It’s about time i start practising my Oboe, it’s been i month since i touched it and i need to find time to buy reeds.
I have my DVR set. This Wednesday on KQED I will record the opening concert with Dudamel and the LA Phil. You can too. Just check the Great Performances schedule to see when it happens in your neck ‘o the woods! 🙂
You may also get a couple of free downloads if you are so inclined. When I saw what they were I didn’t bite; I must confess I don’t care to download one movement only of a symphony, and if I’m remembering correctly the other download was something from The Nutcracker. No thanks to that!
I’m sure any reed player has had to deal with mold. Let’s face it; we put pieces of cane in our (not-so-perfectly-clean) mouths. They get wet. They get put back in reed cases that don’t always circulate air well so reeds stay moist. What a perfect place to grow mold, don’t you think?
I rarely get mold on my reeds. My cases allow for better air circulation, I think. And of course I do, for the most part (yes, on occasion I “cheat”), brush my teeth before I play. But I have sometimes seen my reeds get a little grungy where the sides meet. I toss those reeds, unless they are so incredible I can’t bear the thought. If that’s the case I soak them in hydrogen peroxide or a solution I purchased sold specifically to sterilize our reeds (not that I believe the stuff really does … I’m skeptical that way).
But I have an issue and I’d love some help on this one. Anybody out there know about pink mold? No, not on my reeds, thank you very much, but on someone else’s. One of the reeds was very new, so it wasn’t an age thing. The person says teeth are being brushed before playing. Could this be a sign of some sort of infection? I would think maybe the player’s mouth should be swabbed. But I’m no doctor or biologist or anything. Anyone have thoughts on this?
Check out this short but interesting article. It is about musicians, hearing, and just how spectacular we are.
Okay. Maybe not that last part. But it is about hearing and how musical training can be beneficial for hearing.
Even more important to yours truly, though, was reading the following:
A third study by scientists from Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, found that musicians could detect harmonies that were slightly off-key even when they had lost most of their hearing. Factory workers with similar hearing loss could not.
When I suffered my hearing loss (left ear only), I was immediately concerned about intonation issues. I hooked up more frequently to my tuner just to verify that I was hearing things okay.
