There is nothing like not knowing if a note is going to come out. There is nothing like having the note come out for a while and then stop. There is nothing like I am dealing with right now. Unless you’ve had oboe woes.

My colleague (thanks, Pam!) worked on the oboe while I played my other one during part of the opera. She played it during an intermission and said she could really understand why I was going crazy. It works. Then it doesn’t work. And the screws seem “wobbly” … not fitting quite like they should. It makes early retirement seem like the only option. Sigh.

Well, it all worked at home when I adjusted it. The only thing we can figure is that the darn cold air in the pit causes things to go awry. And I am very unhappy and now entirely freaked.

But I have a day and a half to work more on it. No time to drive to Napa, of course, but I’ll call tomorrow and see if I can do an emergency run some time next week. We’ll see.

Playing the other oboe wasn’t pleasant; the reeds that work so well on the misbehaving oboe don’t work the same in the other. (This isn’t all that uncommon. Yes, we really do have to fit our reeds to our oboes!)

Part of me wonders if my oboe is just fried and if it’s time to bite the bullet and look for a new one. Sigh and double sigh. (I really should always double sigh, shouldn’t I? Fitting of an oboe player?)

In any case, I two people came up to me to compliment my playing, one saying, “This music is meant for you!” So I guess what I did was okay out in the hall. Just scary as can be. And I don’t like scary.