I finished up the fall quarter yesterday. This is the first time I’ve not had to schedule make up lessons for students on finals week. So next week, when Nutcracker begins, I’ll actually have one extra morning that I haven’t usually had. Not sure I’ll get anything accomplished, though; I seem to be a bit lacking in energy these days.
The hardest thing about teaching at a school is grading. I really hate grading. How does one grade oboe playing? And different students have different capabilities. Some come in much more advanced to begin with. Others not quite so. Contrary to what I thought when I began there — there’s no “orientation” or anything for new adjunct faculty teaching instruments — I don’t take beginners … why I thought I had to, I don’t know, but for the first year I did actually teach beginners. But I ramble … mostly I need to hunker down and grade and write my evaluations. (UCSC used to be a “no grades” school and all instructors were required to write evals. Now we do grades and evals. My students already know what I’ll write, I’m sure, as I hand them a sheet of paper at the end of each lesson with notes for them. This year I have collected those so the evals will be a bit easier for me.)
I wish my UCSC students a wonderful break! (But no broken reeds.)
Okay … trying to put up my assignment sheet … let’s see if this works!
Sometimes certain timbres/instruments get stuck with stereotypes. The oboe, for instance, is often called the “crybaby” of the orchestra. This is partly because of how it sounds (kind of whiny), partly because of how composers tend to write for it, and partly because of the typical oboist’s personality.
