Sunday, June 24, 2007

Lesson tomorrow

I have my first lesson in what seems like a long time tomorrow. It may end up being near Lincoln Center as my teacher has a rehearsal there in the afternoon. I don't know how I feel about rehearsing around there. I think I may be embarassed that people will hear me.

I have to bring two reeds in tomorrow. I did work on them this weekend but neither of them is very good. One of them sounds very "honky". I think my tip is too thin all around instead of being slightly thicker in the middle. The other one still has too much cane and isn't doing much. *sigh* The worst thing is that my good reed is starting to die. How sad. I have another one that suddenly started working ok, but the sound on it isn't as good as the sound of my dying reed. How I will miss you, little reed. Too bad that none of the ones I make are good enough yet.

I have been practicing scales, though admitedly not as much as I should have. I will be presenting C and F major tomorrow at the fastest tempo I can play them. The C isn't too bad except that it sounds uneven. The F is hard because I am supposed to go up to high F and I get all bent out of shape with anything higher than the high D.

For repetoire I am to play the first mvt of the Marcello and the little bit of the Mozart that I've been working on. Guess what? For some reason my slow piece of Mozart sounds better than the Marcello that I've been working on for a year now! What is that all about??? Well, I have a theory that it has to do with articulation. My rough tounging is not as much of an issue in the Mozart which calls for some staccato, whereas the Marcello requires a more liquid legato with delicate tonguing. Also I feel that the Marcello needs more dynamic variation and vibrato to make it work, whereas the Mozart tends to get by on innate charm. Let's see what the verdict will be tomorrow!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Hilda, just got back from your neck of the woods about an hour ago! I took my daughter to NYC this weekend for her graduation gift and we had a blast- among other things, were at Lincoln Center Saturday night for the Brahms and Mahler by the Philharmonic.

Good luck w/ the reeds- and have you had any response on your quest for friends to play with?
-Darlene

Hilda said...

Oh darn, I just missed meeting you then! Glad you had a fun time :-)

Thanks for the good wishes with the reeds. I have a feeling I am getting another lecture on them today haha!

Not much happening yet in terms of people to play with. Only one person responded to my ad so far. I *am* meeting with some other oboists this coming weekend which should be fun.