Oh. My. God.

Today was a really nutty day. In total I rode on 6 subway trains and 1 bus and walked maybe 2 miles. I studied MCAT physics for about 5 hours and printed out 100 pages of new review questions. I had lunch with a good friend and chatted with my mom on the phone briefly. Oh, and I bumped into my ex-boyfriend whom I hadn't seen in 10 years.

Talk about being tired for a lesson. I got to my teacher's new house (she moved while I was on vacation) nearly panting. This was my first lesson in over a month! A few weeks ago I was dreading going back because I felt so out of shape and had no good reeds, but as the days got closer I was just excited to see her again and get some help getting back in gear.

Earlier this week she sent me a new exercise via email. I was to set the metronome at 110 and play two octaves of the C major scale up and down twice. Slurred. In sixteeth notes. At first I thought I read it wrong because when I got home and turned on the metronome I was shocked by how quickly I was supposed to be playing the notes. I even called her to verify it and she confirmed that I was to play 4 notes per beat. Woah. After laughing about it for a few minutes I gave it a try. I couldn't quite get to 110, but I managed to sort of get it at 100. Oh, and I forgot the best part! After I did this slurred I was then to try it doing two notes slurred two tongued. Boy did that up the ante. While I was able to kind of get it slurred, doing it with the more complex articulation was a nearly impossible challenge. A few days later it was still pretty messy but every once in a while I was able to do it for a few beats at a time.

I also forgot to mention that in my rush to get out of the house this morning I left my Marcello music at home. DOH! But maybe it turned out for the best because we ended up just working on the C scale exercise. This time she did it with me a bit and then left me alone and I think this had a HUGE effect in calming my nerves. Normally I do a LOT of nervous talking in my lessons but today I did almost none. I basically played the entire hour! Another thing which prevented the chatter was that she had the metronome set at 110 and would give me a count of 4 for me to pull myself together and take a good breath and then I had to just start playing. It was weird at first and I fought the urge to talk or otherwise waste time, but then I realized how much more productive I was. In short, this was probably my best lesson ever! I ended up playing something I thought impossible just a few days ago. By the end of the session even the "articulated" version of the exercise sounded decently good. I couldn't believe I was playing that. And it sounded a lot more musical than I expected. Maybe the reed she gave me helped. Gosh, it's so nice to have a good reed for a change!!

Soooo, get this. After we're done she asks me why I think she gave me that exercise. I rattle off a few things including breathing, dexterity, tonguing, etc. They were all good things but that was not why she assigned me that. She wants me to start a new piece . . . the Mozart oboe concerto!!!!!!!!! Oh. My. God. I was so flattered that she thought I was ready for this. Woah. I still can't believe it.

Does that mean I am at least a little bit uber now???

YAY!!! I am so happy and remotivated now. I just had to share this with you all.