Pause For Thought

02. November 2008 · 7 comments · Categories: Other People's Words, Ramble

I wonder … how many students have I discouraged even while they were working? (I don’t really worry too much about the ones who weren’t working at all.)

For most of my life, I have shied away from dancing, singing or playing musical instruments in front of other people, although I have enjoyed all three in solitude. I continue to enjoy dancing with the video, “African Healing Dance.” Sometime around 2000, I bought a Suzuki keyboard and some piano instruction books for children and taught myself to play in a way that brings me much happiness.

I wonder how many people were discouraged from drawing, in the way I was discouraged from dancing, singing and playing a musical instrument.

I was not a child who had the self-esteem to rebel against being told that I would never be “good enough” in one way or another. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I began to rebel against my internalized messages that, with a few exceptions, I wasn’t “good enough.”

The old internalized “not good enough” messages are coming up as I experience my first days back in college at age 58. This time I am rebelling against those messages.

I read it here. And she has a cat named “Oboe”.

Oh Where, Oh Where Have My Little Reeds Gone?

02. November 2008 · 5 comments · Categories: Ramble, Reeds

My last Elixir opera rehearsal was Thursday, because I skipped out on Friday’s final sitz. I had UCSC, and it’s just too darn difficult to reschedule five oboe students and a woodwind quintet. After Thursday’s afternoon rehearsal I raced back home to teach my 5:00 student (having had to cancel the other two). When I’m teaching I usually pull out my “I sure hope these start to behave soon” reeds and use them. (Yeah, I even embarrass myself — sometimes the reeds seriously misbehave in front of my students!) Friday, when I get to campus, I have about 15 minutes to warm up before student #1 shows up. So I got there this past Friday, and decided to do a bit of practicing on the “better” (hah!) reeds.

Forget about it.

My “good” reeds in my beautiful case weren’t there!

So where the heck are they? I’m praying they are resting happily on the tray attached to my stand in the opera pit. I emailed my colleague to ask if she saw them, but unfortunately she had to skip the rehearsal due to illness. I wrote to the sub, and haven’t heard back.

So I won’t know until I know. And you can quote me on that.

How can I forget my reeds, you wonder? Well, I keep my cute little reed case (see #EMOE) in a black felt sleeve I made, simply to keep the case looking nice. (Yeah, that’s the way I am. Pathetic, no?) When I pack up the reeds and put the case in the sleeve I’m hoping I set it back on the black tray. It’s possible I just didn’t see them, then, when I was putting everything in my handy dandy backpack.

Meanwhile, I have to have some rescue reeds in case I have actually lost the case. (I’d be very very sad if it’s gone.) Time will tell. And last night I did have a dream that was probably about all this; I had three reeds sitting in my little glass of water. I picked them up and slammed them into my chest. Somehow all three reeds not only cracked, but broke in half. I was just about to sit down and rehearse in a woodwind quintet. So I had to frantically make more reeds. It was similar to dreams where you are trying to run and can’t — I think everyone has had those — but in this case I couldn’t carve. Go figure.

UPDATE
My “good” (bad) reeds ARE on the tray. I’m especially relieved because I really like the reed case. 🙂