroque dance class. So hilarious, so much fun. It's amazing how difficult the simplest small, graceful movements prove so difficult. It just goes to show for me how unaware we really are in general. I mean, as adults, we have full motor coordination, and we do things every day that are totally amazing feats of balance and coordination, but we aren't aware of our own capacities, in such a way that prevents us from trusting our own bodies. The dance teacher is also an Alexander teacher! We did some fancy ballet type warm up things, then learned the basic minuet step. So helpful for playing minuets - I feel like I have a much better idea now of the phrase motion and groupings. The step occurs over the course of six beats, not three: two bar phrases. The heel goes down on three and the plié is on six. Three four five six one two three... Etc. I mean you do learn these things in lessons or in music history class, but the kinesthetic comprehension is so enormously valuable. Can't wait to go practice my minuet movement later tonight with this new understanding!

Had a great masterclass/lesson/reed time thing today. There's only two of us oboists, and the other student has had more experience than me, but not a lot, and she hasn't worked with a professional before. So in many ways, we are on a similar plane, which is great. I was a little concerned I might be holding someone back, but I think we will both have a lot to learn from each other.

My room has no air conditioning. Eurgh.

Finally got a reed designed for my type of instrument (or rather, Hauser's type of instrument, I'm borrowing it). That is, Saxon Baroque oboe. It's so much easier to play in tune now, I have to do much less manipulation, and the cross fingerings are about a thousand times easier. My teacher seems impressed about some things I seem to be able to do right away but sometimes people can't do after years, for example, play notes a half step down without changing the fingering. (Thank you Caldwell Ab-Bb-C-Db exercise.) It's encouraging to know I have a somewhat natural affinity for the instrument and that I really can hear intonation. Really, really well, actually. As long as I listen and don't try to control, it's there, and it's correct. Somehow Baroque oboe allows me to let go and trust myself in that way. I think it is partly because there is such a wild range of possible intonations that the only solution is to observe - because I don't know the instrument at all, I can't predict whether I will need to lip up or down like I can on my modern oboe, whose tendencies I know so well. And surprise surprise, when I simply allow myself to observe the pitch rather than try to guess at where it is, I place it correctly, right on target.

We started playing music today, some Boismortier duets. Talked about some basic performance practice concepts - breathing and phrasing, rhetoric, and inégalité. For those of you who aren't familiar with inégalité, I'll include here a short paragraph from an essay I wrote in Smith's class on it.

In French Baroque tradition, a group of two notes that is notated equally may be played in a number of different unequal rhythms, a custom known as inégalité. The performance practice was understated enough so that composers did not indicate it with standard notation, and one contemporary authority recommends the notes “should be dotted with such restraint that it is not obvious.” The degree of inequality varied from “mild and lilting to sharp and vigorous,” but by no means the ratio of long to short a strictly geometric relationship; the proportion was left to the discretion of the performer and was a means for expressive, musical effect. Primarily, the principles of inequality or equality were determined by the style of the piece, styles with which contemporary performers were quite familiar and comfortable.

So basically, a slight dotting of notes that appear equal on the page. It's tricky to get just right in performance, but when it's right, it's SO right. It sounds as if that is what it should sound like. Natural, like speech.

All right, maybe getting a little too technical here.

Gamba class this morning was excellent. I simply could not believe the amount of improvement that happened overnight. I practiced for about twenty minutes last night, and this morning, I wasn't hitting extra strings (every once in a while, of course). Holding the viol and holding the bow felt natural. I would have predicted that it would have taken me at least a month to feel natural holding a bow. And today when the teacher came around the room to check in on us individually while everyone was scratching away at the fourth string, practicing continuous bow strokes, she had no corrections to make for me! She said, "Excellent! And you're not a string player?" GO ME!

One more general thing I'd like to mention about my time here - recording. I've decided to record all of the lessons, masterclasses, and lectures that I attend instead of taking notes. That way, I'll have everything. But even more importantly, I am really going for an implicit sense of trusting in myself and my brain's capacity to remember and record. Taking notes takes energy away from the present moment and the experience of learning in the now. As long as we are truly dedicating our full awareness to a teacher, I believe we have the ability to remember what he or she is saying. So I am concentrating on attaining a very full, intense focus during these critical days of learning new skills (and of course, ideally, all the time).

I think I am getting much better at not using vibrato and not driving through notes. Ahhh.


Monday, June 20, 2011

Duly Noted

9:30 pm is not ideal for group Bach chorale singing.

Firsts

All right, so first day and a half. I'm already so behind on this blog because I've already assimilated so much new information! Unbelievable!

So, travel day yesterday was pretty overwhelming. Last night of Hot Springs, stayed up with my friend Natalie until 4 am, which yielded 2 hours of sleep that night. Slept an hour and a half on the plane, but that was it. Got into Oberlin at 5:15, orientation at 6, and "audition" at 7:20. So no time to play oboe that day, and I was a little concerned that I would have to play a Baroque piece on modern oboe for the teacher (haven't recently worked on anything I would want to play for a professional Baroque performer ie I'm not about to play unaccompanied Bach for an expert).

But of course I didn't have to play anything, and the professor is super friendly. He wrote me out a fingering chart and sent me on my way. He was a little shocked at first, I think, that I had never even played more than a few notes on Baroque oboe. Possibly slightly concerned. But I think that after he considered it a little and noted my genuine enthusiasm, he started to get a little excited that I was a clean slate. No reed at this point yet.

So. Pushing the Nerf ball up the hill. Sat in my bed for a long time with the Baroque oboe and the fingering chart. Visualized the keyboard. Solfege syllables on keyboard. Arranged my fingers correctly. Thought about the staff too, but not as much since that's clef dependent. Was as intentional as possible! And I looked at the chart as little as possible, focusing on the fingerings that are different from modern oboe. I went through the entire range chromatically several times, saying each solfege syllable out loud as I fingered the note and visualized it on the keyboard. I made a point to consider all the enharmonic spellings as well, and did some fake reading of Modus Novus, just to get some practice reading crazy intervals I'll probably never see playing Baroque oboe. But hey, if I can quickly process that, I can read anything. And then as I was falling asleep, I went through all the notes in my mind again. First thing in the morning, I reviewed. After viol class, reviewed again, this time with oboe in hand. By the time oboe reed class rolled around, I could easily play anything he asked me to do (scales, thirds, etc). So that Nerf ball is up! And since I will be playing every day from now on, it will stay up easily. (Until I start having to learn alternate fingerings).

8am every morning - viol class. I have a bass!!! Even just carrying it around last night after it was issued to me was a little overwhelming. Such a huge instrument! You have to be careful turning around in the hallway with it! And there's a BOW. I've only really even held a string instrument twice that I can think of offhand. And gamba of all things. Class was hilarious though, and we made some really awful noises. The class situation was odd for me - the lack of personal attention resulted in a lot more doubt than I am used to. But I got over that quickly, and took more risks to see what sorts of things worked and what sorts of things didn't (I'm thinking specifically of the bow grip). I need to do that more in my modern oboe practicing. I think that because Jared is such a good teacher, I am a little too dependent on him to point out areas I could improve. How often do I take risks with how I think about embouchure or air in order to experiment with different tones? Not very often. Occasionally, but nothing has ever really come of it.

I was forced to do that today with the Baroque oboe. In reed class, he gave me a reed, a little bit of guidance on embouchure, and instruction on how to overblow notes, but that was really it. We spent the majority of the time discussing reeds. He gave us some exercises to work on (ocatves, scales in thirds). So in my hour and a half or so of practicing today, I really had to figure out for myself how to make the instrument sound the way I wanted it to sound (not that I've accomplished that yet). I had to hear what I wanted in my head first before I played. Same for intonation. Button pushing is literally impossible on Baroque oboe, and it really reveals how much button pushing actually does go on, even when I am conscious of notes and intervals. Without really hearing it first, nothing works. I even tried an exercise in thirds where I alternated between singing and playing notes. And surprise! The intonation was nearly perfect! Some of the more difficult notes were a little warbly, but considering that without listening first, they were almost a half step off, I think it was a major improvement...

So one interesting challenge is going to not only be intonation regarding the instrument, but how I listen for intonation. The pure intervals apparently are going to take precedence over scale degree function: that's why my teacher recommended scales in thirds instead of scales. Practicing this let me know I really do know how intonation should sound! Because I could sing what I wanted very easily. Need to trust myself!

Dang cross fingerings are a beast to tune.

Well, I feel like I'm skipping a lot, but like I said, a lot happened. A bit on the Bach chorales. The institute is performing St. Matthew Passion, and they are going to have us in the audience sing the chorales (kind of like a flash mob, but you know, with Bach chorales. Kind of). Like this...


Um, anyway, so we rehearsed two chorales last night, and it was one of the most beautiful musical experiences I have ever had. I've never actually sung a chorale in German - only in solfege syllables or scale degrees or what have you. But to actually immediately comprehend the word painting in real time was such a different experience than merely pointing it out after or even before the fact. The physical feeling of singing a tritone on "Missetaten" and understanding what it means immediately was incomparable. It was so great that the musical director had us sing every part before putting all our parts together; even with all my struggle with the German language, I got a nice picture of the part writing. It was a lot to wrap my head around though, considering I don't even reeeally know how to pronounce German. I guess I have a decent idea, but you try tracking on the keyboard while struggling to read a language you've never spoken aloud before...so of course, as soon as it was over, I was eager as a beaver to go contemplate some intervals and notate some heptachord shift. Played two parts at a time today a little. Goal is to be able to play all these chorales on the piano before we actually perform them! I want to really understand what is going on as I sing them.

Well I suppose that's really enough for now. Gonna go practice, sing some more Bach chorales. Maybe some gamba practice? <.<

Baroque Adventures

I arrived yesterday at Oberlin, where I will be for the next two weeks for the Baroque Performance Institute. Besides Carl Smith's "Historical Traditions in Performance Practice and Composition," which was a fantastic class I took last fall (playing in class on modern oboe), I have absolutely no experience in Historically Informed Performance. Oh, and that paper I wrote for Lowe, but I got an A- on that. I'm still a little bitter. :P

It sure feels right now as if I am the only person here with NO experience. Of course, I think a lot of people only have minimal background, but still - let's just say the total notes I had ever played on a Baroque oboe before today was approximately 3. And there's a huge group of people here who have been doing it for decades and are totally involved. So the bad news is, I know nothing. But the good news is, I know nothing!

That starting from scratch feeling is so different. After a certain age, we don't start from scratch anymore; sure, I'll learn a new sonata or a nifty beveling knife technique for reed making, but I don't learn through the child's perspective anymore. Not like learning how to talk or learning how to walk. And of course, I'm not starting from scratch with Baroque oboe, either. About half the fingerings are the same as the modern oboe, I know how to read music, I know how to make modern oboe reeds. But Baroque oboe is an entirely different animal than modern oboe. Additionally, I'll be taking beginning viol and Baroque dance classes. Particularly with the viol, these are things that are way far out of my comfort zone. And I love it!

I'm very interested in how exactly people - and me, in particular - handle such a 180 degree turn, especially in a situation such as this where I will be totally immersed in a new skill set. I don't plan on playing my modern oboe at all for two weeks. It's mind boggling. So I decided to keep a blog where I will make observations about how I learn, what obstacles I face, and how I overcome them. I hope to understand better how adults might regain that magical easy feeling of creativity and learning that comes with childhood. I think of this as a situation where I can clearly observe the learning phenomenon, easier to be cognizant of in this immersion than in the more general and subtle learning of the every day, and even college. But I'd like to apply my discoveries to my every day learning, and to my teaching, when that happens some day. I also hope to explore how my training in the Ploger method works with learning new skills on my own - there will be a lot of that spattered throughout, but I won't get too technical.

So, I plan on updating at least once a day. The posts will include an outline of my activities for the day, and an introspective analysis of my mental states and learning processes. I'll try to keep it interesting, just in case anyone else wants to read (my mom probably will, at least).