Solfège des Solfèges, Miracle of Miracles

Well, just had a fight with a blueberry bagel and lost. But I'm eating it anyway.

Annnyway. I've been in a surprisingly good mood today, considering I have NO good reeds and just got back from a two hour dress rehearsal. May have had something to do with the epic progress Caroline and I made musically today!

We rehearsed Baroque stuff together right after my studio class (Caroline plays violin; we're doing Baroque chamber music together and we're the only two students in the Musicianship 7 class). Sitting next to each other without harpsichord, all of the sudden we could actually play in tune! It was miraculous. Something to do with finally having a decent reed, something to do with us having time to practice this week and feeling like we actually had time to prepare, something to do with sitting next to each other so we could actually hear each other and adjust. In Baroque music, I feel like once one thing falls into place, everything else comes and starts to settle along with it. So we made great progress on style as well, feeling larger beats and understanding the rhetoric more and more.

Then, after a luxurious dinner at Quiznos, we sightsang for about 15 minutes from the third book. SO many grace notes and silly little trills. It was so much fun to be extra dramatic about them.

Our chamber coaching went really well, and I wasn't frustrated the entire time and cringing at my intonation through it, which usually happens. Towards the end, I was getting sharp, but my lips were practically falling off, soooo...I forgive myself.

Afterwards, Caroline and I dedicated a solid, very productive chunk of time to rhythm. We're working on ridiculous subdivisions of the beat - 64ths and stuff (you know, hemidemisemiquavers and such things hehehehehe). But we were really getting the tough exercises that have different rhythms tapped and vocalized. And then we did some Bach, naming chords and inversions as Caroline read through, and then singing through again on scale degrees in the soprano. It's so much fun to work on this stuff with another person, especially when she's as nerdy about it as I am. Legitimately fun. I mean, I say it's fun anyway, but I mean fun like crossword puzzles or reading a novel fun. Practicing music exercises with other people is actually board games or charades fun. Okay, I'm babbling now.

I'm glad I could focus on the positive in this post and not just complain about my reeds the entire time.

Fall Break

Okaaaay. Grad school applications are stressing me out a little, so I've given up for now and am updating the blog to de-stress. I guess what is stressful about them is mostly that there are SO many little details and separate documents to fill in, upload, etcetera, and I'll spend a long time on it, and then look back and see I accomplished hardly anything. Just navigating the websites simultaneously is hard enough, and I keep double checking and cross checking the requirements out of paranoia. And trying to figure out a strategy for requesting audition dates is a nightmare. And I don't even know if my list is finalized yet. But the progress I made in the last hour has been good - I ordered transcripts sent to 3 schools and one to myself because UT requires it be scanned and uploaded as a pdf. What a pain. Why can't I just send you my transcript like every other school? Argh. And I have my rep list solid (as in the list of things I will be playing for the auditions). And I have 2 possible audition schedules that will allow me to get in all the auditions and not miss time from the London exchange program.

But enough about that. I'll feel better about myself if I reflect on what I've accomplished this fall break so far. I'll bold the bits that make me feel that I've been super productive. I've put in 3 hours documenting and spreadsheeting for the China tour. Went to the symphony Thursday night. Acquired 9 books for Ploger (4 from music library, 4 from annex, 1

from biomed) and printed an electronically delivered article. Met with Dr. Rose. Went hiking with Shelby in Percy Warner Park. Practiced some visualization and score reading for musicianship. Made a few reeds (none of them looking too promising however...) and practiced a bit. Reground three of my knives (they only needed an eensy bit of regrinding, so it didn't take very long), and they are sooooooo sharp now!!! Wrote a lot of emails have to do with China and other business, stupid little emails grrr. Booked my flights for my trip to Michigan for a lesson/tour in late November and for Thanksgiving. Made a pitcher of iced tea. Watched Jane Eyre with Valerie and Shelby. Cleaned my room. More impressively, cleaned the reed room. I CLEANED THE REED ROOM. I should post pictures later. Did my reading for Phenomenology. Picked up dresses my mom sent me (same dress, two sizes to try) from the post office, tried them on, and sent back the the one that was too big.

So I've done a little bit of work on a lot of things. I guess that does make me feel better, to see that I am balancing out all this work in a healthy manner.

I'm uploading some photos of yesterday's hike. Computer is slow. Also why did I take five million photos of the deers?

Also, on Friday, I had a really fantastic lesson with Professor Dikeman, the new flute professor. Did I mention that I had a lesson earlier with Professor Jackson, the new clarinet instructor, as well? I don't remember. But both lessons were such great experiences. I'm trying to

play for as many great musicians as I can in preparation for my grad school auditions. Ok, I feel like this post is dragging on. I'm rambling, but at least after I post this, I can cross off "update blog" off my to-do list!

Here are some more pics from hiking:

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.

IBIL Update

I survived the concert last night! Hooray! I'm establishing a good pre-performance routine that includes Alexander and meditation.

I ended up basically making the reed I played on right before I went on stage - not making it entirely, but finishing it, at least. I feel independent! How did I suddenly develop the ability to make good reeds? I am still astounded how it suddenly clicked in May. Like, the mathematician works for days, but then the solution comes as a bolt from the blue when he's sitting at the bus stop thinking about something else entirely...finally, three long years of dedicated, frustrated reed making are paying off. Of course I'll have my future slumps and new frustrations, but I'm suddenly at an unprecedented level of comfort and ease, and it's a little bizarre. But I'm cerrrtainly not complaining.

I guess I finally have a little time to update about many of the adventures in Baroque of the last week. Tonight is the faculty concert, and there was a chamber concert at lunch today as well, but other than that, nothing in the afternoon. I'm fairly exhausted.

I've gone through a LOT of rep this week. 2-4 brand new movements per day, ornaments and everything, to be played in masterclass the next morning. On top of actually getting to know the instrument, making a type of reed I've never made before, and warming up every day. And learning the chamber and orchestra music, and reading duets and things for fun. Solfege has been really invaluable, and in my initial practice sessions with new pieces, I spent a lot of time at the harpsichord singing (not that the harpsichords have actually been in tune by the time I get to them, but at least I get a starting pitch and can check the general vicinity of intervalic relationships (that last phrase was absolute nonsense, but I'm going to leave it in here anyway because I kinda like it)).

I've also bought a lot of drinks at Starbucks. It's across the street from the dorm I'm staying in, on the way to the music building...

Other fun activities - orchestra, oboe band. Two chamber music groups. It's been incredibly busy, but I think it has felt that way mostly since until today, I spent nearly every free moment (before 9am, lunch and after orchestra at 5) practicing. Although we have had coffee and pastry breaks every day at 10:30 between master classes and chamber, which has been really excellent. Except for the lack of caffeinated tea. This herbal stuff just doesn't cut it.

Oh, and we had Wednesday afternoon off. There was a fabulous bowling outing involved.

I've had such trouble sleeping the past few nights because I've been so excited about early music. And music in general. And grad school. I have so many grand plans for next year, including an early music extravaganza recital in the spring. I have a ton of verrry exciting ideas. The most difficult bit I think is going to be getting some key people on board. Probably obvious who I am talking about, specifically........

Anyway. I think a nap might be in order.

Last Day

Tomorrow - going home! (insert Dvorak 9 mvmt 2 here)

Had a great lesson this morning with Mr. Sorton, played Barrett stuff. Practiced, hung out with Carlos in his shop and watched him do stuff to oboes. I really need to do some experimenting with my oboe, take it apart and put it back together and adjust it and whatnot. Some real hands-on stuff. Hopefully I'll have time for that next week when I am home! That'll definitely be a good experience to write about in here...

Reed class was pretty epic today. I finished ten reeds. Of course, I'll have to readjust them all tomorrow, but heck, that is a lot of reeds. I've never made so many reeds in one day (of course, they were all the blanks I had tied yesterday, so I wasn't exactly starting from scratch). And they were all pretty darn good. I don't know what happened. All through this school year, I needed Prof Hauser to be finishing my reeds - I could hardly ever play on a reed he hadn't worked on, even if it was only a little bit. Then, after being home about a week and a half, I literally woke up one day in the middle of May and discovered I could make reeds really well. Apparently this is what happens. And I am thankful it did. I think it has something to do with my gouge being a little funny this last semester, so when I finally had a good gouge, the improvement in my scraping suddenly became drastically evident. Not complaining at all.

So no one really wanted that much detail about my reeds. Haha, sorry.

I can't wait to go home, sleep in my own bed, make reeds out by the pool, practice all day! Hooray! It's really been a fantastic six weeks of travel, festivals, and institutes though. I'm so happy that this summer turned out the way it did. :)

Keep Going

Hooray! Just came back from a beautiful performance of the St. Matthew. Three hours long. I'd really like to get to know this Passion better - so much music all at once for the first time is difficult to digest.

Why did they remove the non-functional microwave in the kitchen and replace it with a different non-functional microwave? I want popcorn.

Had a lesson with Marc today. It was so helpful to work on my ensemble piece with him. The piece is really coming together I think, but it is a little rough that I haven't really practiced it outside of ensembles. But with a little TLC before the concert tomorrow...it should be fine. It's really just those dang trills and ornaments. (You know, only like one of the most important aspects of Baroque music, so annoying :P)

I also need to practice my choreography for tomorrow's show. Yes, that's right, I am dancing the minuet in front of people. Haha! This week of dance class has really been a lot of fun. Somehow everything is a lot easier when we have choreography to learn, instead of just learning steps. Then, learning the different steps in context reinforces them a lot. New teacher this week - she pushed us a lot harder.

Baroque reeds! I have made three of them! Two of which were pieces of cane that I hand shaped! At lunch yesterday, I shaped three pieces, but only two of them came out okay. Which is fine really, because I don't have very many staples...anyway, I made them into reeds this morning, and one of them turned out really well! The other one that I made that turned out really well was from a piece that Gonzalo shaped. I'm not sure about the third one, I think it was too short (my shaping caused me to have to tie it on a lot shorter than is desirable), and perhaps I scraped too much out of it. But I'm getting better at getting a thinner tip - that goes for modern and Baroque reeds. Hope the Arkansas stone waiting at home for me will help.

Oh, home. I can't wait to go home. I really need some time for my brain to recuperate. I can't quite comprehend that I still have another week in Georgia to go.

Uh, I feel like I had a lot more to say, but I am kind of brain dead right now.

What do I have tomorrow?

dress rehearsal 10:45

lesson 10:45

Yeah, I have to figure that one out.

dance rehearsal 1:00

concert 2:00 (but I probably won't be playing until around 5:00...)

So before 10:30 am, I need to practice new stuff for my lesson.

Need to practice dance before 1.

Other things to remember:

turn in your dang lesson cards

transfer the recordings/change recorder batteries

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.