I’ll be in Spokane, WA October 11th for a concert with the Spokane New Music Ensemble. The theme is New Music in Old Homes–a pastiche of old and new. I’ll be playing oboe music from the Baroque, as well as a new composition for oboe and electronics. And there will be additional new electronic music (without oboe, but just as good, I promise). Check it out: tickets are currently $12, at the door $15. Seating is limited. More info at: http://www.facebook.com/spokanenewmusic
Arizona Pro Arte is holding a chamber music recital this coming Saturday 9/27 in Mesa, AZ. It should be a fun evening! My quartet is playing and there’s some beautiful music on the program. Tickets are $10. http://www.azproarte.com for more info!
A beautiful look at all the care that goes into creating an oboe. And an interesting look into the thought process behind a professional player’s instrument choice. Albrecht Mayer is one of my oboe heroes: a wonderful player. Someday I’ll have to post the video of him playing oboe in a whale sweater. It’s a true classic. In the meantime–watch this one. His comment about how different oboe brands each have their own ‘sound’ that the player must embrace is spot on. I’m thinking especially of Loree, Laubin, and a few others.
If you want to be an oboist, I mean a serious oboist—invest in a good vacuum cleaner. And you probably want to have a room without carpet to make reeds in. Sigh, I don’t think I’ll ever get all the cane shavings out of my carpet. It’s a lost cause.
Ok, enough complaining. The good news is: all those cane shavings means lots of happy reeds in my reedbox!
This past week my new planer arrived from Ross. I fiddled a bit with the blade-originally it wasn’t really taking any cane off. But the mechanism was fairly easy to adjust, so now I have it set to shave off the sides pretty well. I’m sure I’ll be playing with it for a few more weeks. This first set of reeds is only tied on, I haven’t started the serious scraping yet.
I’ve come to prefer planing to pre-gouging. Last year, I was having some trouble getting a thin enough gouge with just pre-gouging. The sides of the cane were too tall for the gouger to process well. Thanks to my teacher’s input, I tried running cane through the pre-gouger and the planer which solved the problem. This year, I don’t have access to a pre-gouger, but planing alone seems to work. And it’s less time consuming without that extra step. There’s a little more gouging involved, but since I’m not a commercial operation, I don’t think it’s too much for my gouger to handle.
Thoughts? Pre-gouging, planing, or both?
Simaril Reeds 