In the midst of my busyness…

Sunday October 28 2007

— I managed to begin a little experiment.

First off, the concert went well last night. Theofanidis Rainbow Body, Symphonie Fantastique, Danse Macabre amongst others.

One of my reed subscribers sent me two reeds made by a well-known Mack student professor along with 10 staples and the same Mack+ shaper tip that the professor uses. My instructions were to duplicate it as close as I can.

I’ve made about 6 reeds on my own staples but using “hard cane” (as instructed) and using the Mack+ shape and matching the proportions and lengths exactly as the two reeds. All of my reeds play close to 20 cents flat, and require a LOT… of blowing up to pitch and “extreme reed pressure” (and sometimes biting), but they certainly get a bit more of a covered Mackish sound. In fact, I played my concert on one of these reeds last night (lipping it up to pitch, of course).

Flat reeds always sound great when you can get them up to pitch, but usually they’re just that. Flat. But it has been a very good experiment for me to remind me of WHY… I don’t like playing flat reeds and WHY… I don’t like lipping up reeds constantly. I can already feel the wear on my lip after about 3 days of playing on these reeds, and I’m starting to get some jaw pain reminiscent of my TMJ… problems. I practiced my Malcolm Arnold Sonatina with my tuner on a flat reed this morning and was able to get through the piece okay, but I wasn’t able to do the dynamic contrasts, color changes and variety of articulations that I wanted to, because I was squeezing the reed so tightly with my lips.

Mr. Stolper used to tell me that Tabuteau had a picture of an inverted triangle (smallest part down) in his office.  At the top was the word “response”. Below that was “stability/pitch” and below that at the smallest point was “tone”.

The more I play and the more I hear, I am becoming convinced that in a big hall small tonal discrepancies disappear, and what the listener will listen for the most is what you do with the music, not your tonal quality on the music. And if I have to play a reed with great tone but can’t do much with it, then it’s probably just not worth it.

Busy!

Wednesday October 24 2007

Wind Ensemble concerts! Symphony concerts! Lots of things going on. I’ve been too busy to spend some serious time on reeds, and too busy to write much about practicing and playing, but I can tell you this— I’M REALLY… TIRED…!!!

Read the Rest

Music Quote

Wednesday October 17 2007

Music alone contains the all-important secret of separating the soul from all mortal cares for at least as long as the notes can keep it absorbed, through the skillful management of consance, whether vocal or instrumental. And if sleep is so universally praised for its power to enthrall the senses of unhappy humanity, lifting them up and, for a few hours, making them impervious to misfortune, how much more praiseworthy must an art be which, not robbing us life as does sleep (when it is called the Brother of Death), allows us to live ecstatically in delicious, contented peace, our senses fully about us, yet glad and truly blissful. This art— deserves to have voices, instruments, poetry, painting, architecture, mechanics, mimic, and any other art pay court to it and obey it.

- Pier Jacopo Martello, 1715

Read the Rest

Choice of music…

Wednesday October 17 2007

So I narrowed my jury music down to 5 pieces. I have to jury once every 10 weeks here at Oregon, which seems a bit over the top to me, but thus is required so there’s no use in arguing over it.

• Five French Contemporary Recital Pieces×Multiple Composers
• Oblivion×Piazolla
• Black Anemones×Schwantner
• Sonatina×Malcolm Arnold
• Suite×Walter Piston

Mack recorded some of the Five French Contemporary pieces on his CD with the Romances and Saint Saens. Oblivion and Black Anemones are on Rebecca Henderson’s CD. The Piston Suite is on Robinson’s CD, and the Sonatina is Jeffrey Rathbun’s Color Factory CD.

After a bit of consulting with my professor, I went with my first reaction which was to go for the Malcolm Arnold. It’s a lovely piece, and isn’t performed very much, but has a lot of energy and excitement. I’m looking forward to delving into the work.

Is English Horn supposed to be played this way?

Friday October 12 2007

So I recently called Mr. Weber and discussed my EH reed problems. My big problem was that I have to play a middle C on this piece (Concert F, fingered C) at ppp for 20 or 30 measures, and in doing so, it sound buzzy, and light, and ugly. Mr. Weber suggested that I review his reedmaker manual, and summarized some major points:

• Thicker tips
• Thinner hearts (proportionally)
• Smoother integration line
• Wire 5mm above the string, just to support the upper notes and not to be used for the opening, gently squeezing the sides of the blades.
• Thinnest part of the windows directly above the bark (opposed to just behind the heart)

(Granted, for all you EH reed people, I never profess to be good at EH reedmaking, but I can do it. I’m still trying to “separate myself from oboe” and “learn how to make EH reeds that don’t resemble big oboe reeds”. But you keep ordering them, so I keep trying to make them!)

This last bullet I had completely forgotten and now makes sense. One needs to scrape the extreme back of the windows to close that part down so that the air can properly channel into the staple. That’s why when you have an extremely thick-sided oboe gouge, you end up compromising the structural integrity of the reed by gouging out the same place×just above the bark×in order to close down the back of the reed and channel the air correctly.

So the reeds are working, but they’re requiring a lot firmer embouchure, and steadier air stream. I wonder if this is how the EH is actually supposed to be.