oboeinsight

Now and then, a pork chop eagerly shares a shower with the tuba player living with a customer. A plaintiff completely seeks a polar bear. A movie theater shares a shower with a chestnut. An eggplant gives a pink slip to the tuba player. For example, a single-handledly impromptu bullfrog indicates that a class action suit beyond another burglar somewhat avoids contact with an ocean.

The self-loathing industrial complex Any bowling ball can figure out a financial spider, but it takes a real razor blade to seek a mating ritual. If a surly pork chop dances with a boiled grizzly bear, then the tape recorder around a stovepipe dies. Now and then, a judge near a tripod borrows money from a minivan defined by the bottle of beer. Another financial photon, the umbrella, and another somewhat polka-dotted CEO are what made America great!

The tabloid beyond a reactor

A spider over the cashier organizes the girl scout. If a non-chalantly incinerated insurance agent plays pinochle with an often fat tornado, then a scythe inside a dolphin gets stinking drunk. Furthermore, a wrinkled polar bear feels nagging remorse, and an overwhelmingly highly paid umbrella dances with the cashier. Any tape recorder can recognize an avocado pit, but it takes a real blithe spirit to plan an escape from a linguistic parking lot some buzzard toward a pig pen. The surly cargo bay requires assistance from a spider.

(Blame this entry on the tuba’s inclusion.)

Explanation
This is one sort of spam I receive. Nearly daily. With the tuba in it, I just had to put it here. Call me silly. (Please!)

If I have a hectic schedule I tend to not look ahead. It’s so difficult for my brain to wrap around one week, much less look forward to the next. This doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s coming up; I’m well aware that the next two weeks will be The King and I, with a bit of Barber of Seville thrown in. From opera, which extends past K&I, I return to symphony again, and Le Tombeau de Couperin (Ravel) is lurking there so I’ve been thinking about English horn reeds and working a bit on the little bit of technical work I’ll have on second oboe.

But only today did it hit me: After Sunday’s Symphony Silicon Valley concert I have a five hour musical rehearsal (which I was remembering) and THEN … sigh … Monday I have two three hour rehearsals of the musical. Oops! I hadn’t looked at Monday yet. So now I’ve quickly written my Monday students to see if we can reschedule (now maybe readers will understand why I charge weekly rather than monthly!) and if not I’ll miss seeing them. I hate missing my students, but sometimes that’s the only choice.

In any case, I had better really relish today! I have only two students (one cancelled) and I have no concert at all. How odd to play Thursday and then have Friday off. My next night off is November 6, and then the free night after that will be November 14.

This is always good news and bad news. Mostly good, of course. It means I’m employed. Nearly steadily. Like a real job. In fact, between teaching and playing, the only days, until Christmas, on which I have absolutely nothing on total a whopping … drum roll please … ZERO.

That’s right. Every day between now and December 25 I either teach or play (or both).

Hmmm. Maybe I’ll need to take something off. For my sanity.

(Whispering voices in my head are saying, “Too late … too late. Sanity is long gone.” 😉

UPDATE
I just realized I had Thursday students scheduled on Thanksiving! Ain’t gonna happen. (Duh.) So there’s a day off. Sort of. (We always have the dinner here, so there’s work to be done.)
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I thought last night’s Symphony Silicon Valley concert went well. Pam played beautifully in the Bizet and got a well deserved bow. Much to my surprise the conductor had me stand after Pam. It’s true that the slow movement solo gets passed to the second oboe, but it never entered my mind that it would be noted. I’m afraid I didn’t stand immediately, as I couldn’t fathom that he was acknowledging me! One thing conductors might not realize is that we can’t always tell who they are looking at. (I always like it when they mouth the name of our instrument—then it’s quite clear.) I usually know when I’m to stand, as a solo is fairly obvious. But oh well … a moment of unprofessionalism on my part. Sigh.

The conductor, Martin West, is excellent. He said some things during the rehearsal that made me want to stand up and cheer. I do hope we have him return!

In Other News
I’d love to be able to hear this “new” old music (music that was taken from Germany by Russia after WWII). It’s to be published, so I guess eventually some pieces might make their way to some of our stages here in the US. I’m a fan of Telemann. I feel as if he’s one of the often neglected composers, and I’ve always enjoyed playing works by him. They seem to sit well on oboe.

Say What?
Read at a “food media blog”:

The interplay of taste, aroma, texture, and visual appeal is irreducible. Umami is just one instrument in the orchestra; it sounds lousy in solos but improves the rest of the orchestra. Understanding how an oboe enriches a symphony is important knowledge for any composer, but it would be absurd to choose your music based on minutes of oboe time.

Now wait a minute! Is this person implying that some orchestral instrument sounds lousy in solos? To which instrumnet is he or she referring? Seeing the oboe mentioned in the next sentence has me worried. Goodness me! We are the best when it comes to solos, are we not? (You may answer this if you know the correct answer! Otherwise just keep those opinions to yourself! 😉
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