It is finished!
Sunday January 20 2008
The competition is finished! I don’t find out who won for several days, but I can say this, I clearly don’t have any expectations. I didn’t play very well; some things like my tempo and breathing got off, probably from nerves, but some things went pretty decently. I can say that I went “all out” and played as if it were my last.
Last night I spent some good time in Beall Hall and was able to try out the two oboes, and narrow my reed choices down to two. Tonight I showed up early and was able to confirm my decision; I played Sandra with my orange reed made with a RDG… Mack tip and Loree cane. It couldn’t have been a better reed.
Anyways, my professor was pleased which is a big relief, because if she wasn’t I would have heard about it for the rest of the year (i.e. “Remember what happened on the Strauss!?!?!?). Now I can get back on track with my reedmaking and all of my playing commitsments.
Read the Rest
Preparations, reeds and Sandra…
Friday January 18 2008
Well, it’s T minus 2 days, and crisis struck 48 hours ago when I came down with fever and “digestive problems”. It wasn’t pretty, and kept me out of school for the past three days. I haven’t played much in the meantime, and I missed my dress rehearsal this morning, where I was going to test out 5 reeds with two oboes for my professor to hear and help me pick one.
Yes, you read that correctly. I’m using TWO… oboes, which I’m even considering relinquishing Barbara! When I told my wife this, she cried and told me I couldn’t name another oboe because it gives it too much personality, and she felt like she was giving up a family member. My wife is a very soft-hearted person (which is why she so perfectly contrasts my often harsh drastic personality) and is just full of love and care. But anyways, the other oboe I’ve been pondering is a 10 year old MP Loree, a DM bore no less! I think it’s a remarkable instrument, and I’ll be the first to admit that Sandra (upon telling me I couldn’t name another oboe, Namju named her) plays better than Barbara. She has more resonance, is smoother in notes and creamier in tone, and holds the high notes up better. As I told Peter Hurd, the owner of the instrument, it’s like with Barbara, I’m directing the car by pushing it around from the outside, from left to right, backwards and forwards. However, with Sandra, it’s like I’m driving the car, easily taking it anywhere I want.
The problem if I buy Sandra is that I’m not sure how it will effect my reedmaking for myself as well as my business. Making reeds for Sandra is VERY… difficult, and only my very finest reeds work well. The ones that are just “acceptable” for Barbara don’t sound nice at all in Sandra.
So tomorrow from 3:30-4:30 I have the concert hall and I’ll go there by myself, and maybe recruit a couple fellow oboe students to go tell me what they hear from out in the audience. I’ll probably play Sandra for the recital as I did for my last run-through in studio class on Tuesday, unless there’s a big difference in sound.
If anyone’s looking for a new “pre-owned” instrument, I’d strongly recommend giving “Sandra” a try. I believe Mr. Hurd is asking $5,500 for it. It’s in tip-top shape.
T - 7 days and counting.
Sunday January 13 2008
I practiced a hard 2 hours tonight and my mouth is certainly exhausted. I know it’s there. There’s not a whole lot more I can do with it. I just need to do it!
Sunday can’t come quickly enough.
Oboe BBoard: The Value of Barret.
Friday January 04 2008
On the oboe Bboard they’re discussing the relevance of Barret to today’s music, and it simply boggles my mind. I know I’m coming off as very opinionated on the thread, and even perhaps somewhat arrogant, I can’t help but chirp in my opinion. I’ve spent too much time with too many excellent teachers on Barret learning too many valuable lessons to let this topic go by me.
Some opinions include that it’s not applicable to “what needs to be learned today”. Why learn anything from Barret when we can study from Beethoven!
My personal feeling is that you don’t even need a single book to teach a good lesson. A good lesson teaches you something musically that you can take away from and apply it to whatever you might be playing at the time, being Mozart or Poulenc. It just so happens that Barret gives us a book with orderly systematic etudes, which teach one concept after another and builds upon the previous etudes. However, many have learned from other books, and the traditions of Barret is passed on less and less. Sellner, Barret, Ferling, and Gillet were the only things taught at the Curtis Institute of Music from Tabuteau and de Lancie (I’m not sure what Woodhams teaches, but I’m sure he does a good deal with these methods). Mr. Weber said he never once looked at a solo piece, excerpt or anything else during his 4 years with de Lancie, because he learned everything he needed to know from the etudes, and learned how to apply the concepts to the music on his orchestral parts. (I forwarded the website address to him, and he got very cynical about it too, sending me an email to post under his name which I did on the thread.)
Yes, all of these concepts could be taught without a method book, but the book puts it in an order, and helps us compartamentalize the information. It gives of very simple examples to practice the concepts and skills, and then gives us harder examples to work up our chops.
It’s too bad that Barret isn’t still taught very much because it’s such an important part of our American Oboe heritage tracing back to Tabuteau. Mr. Stolper, a 1st generation Tabuteau wrote in numbers representing Tabuteau’s number system into my book which he copied out of his own Barret book from which Tabuteau himself had written. Mr. Mack also wrote some notes in my book that Tabuteau had written in his book. These notes I will cherish and pass onto my student, who has just started the first Progressive Melody.
I view the whole situation like this: you can go to the hobby store and buy one of those model airplane kits which has the balsa wood precut to size and shape, which each side marked a color-coded number to paint (also included) and you slap together the wood with some glue and paint it up and you got a plane! Or— you can go to the hardwood store, buy your own wood, a saw, sandpaper, pencil and ruler, your own shades of paint, and design your own airplane (I’d make a U2 stealth bomber). Which one would you value more? Which process would help you to build a model car of a Ferrari? Enough said.