Notes from IDRS
Tuesday July 22 2008
I’ve been here at IDRS… for two days and the memories are piling up. I’m having a great time hanging around with my buddies Adam Shapiro, Peter Hurd and his wife Chris, and Mr. Weber who showed up for a couple of days.
Adam and I were having lunch in the student union this afternoon and Laila Storch came and found us and had a nice chat. She’s so brilliant, and we spoke some more about DMA… dissertations. Then she ran off to catch a recital and Gordon Hunt started talking to me from a nearby table, so we joined him for a while. What a nice guy! He was debating whether to have that second Taco Bell burrito or not (which he eventually opted not to, a good choice considering the concert he had to play later!)
Adam and I sat around at the Howarth table with Michael Britton and played a bunch of XL’s. Adam picked one out, which means I will be buying one of his others, which I really fancy.
The concert tonight was AMAZING…. There were a lot of good performances, but the two that stood out was the Concerto in D minor RV 535 by Vivaldi for two oboes and strings, performed by Christian Schmitt and Sebastian Gott. Those guys tore the heck out of that piece, it was really amazing to hear, and they followed it up with a mind blurring encore. I was sitting next to Mr. Weber and Evelyn McCarty and we were all just baffled by their fingerings.
The other performance that left me boggled, and brought the house to it’s feet was a piece called Symphonie Concertante in F Major for two ooes and Orchestra by Francois Joseph Garnier, performed by Richard Woodhams (of the Philadelphia Orchestra) and Gordon Hunt. The piece was also mind boggling, as it seemed to require all of the tricks; double tonguing, circular breathing, and blistering fingers that even made Mr. Weber chuckle. Those two men have such different styles, and sounds that contrast each other like black and white, but my GOD… the artistry was unbelievable! (Michael Britton was VERY… proud that they both are exclusive Howarth XL players)
There’s a lot of great performances coming up, and I can’t wait to catch more of them. But I need to get to bed now; the Richard Woodhams masterclass is in 11 hours!
While making reeds…
Friday July 04 2008
I watch TV. Sports are always good. Reality shows are usually fine too. I’d probably get more out of audio books, but TV is more available.
And since I make a lot of reeds, I’ve watched a lot of TV. All of the American Idol seasons. Eli Stone. Desperate Housewives. New Amsterdam. Chuck. Project Runway. Prison Break. Rome. First 7 seasons of CSI…. Then sometimes I download some oldies. Wonder Years. Twin Peaks. Nowadays, I have found that Netflix has online movies/tv shows you can watch via streaming! Currently I’m watching Quantum Leap season 4. What a great show, eh? Ranks right up there with the Wonder Years for me.
I know the standard rule is most people listen to music while making reeds but does anyone else do something different? Anyone have suggestions of movies/tv shows for me to watch? Most of the good TV shows (Lost, 24) I take the time to actually sit down and watch it.
Oh yeah, foreign films don’t work so well. Too many subtitles to read while concentrating on a reed.
Update
Wednesday July 02 2008
Well, my summer plans have been going down the drain quickly.
Things didn’t work out for me to go down to Arizona. We crunched all of the numbers, and financially we just couldn’t make up the big difference, so I’m still stuck here in Oregon.
I was still going to meet the Webers in Utah for the IDRS… convention, play on the masterclasses and work at their booth, but now they themselves are not planning on going due to some last minute family difficulties! So now it looks as though I might not even make it to IDRS….
I’m taking two classes here at the UofOregon, trying to blast out some of my requirements to leave more time during the school year for playing/practicing. They’re sucking up all of my time and energy.
I am backed up on reed orders. After returning from Seattle a week ago, I got a horrible canker sore in my mouth, too painful to play and make reeds, that that set me back a ways. I’ll be catching up on those this weekend.
Seattle was great. Adam and I had a great time at his house and he loved the reeds I brought him. My best reeds seem to be coming from my Brannen X shape, and he ordered 8 more. Meanwhile, he has an Udo Heng profiling machine that he’s trying to get a new profile based upon my scrape. If we’re able to get a good one, I will definitely be investing in one myself. I recently spoke to a music store in the Seattle area looking to replace their reed supplier, now that Jones is in legal trouble and last we heard is at least 8 months or so from production.
I also spent a good amount of time with Laila Storch at her house, asking and getting supplementary information that was not completely clarified in her book. She confirmed a lot of theories I had, and gave me good direction in my research.
One book discussed in my Music of the Romantic Era class is the Whig Interpretation of History which basically states that it is difficult for one to recollect and document history, because man’s tendency is to take the evidence (quotes, facts, etc) out of its original context to fit their specific argument. Ms. Storch agreed with this theory, and noted that she didn’t think she was the right person to write the book, namely because she felt she was “too close to the action” to give an unbiased opinion. I find this very relevant to my research with Tabuteau, and we discussed how difficult it is for someone of my generation to discover “the real Tabuteau” since there’s been so many of his students who teach different sounds, styles, playing, concepts of air, tonguing, and reedmaking. With everyone running around saying “this is what Tabuteau taught—” to lend creedance their style of playing, it’s practically impossible for I to find the “true Tabuteau”. That said, tne thing she did state was that I was right to listen to de Lancie. As she put it, “He probably got the most complete picture, but not the intensity in the upper register that Tabuteau had.”
Back to writing this paper. These classes are killing me.
MQOD
Wednesday July 02 2008
“There is so much talk about music, and so little is said. I believe that words are not at all up to it, and if I should find that they were adequate I would stop making music altogether.”-Felix Mendelssohn, Berlin, October 15, 1842
Funny how some things don’t change much. Read the Rest