oboeinsight

Okay … this is a total pattyramble™ of the worst sort, but here goes …

I am not good at being kind. In this music business I’m in we can often be quite critical. We also can gossip. A lot. I’m guilty of both.

The other night I vegged out by watching the Oscars. As I watched, I was reading Twitter and Facebook entries. My but we all love to bash people, and if they are famous we like to do it even more. I do it too, but watching the show and reading hateful remarks made me think about how it must look to others when I’m that way. And I don’t think I want to be seen that way. Ever.

A lot of us classical folk tend to pick on anyone outside of our field with a vengeance, too. We really want to dump the snob label, but at the same time we (and yes, I include myself in this) want to have at it with people we deem unworthy. Go figure. I guess it’s just this whole being human thing.

But you know what? Life is short. People are … well … people! I should treat them the way I hope they treat me. It’s the least I can do.

Recently tragedies have struck close by. Picking on other people seems even more ridiculous, stupid, and rotten in light of things that have happened. I’m going to attempt to be kinder. I’m going to attempt to take care in what I say, and how I treat others both in person and in writing.

Like I said, life is short. Surely I can be kind during this brief stay on planet earth. I’m hoping so, anyway!

Yesterday as I was teaching my oboe suddenly made some rather odd sounds. I thought I had water in a key, but when I investigated I saw that the cork on my F key had come loose. Thankfully I have a second oboe and I pulled that out. It’s a bit of a nuisance because most staples are a bit too big for it and I hate shaving them down because then they are too loose for my main oboe, but at least I have a second instrument to carry me through.

As my last student was leaving I mentioned that I’d probably see if I could glue the pad back in place. Sometimes there is glue on the pad that, with a bit of heat, can soften. The pad can then be re-glued easily enough. If not, as I told him, there’s always superglue. My student (an adult) had played clarinet and sax in the past and mentioned that one had to be careful because if the pad isn’t seated correctly it won’t be fixed properly and can leak. I flippantly said, “Oh I think I can do this one, no problem!”

PROBLEM.

The heating method didn’t take, so the superglue came out. In a jiffy the pad was cemented back in place. Firmly. But yeah, my student was right … and I should have known this would happen! I thought I hadn’t turned the cork at all and it would seat just fine, but it did turn and it most certainly wasn’t seated properly, so there was a major leak and the oboe was obviously not going to work.

For the first time, though, I can truly be thankful for Facebook. I quickly wrote about my stupidity and a friend who saw it called. As he said, “Patty, Patty, Patty, why didn’t you call me?!” He’s right. I should have gotten on the phone and called him immediately (even though I hate phones). Sigh. He does oboe repairs. He lives about 15 minutes away. And he’s a friend so seeing him is great fun, too. (Oh … and if you go to his website you’ll see me. Or at least a little bit of me! Can you figure out what I mean?)

This morning I was at his house (hi Bob!). He now has my baby. I played the quintet rehearsal I had on oboe #2 (and it actually did quite well with the reed I found that fit).

Lesson learned?

Oh who knows … I’m a slow learner!