So my right hand is cramping. It’s the fourth and little finger that are an issue. I noticed it when I was driving over the hill to campus … I can’t really hold the steering wheel with just my right hand, because it hurts. It’s not incredibly painful, but only mildly so, which means it’s only mildly worrisome. But I hope this improves by tonight. Beauty has a ton of playing, and I don’t have time to relax the hand much.
Maybe this is why my hand was aching during the show last night. Or maybe the cramping is due to that aching.
In any case, I guess I won’t be spending as much time working on reeds as I had hoped.
Ask me if that makes me sad …?! 😉
What does “working on reeds” entail?
I hope your hand feels better soon!
You’re definitely getting an idea of what it’s like to play a Broadway show schedule, eight shows a week, right?
It’s relentless, extremely demanding gig. I look back on my ten years on the road with The Phantom and wonder how in the heck I did it!
Hopefully you’re towards the end of the Beauty run. How many more shows do you have?
Yeah, 8 shows a week, except that this week we had an extra kiddie show, and last week we had a double on Monday. So it’s been more than 8.
I’ve done the Broadway tour thing when it’s come in to SF or San Jose, but the longest I’ve ever done was, I think, about 12 weeks. (La Boheme) I only subbed for one day on Phantom, though.
It’s grueling to be true!
SongMonk: working on reeds … can mean anything from taking raw cane and turning it into oboe reeds, or, as I was meaning, taking reeds I’d wound and begun to a finished place. I have a tutorial for the final stuff here at my site: http://oboeinsight.com/instruction/reed-making/reed-making-part-one/ (it needs work, though; when I switched to WordPress the layout didn’t transfer quite right.)