Catching up and Countdown to Brahms

I just realized that I had a false start last year as well, where I made a post with full intention of continuing to post regularly only to fall right off the wagon.  I really do have the best intentions.  In fact, though I rarely post these days on many days I "post" in my mind.  I draft up entire entries and even edit them a bit, but never get around to actually typing them up.  The idea of chronicalling my musical journey is still present. Other than being a mother, it's my most intense endeavor.  But unlike motherhood, where it's relatively easy to find support online or through friends, this journey in many ways has been a very lonely one.  While I know do have a wide network of local amateurs that I speak to, none of them were adult beginners as far as I know.  And then even in the realm of adult beginners I am an anomaly because while I didn't play as a kid, I listened and "analyzed" music all the time.  And then there was that whole music major I completed with no true instrumental skills at the time.  It's only know that my playing ability has finally started to catch up to my musical knowledge and ear.  And this junction brings with it many exciting possibilities.  I am poised to have another new beginning.  This oboe journey has not been a straight shoot at all.  Rather it's as though I am traveling down the road while also rotating in spirals.  At first they were tiny little loops.  I would work on one note at a time, then a scale, etc.  As I've improved I've noticed that at any one time I am only able to really handle a couple of major topics to work on. So maybe for a while I am working on intonation.  That improves a little.  Then I start working on articulation.  That improves a little.  And so forth.  Eventually I get back to intonation and start working on it again.  Seemingly from scratch since it's been a while.  But really I am starting at a further point ahead because all the skills have built up on each other and I am better than where I was when I last worked on it.

Right now I feel like I am poised to make a leap into "advanced" student territory.  I have a grasp of all the basic techniques.  I can sight read soooooooooooo much better than when I started.  I am starting to be able to play with some nuance and expression and to actually have control of what I am trying to do even if my ability to create my own concepts is still relatively fresh.  But other than for really fast passages there aren't things that I can't physically play now.  I may not play it perfectly well at first.  But with practice I can fake my way through a lot.  Even though I know it will take 1000x more effort than any of my previous rotations/transitions I am excited about all this is heading.  My baseline is finally decent so now I can FINALLY really start to lean to play MUSIC.

Things I hope to work on in the coming months:
- Finding consistent time to practice every day.  I want to work on my technique building exercises early during the day.  Long tones, scales, etudes, etc.  And then I'd like to add a second practice session at night for my repertoire.
- Articulation - this is probably my weakest area as it's what I've paid the least attention to all along.  I need to clean that up because the music I'm playing now requires more distinct articulation to really convey the composers' ideas.
- Scales and arpeggios - this is another area I've been lazy with.  I've always preferred to work on the slow, beautiful lines and the challenges they present.  But I don't want to get caught being unable to play fast passages.  I'm especially sloppy with arpeggios.  Good thing I don't play clarinet.  It's fun to hear them whipping those out behind me, but they scare me to death!
- Dynamic range - this one is tied to an overall reed issue that I am facing.  I'm getting to where having a one-size-fits-all reed is no longer serving me well enough.  I need to be able to play on harder reeds for when I need to project more, or reeds that allow for better low notes, etc.  This will require me to work on either reed making or reed adjustment with someone and will be a long-term process.  All I know now is that the reeds I've grown accustomed to playing on are usually NOT adequate to play extreme dynamics and this is limiting my expression.  The good news is that I think I found the perfect person for this.  For many years one of my teachers had been supplying me with nice soft reeds.  These worked well until she moved and then they stopped working for me altogether.  My next teacher would then adjust reeds for me and sometimes also give me some.  This also worked for a while until we both started having kids and got too busy to meet regularly.  My current teacher is great but I can't afford to waste my lesson money and time with her on reeds so she's had me purchasing them from a certain supplier.  These work well and are easy and stable to play, but I just feel like I need a little more for special occasions.  Turns out I met someone last year through the local wind ensemble world (Oh, I forgot to mention I'm playing second oboe in a symphonic wind ensemble now too!!).  She's an amazing player and someone who actually enjoys making reeds.  On one occasion she adjusted some of mine and they were great.  But more importantly she gifted me an English Horn reed that basically changed my life.  She passed it along as a dud and told me to "see what I could get" out of it.  Let's not forget that EH was my first love, yet for as long as I've owned my EH I have not been able to get it to speak freely at all.  Enter her reed.  I brought that baby home and played and it was like the heavens opened up, with a choir of angels singing and everything.  All of a sudden all of the resistance was gone from the instrument and I was left with a beautiful, rich tone that was easy to produce.  And in tune!!!  I couldn't believe it.  Needless to say it made all the difference between me struggling through Karelia suite and actually being able to play it in December.  So I definitely need to find a way for our schedules to mesh and to see what I can bribe her with so that she can spend some time with me on my reeds.

Boy did I digress . . .

I started the post with the intention of writing about how excited I am to be playing Brahms at orchestra tomorrow.  I had previously read through parts of the 3rd and 4th symphony with my other group, but it was somewhat disappointing because the music was simply over our heads.  Now I get to work through an entire symphony and polish it for performance.  We are working on No. 2 and I couldn't be happier.  It was actually the only one I was not familiar with and now that I have listened to it a few times I am not disappointed.  The first movement was intimidating at first but then I heard a familiar melody in it and that helped me feel more at home.  2nd and 3rd mvts are oboe heaven.  It is very busy for me and demanding in a way that is not impossible, but a welcome challenge.  The issue with the 2nd mvt is the rhythm.  He sure does love to blur meter and then there is my whole string of solos that start on an upbeat.  Fun time.  3rd mvt is loads of fun.  I just need to find my courage to really be present since my line is so prominent throughout.  I may have mentioned this before that when I listented to my recording of playing from December, I didn't hate my playing (woohoo), but I did feel that it lacked umph.  Partly it was reed related, but partly it was also me being shy and not wanting to come to the fore.  I must leave that behind for Brahms 2 to work.

We are working on mvt 1 tomorrow and I am literally dancing in my seat and very distracted at work already.  Usually this feeling doesn't set in until Wednesday afternoon.  Haha!  I love my oboe.  I love my orchestra.  I love Brahms.  Long live music.  And thanks to God and every fiber of the universe that willed this all to happen in my life.  I may have found my calling way too late in life to even have a chance to make a living out of it, but darn it, I intend to enjoy every minute of my playing!

11 years!!

Yesterday was the 11th year anniversary of the first time I ever played oboe.  Though my total playing time is less than that because I basically took 4 years off during the whole baby stage, that day is always special to me as it was the beginning of the rest of my life.

I will never forget how humbly I approached the instrument and how very low my expectations were.  It seemed like such a daunting task that I thought I would never get out of my basement and would be playing along with music minus one CDs for at least two decades.  I wonder how 2004 me would have reacted if I could go back and tell her that within the same week I'd play in three different orchestras, a wind ensemble, AND a woodwind quintet?  I think she would have never believe it.  Hopefully she would take my advice to get the embouchure right from the get go.

I just wrote a super long email to my teacher recapping my two concerts from this past weekend.  Since I keep wanting to come back to chronicling my journey on here I figured I can just paste it as a post:

Sooooo I made it through my crazy musical weekend mostly unscathed.  For MV saving myself and only playing out during my exposed parts at the pre-concert rehearsal worked.  I didn't tire my embouchure for the concert itself like I did back in May.  We played at the chapel instead of the castle as we usually do.  The chapel has strange acoustics.  The sound disappears out in front of you and you can't hear the strings at all.  Our wind sounds felt dead and didn't seem to resonant, but there was a piece with singers in it and they sounded great.  

Anyway so the Moldau went fine, without any hiccups.  Though I think that now that there are two second oboes they ate me up.  In general when hearing back the crappy phone recording my brother made my oboe playing sounded tentative the entire time.  I didn't make mistakes with the notes but my sound was somewhat "anemic". 

Karelia went ok!!  I managed to play those A's and B's in the second movement quietly and in tune.  In the section that follows where I play with clarinet the second oboists were again a bit loud so it didn't really have the ephemeral quality I was going after.  

My solo that starts with that long G was fair.  My initial attack on the G was too forceful and a bit late but then the rest of the long G grew well.  The long pretty section after that where I am with the strings went well.  When I put my oboe down and went to pick up the English Horn the horn caught the string of my swab, which I had stupidly hung from the stand.  I tried to get it to come out but it was tangled inside whatever the lowest key is.  I had a second to decide what to do and I decided to just try to play it because I was pretty sure that key never gets activated and I needed to start.  Thankfully it didn't affect anything but the look on the first flutists' face was pretty priceless haha.  Anyway, the solo, for what it's worth, was well received as it resulted in some applause in between movements haha.

1812 was mostly fine too.  The piangento solo in the beginning came out better in rehearsal a couple of weeks ago when I had a better reed, and when the ornaments came out clean.  The folk song duet with flute (which I played on oboe after having transposed it by hand) came out ok.  Sometimes I had trouble transitioning into it but was able to come in with the flute.

SO overall the concert went better for me than last time so I am not dwelling on negativity but that being said I am already creating a list of the things that I need to work on next.  Top on my list is that I really want to develop a true spectrum of dynamic range, instead of just mp to mf.  Vibrato and a more robust tone are next on the list.  

Wind ensemble concert was mostly really fun.  The audience was loud and appreciative, which is a nice change of pace from the typical staid Classical concerts. Again, I think I played kind of shyly and was barely audible.   Wind ensemble has exposed my technical deficits.  There are many things I have not been spending enough time on and I can get by w/o them in orchestra for the most part, but not at wind ensemble.  So I need to make more time for scale studies, especially in keys with a lot of flats and chromatic.  I also need to work on cleaning up arpeggios and on articulation.  

Three times the fun

Talk about serendipity.  I had been struggling with some drama in my first orchestra and it finally came to head this past Saturday.  As expected, the ensuing feelings were awful.  I cared less about the accusations, which I knew not to take seriously, but about the way that what had been a sacred space for me now felt sullied.  I wasn't unmotivated about the entire musical endeavor, but did feel as though I was mourning the loss of something.

With those emotions weighing on me, I started getting ready for my teacher's mini studio recital on Sunday.  As I'm about to leave the house I see an email from an orchestra I've been interested in for a few months.  One of the first violinists at my college based orchestra told me about them and I attended their concert late last year.  With many pro-level players in the group, they seemed like the real deal.  Shostakovich 5 was handled quite well by them.  Anyway, they seemed to be having some trouble with their second oboe spot.  Now that I've been more involved with community orchestras and other oboists I think I can understand why.  When I first started playing in orchestras I kept wondering why good oboists would come to visit once and then never return.  For a while I worried it was something about me.  Why wouldn't someone want to stay somewhere where they could play first on pretty good works?  Well, the thing is that as you improve and get to a level where the notes themselves aren't as much of a struggle, you want to be with other musicians who are on a similar level, working on expression.  So I think they balked when they saw how our rehearsals would sometimes turn into string sectionals.  Given our proximity to NYC there are a lot of very good amateurs out there and not enough orchestras for them to play in.  Once they are at that high level they prefer to be first chair and so even the more decent groups can't always find a stable second chair.  No worries, ye orchestras.  Enter moi.  While I have improved tremendously since returning to lessons in 2012, I know that I still have much to learn.  And I have to qualms playing second in a good group where I can pick up tips for a good, conscientious first.

With that all in mind, I printed out about 30 pages of music last night in preparation for our first rehearsal on Sunday.  They will meet a handful of times in February and the concert will be on 28th.  That's lightning speed.  My first orchestra works on the same repertoire for months.  My second group meets 12 times before the concert and that seemed liked a bit step above.  Now the stakes will be even higher.  Am thankful to not be exposed as first.  I am definitely not ready to play first in a group like this and am in fact a little terrified about being able to keep up on second.  But I intend to work really hard and fake it 'till I make it.

Here is the repertoire:
Debussy - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (Will not mention to them that I dabble in EH because there is an exposed solo there which I don't think I have enough dexterity for yet.  Am excited the second plays for a bit in the beautiful opening line.  But terrified about some rhythmic craziness in the middle of the piece.)
Dvorak - Violin Concerto.  Sorry, stringsters, haven't ever heard this piece.  Am hoping it's straightforward, but doubt it will be.
Elgar - Enigma Variations.  As in, the entire work.  Woah.  I was familiar with Nos 8 & 9 from Orch1.  But I had no idea how long this piece is.  I listened to it last night and here were more or less my first impressions on the variations:

Theme:  Ok this is beautiful lush string music.
I (C.A.E.):  Woohoo, great oboe duet action.  I need to find a way to play exactly like the first.  *gulp*
II (H.D.S.P.):  Oh wow, that's pretty fast.  Good thing the second only plays a little bit.
III (R.B.T.):  Break time for Oboe 2.  Fun listening to the bassoon.
IV (W.M.B.):   Holy moly, wake up now!  Baroquey exposed oboe duet warning.
V (R.P.A.):  Back to lovely low strings in the beginning.  Hmm and then come mildly terrifying oboe parts that I should be able to handle as long as it's not too fast.
VI (Ysobel):  Cool viola moments.  And a nice mostly stepwise line that I can handle.  I'm even alone for a bit.  Thumbs up.
VII (Troyte):  WTH.  I think my metronome broke.  Very fast and the percussion is scaring me haha.
VIII (W.N.):  Played this before.  Good to go.
IX (Nimrod):  Good old, Nimrod.  As long as they don't play it Bernstein-esque slow I should be just fine.
X (Dorabella): Don't lose focus and you'll be alright.
XI (G.R.S.):  I like the energy here.  Oh look, a low B-flat.  How sweet of you to test my instrument mechanism.
XII (B.G.N.):  Ahhh, cello.
XIII (***):  The calm before the storm.
XIV (E.D.U.):  Very cool to hear how some ideas are brought back in.

Overall, I like this selection of music.  It's outside my comfort zone which means it will definitely help me grow.  Wish me luck impressing this group.  This is the type of place you can make a permanent home.

Catching Up

I feel that before I can start writing on here regularly again, I need to catch up on what's been going on since my last few postings.

I'm coming up on nearly 2 years of working with my new teacher.  In that time we've attempted to meet biweekly with some regularity.  Some months we only met once.  I wish we could meet every week but I typically don't have enough practice time in between to justify that, plus it would quickly become too expensive.  We rarely ever do anything reed related, as I've wanted to take advantage of my time with her to do only music.  Also, she found me a good reed maker during last year's cold, dry winter and I've been using those reeds since.  They have been stable in tone and intonation and I can typically just play them out of the box.  Last year I did meet two other teachers who love teaching reed making and adjustment, so am thinking of seeing one of them a few times this Spring so that I can learn how to make minor adjustments to the reeds I'm buying.  I still don't have the time or money to devote to making them from scratch on my own, though I do hope that somewhere down the line when my girls are older I can do that.  I do find that not knowing anything about reed adjustment is becoming a liability, which is why I want to address that in the coming year.

Anyway, so the past 2 years we have indeed spent a LOT of time on reworking my embouchure and I am proud to say that I think it was FINALLY matured.  One of these days I will try to get a picture of what it looks like now.  I have some comparison shots of when I was doing it wrong.

Because my embouchure improved, as did my breathing concept (where the air is coming from and being more aware of the column of air and the pressure it needs), my tone improved a lot over the past two years.  The flutist from my quintet remarked that it is close to the pro quality I always wanted.  And when I sat in at a rehearsal orchestra in NYC I had a different flutist also remark on my sound.  She was amazed at the sound I was producing as a late & relateively recent starting adult.  She later went on to comment that my speaking voice is very resonant as well and that is likely why my tone is beautiful.  I was on cloud nine!!  All I ever wanted when I started this oboe journey in 2004 was to some day produce a beautiful sound.  I don't think I am doing it consistently yet, but when I get all the pieces together there are some magical moments.  And thankfully these are becoming more frequent rather than ultra rare.  Though I technically reached my goal, I know I am just scratching the surface.  Now I get to think about a whole new world of EXPRESSION, which has just opened up to me.

The other compliment I got recently was from my teacher.  She tends to be tough and her philosophy is NOT to shower with a lot of praise.  But a couple of lessons ago she remarked that I was sounding the best she had heard me sound and asked whether I felt I was playing at my best yet, to which I answered a resounding YES!  She then told me I should think about going to Summertrios.  In prior years she had basically said to not waste my money going to summer chamber things because I wouldn't really be able to get the most out of it yet.  But now she thinks I am ready.  That was yet another compliment!

She thinks that part of my improvement has been joining that second orchestra.  Ahh, yes, yours truly is now not only in one, but two, orchestras.  My second orchestra is a community orchestra associated with a local college.  So it's made of up their music majors, some high performing students from a local boarding school, and serious community amateurs.  It was definitely a step up from where I had been.  I heard about them through a clarinetist I met while attempting to fill in at an opera orchestra in NYC.  I bailed from there because I felt it too much of a challenge for me, but did make that one connection.  He let me know that this second orchestra had lost their oboists, an older married couple that had moved away from the area.  So in the Fall of 2013 I contacted the conductor and he told me they were playing Beethoven 7.  I went to a couple of rehearsals but then chickened out.  But come Spring 2014, I contacted him again.  I told him I was ok with playing second and that he could get a ringer for first.  He replied by saying that I wasn't giving myself credit and that I had a lot of musicality.  They were playing Schubert 8, a Mendelssohn overture, and one movement of a Mozart piano concerto.  My first orchestra had attempted Schubert 8 for a few weeks so I was familiar with the first movement and quite loved it.  When time came for me to go to rehearsal I found myself to be the only oboist there.  I started on second, but quickly realized that didn't make much sense as many essential lines were missing, so then I moved over to the first chair and the rest is history.  On May 2014 we had a very successful performance.  I will never forget what it felt like to truly MAKE that music.  In this group I couldn't hide and had to play everything as expected.  It was really nervewracking but ultimately very satisfying.  For the Fall concert we played Mendelssohn 5.  This was the piece that my teacher believes led to my marked improvements the second half of the year.  I guess it may have to do with the way the first oboe lines in it has a lot of big intervals and long, held high notes.  I really had to learn to use all my tools in order to get my sound and pitch in the right pocket.

Did I mention at any point that I acquired an English Horn?  I may have.  I bought an old (my age probably) Chauvet from an oboist I met through our quintet's bassoonist.  It was a good deal, even with me having to shell out another $1500 to have Mr. Teitelbaum (from Laubin) overhaul it.  So for both orchestras' Spring concert I will get to play EH as well.

Second Orchestra (MV) is tackling Dvorak 8.  Sure, it's only a 2.5 measure solo, but it's as exposed as can get.
First Orchestra (NWSO) is doing Prelude & Liebstod from Tristan and I get to play EH on it.  What a thrill to be a part of the Tristan chord!!  I've got a really funky line that keeps (not) "resolving" down but then resolves up chromatically at the very end.  It's amazing!  I am also playing EH on Debussy La Mer, third mvt.  Am playing second on Mozart 40 (long story).  Will be playing first on Beethoven Leonore 3 and also on the Faure Pavane.  The latter is one of those few pieces I became familiar with when I first started playing oboe and was always a "dream" piece of something I wanted to play.  Since then, I have many more dream pieces but it will definitely be a treat to finally play that along with one of my new clarinet friends.

Ok so we're almost caught up.  Tomorrow I have an oboe lesson in preparation for a studio recital on Sunday.  This will be my first studio recital ever.  Unfortunately, most of her more serious students will be unable to make it due to school and sport obligations.  So it will be more like an "oboe day" than a recital.  In a way that's better because I'll be less nervous.  Her other adult amateur and I will be playing a Barrett duet together (I forget which one, it's in G minor).  I've been practicing both the top and bottom line as I'm not sure who is playing what yet.  We will also be reading through music, including trios where I'll get to play EH.  YAY!

At some point this week I should write about the IDRS conference I attended last Summer.

Back to work.

Dusting this baby off

With my youngest daughter being months away from attending school full-time, my long dormant creative side is reawakening.  And I think I want to chronicle the continuation of my journey.  I feel strongly that all the thinking and writing I did in my early years of taking up the oboe helped with my overall growth in it.  At the very least it served as an outlet for my obsession.  I'm once again finding myself spending inordinate amounts of time thinking about or listening to music.  Sometimes even daydreaming about orchestra or rehashing a rehearsal in my head.  No one wants to hear my incessant oboe related chatter, so it might serve me well to jot things down here.  Maybe someone out there might make some connection or simply enjoy reading it.  

New teacher to deal with old problems

So I got in touch with a new teacher.  I guess the oboe world is very small though.  She worked very closely with my first serious teacher at the same school.  I am not at a point where I can take weekly lessons, but am hoping to see her about every third week for now.  Eventually maybe biweekly (when we pay off some debt and both girls are in school all day).

I was ultra nervous leading into it.  The idea of having to play by myself for someone who I know is an amazing player was super scary.  What will she think?  Will she regret taking me on?  But she has a very calming demeanor and I was able to get into the lesson right away.

To start she had just play from the Sellner exercise book without articulations, all legato just to get my sound to resonate.  It was a good way to get rid of the remaining nerves and warm up.  Then we talked about many different things and played a bit more.  The main theme was that I need to be in touch with my air source at all times.  Definitely something I'd heard before since it tends to be a problem area for me.  Typically I'd worry so much about the notes on the page that I'd forget many other things.  But my reading has much improved since the last time I had formal lessons so I decided to let the notes just come and focus on the actual air and sound.  It definitely made a huge difference. 

The other main topic was embouchure.  I knew going in that something was wrong with mine.  Some recent pictures of me playing confirmed that my mouth was wrong, but I couldn't quite figure it out on my own.  That's why I wanted to see a new teacher.  Because then we wouldn't get distracted by friendly banter or pieces we were working on.  She could first diagnose the problem first before going on to other topics. 

She turned out to be a great embouchure doctor.  She watched me intently and had me try several things before delivering the diagnosis.  I am basically reinventing the wheel every time I put the reed back in my mouth.  That makes it nerve wracking every time I have to start playing.  Plus there is no guarantee that the embouchure I happen to form is any good.  I needed a method.  She went over how she lets her reed rest on the bottom lip and then forms the embouchure around that with the upper lips and corners.  I was also letting my upper lip come out some and doing something strange with my bite.  I need to keep the bite even and not chomp down.  To think round.  When I do it correctly, the sound becomes more focused, less buzzy, and overall more beautiful.  She was actually surprised by how decent a sound I was getting with my bad embouchure but the correct one is a VAST improvement!!  So I need to start working it in little by little.  She stressed to not go crazy trying to change it overnight.  I need to work up my endurance slowly.  She's confident I will be able to do it eventually.

Oh, and I need to start working on a Handel piece from the Oboe Solo book.  Need to look that up.

Sorry this is poorly written.  Just want to get my trhoughts down because it's been a while!  Am still here tooting along.

Oh last thing, so another adult student went in after me and he invited me to play in his orchestra in Queens.  What to do???  I am tempted to go and see what it would be like to be in a real "section" .  But their rehearsals are on the same night as ours.  I could do it over the summer when ours move to another day, but then how about if I like the other one and want to stay on both??   #firstworldproblems

Vignette

So our conductor is interviewing orchestra members about their experience in the group and/or music in general.  I am kind of freaking out about my interview, well, because I hate interviews.  I started writing out my entire musical history and will cut and paste it below, but don't plan on using it tonight.  It's much too wordy.  I just want to get across that it's absolute magic to finally be playing the music I've loved (but felt not "good enough" for) all my life. 

Here is my unedited story:

My earliest memory regarding Classical music was from when I was 4 years old.  They had a TV ad for a set of cassettes called “120 Classical Masterpieces”.  Every time the ad came on I remember screaming excitedly in my living room and dancing around to the music.  I told my parents that I wanted to play piano but they replied that there was no money for piano lessons and even less room in our tiny NYC apartment for a piano.  They did get me the cassettes as a consolation prize.  I continued to not have access to musical instruction through high school.  In my second semester of sophomore year at college I registered for the required music history course and that’s when I finally realized I could not go on living without music.  I was finally learning the language for all those things I had been listening to all along.  It turned out that I had favorite chord progressions and keys that I found more pleasing than others.  Learning about all the different composers, their works, and the names of the musical concepts felt like I was being initiated into a secret society.  It was as though I had been living in black and white and suddenly the colors had come in.  I couldn’t get enough of it and switched my major to Music.  As much as I enjoyed learning about theory and history, I still felt as though I had no access to performance.  The preprofessionals in the program were intimidating, with all their talk of 8 hour practice sessions and their having started on their instruments in the womb.  So it wasn’t until after I graduated that I finally decided to pick up an instrument.  But I didn’t pick an orchestral instrument, still feeling not quite worthy of them and feeling that I was “too old” to start at 22.  Instead I went on to study the saxophone and played in merengue bands for several years.

Then one day in 2004 my husband and I happened to walk into the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the Brooklyn Philharmonic happened to be rehearsing there for an evening concert.  We were free to stand wherever we wanted so rather than sit in front of the orchestra as an audience member I decided to go around and behind them so that I could watch the conductor and feel what it’s like to be in the orchestra.  It was a surreal feeling.  As the music soared and filled that sacred space I felt that it filled all of me as well.  I realized at that moment that I couldn’t die without ever having the opportunity to make that kind of music myself.  I figured that even if it took me 20 years to get decent at an instrument, that I’d still be only 50 and would have plenty of time to enjoy playing it with others.  Due to the dearth of saxophone parts in the Classical repertoire, I was prepared to switch to another woodwind instrument.  My merengue friends all suggested the clarinet, since the fingerings and embouchure were most similar to the saxophone.  I went as far as purchasing a student instrument and even taking a few lessons, but I was terrible at keeping my fingers on the right place and produced only squeaks.  One day I turned on the radio just as a new piece was starting up.  Within seconds I heard the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life!  I was transfixed by it for the entire duration of the piece.  It turned out to be “Swan of Tuonela” by Sibelius.  I immediately ran online to find out more about it and that’s when I discovered the English Horn.  To be honest, I had never heard of it before and was barely familiar even with the oboe.  Yet on that day I resolved that it would be oboe that I would study (so that I could later double on the English Horn).  And so my lifelong quest to master the oboe began.  It’s been a wonderful journey so far.  I have learned so much about myself and have grown so much.  I’ve learned about discipline, patience, perseverance.  I’ve learned about beauty and awe. 

I think it’s very ironic that I ended up playing an instrument that is often exposed over the orchestra, given my history of feeling shut out from the Classical world.  And then even after I started studying music my ear lent itself much more easily to harmony than melody.  So it’s doubly strange that I picked an instrument known for its lovely lyrical melodic lines.  But now I’ve come to realize it’s actually the perfect choice.  Through my instrument, I finally have the opportunity to express all the things I had been feeling from a very young age.  I look forward to continuing to grow as a player and as a member of this wonderful orchestra.  For me it’s truly a dream come true to finally be making the music I have always loved and an added bonus to be doing so with an amazing and welcoming group of people.  I feel so blessed.

Weightless

So for the second week in a row at rehearsal, I've experienced a most unusual phenomenon.  Last week it happened while playing Copland's "Little Horses".  There is a little section of about 8 bars that is much faster than the previous material and then becomes highly syncopated.  For some reason I GOT it.  And I was pretty exposed over the orchestra and that didn't weird me out.  I even nailed measure 17.  I couldn't quite explain what happened.  I am not the best reader but for some reason the rhythms clicked and I was able to finger the correct notes all at the same time.

Today I had the same experience again.  And again it happened out of the blue and caught me by surprise.  It was while playing Beethoven's 9th/4th mvt.  At the allegro assai I have a little part marked dolce then 9 bars later I had written in "solo" last week.  I didn't get a chance to go over this piece like I had wanted since I was focused more on my budding EH repertoire.  I maybe got a chance to listen to it once on youtube.  But pretty much I was approaching it only a bit less cold than last week.  Then the magical thing happened.  My fairy godmother appeared.  Or was it Professor X to activate some mutant power?  Usually when I am playing, some major aspect of musicality is weighing me down.  Maybe I'm breaking the line, or I ran out of breath, I'm out of tune, or my articulation is sloppy.  Sometimes I am struggling just to hit the right notes.  As I'm playing I'm usually focusing on one of these things and a lot of times one of the other areas is weak.  Lately I've been trying to cut the noise in my head and think just air and hope that by practicing, the other stuff becomes more natural.  Anyway, so somehow tonight I was weightless.  I started the allegro assai with some other instruments and then was left somewhat exposed 4 bars before my marked solo.  My solo starts on high A, a note which I can make ring nicely, and I had a rest before it so it gave me time to breeeeeathe.  I started playing and I realized I was alone and projecting well over the rest of the orchestra.  The half notes became quarters and then I was playing several measures of 8th notes AND crescendoing at the same time.  Rather than dropping a plate or two, I was able to keep maneuvering through the passage.  My tone didn't seem to be coming from me.  It sounded, dare I say it, gorgeous.  I wasn't glancing at my tuner because I could tell that the intonation was fine.  I was keeping a nice legato line and had some decent vibrato in there.  Though I had a lot of notes most of it was scaley in nature and it was in D major, a friendly key to play in.  I somehow worked my way to a nice high D climax and then other folks came in and eventually the conductor stopped us.  And when he did, suddenly most of the orchesta erupted into cries of "Brava" and it took me a few moments to realize that it was me they were chanting it to.  What had just happened?  How had I managed to drop all of the usual weight I carry and experience a few seconds of magic?  It was so wonderful and beautiful.  I was so excited about sounding good.  About doing the instrument and the music justice for a change.  WOW!  It really felt like an out of body experience.

But I guess it really was no fluke.  I think over an over again I am proving to myself that practicing is the key.  There is no way around it.  That is a positive realization though.  Because it means that it's not impossible for me to play how I want to play.  If I was able to do it for 12+ measures of (nearly solo) Beethoven, then I have what it takes.  I just need to put in the time and dedication and love.  Then maybe the fairy godmother of weightless superpowers will visit me more often. 

Tomorrow is Wednesday . . . YAY

Wednesday is quickly becoming one of my favorite days of the week because I get to go to orchestra rehearsal.  I know we're not wonderful yet, but it's really so gratifying to play this music.  It's somewhat annoying that a lot of purists feel that amateurs shouldn't even touch this stuff.  As though we're just not worthy of it.  I don't see why we don't have the right to try at least.  Even if it would take us our entire lives to truly perfect any of it.

I mention this because someone who is a professional made a comment about how they wouldn't play in our orchestra as a ringer because then it would ruin their experience of the particular pieces we're working on.  OUCH!  I mean, on the one hand I do understand.  She's actually good and it must be mortifying to have to deal with entire sections struggling with certain passages.  But isn't it possible that a good player like that could maybe lift up her peers and encourage them to make better music?  Wouldn't that be gratifying too?  I guess not as much as playing it how it's intended.

Anyway, moot point for me at this point.  If this is as far as I get, I will be more than happy.  If I eventually improve to move on to other ensembles, then that would be welcome too.

Things got a little busy so my practice sessions have been more repertoire review than true practice.  Hoping to work on that after tomorrow since I might be meeting with my teacher next Tuesday.  Quiet City has definitely improved.  I am still having trouble reaching the C# and my high B's and B-flat's feel somewhat stuffy and weak.  But I can play it through well enough for tomorrow.  *gulp*  I can't believe I am going to play EH in front of others in less than a day.

We're working on Beethoven's 9th again tomorrow.  I am starting to agree with everyone else that it's way out of our reach still.  But it was the group that voted for it.  Maybe folks just voted out of popularity.  Am hoping it gets bumped so that the Brahms could replace it.  Still not rehearsing Schubert.   Working on Mendelssohn No. 4/3rd mvt, Ravel's mother goose suite 1,2, and Mahler's Kindertotenlieder No.1.  So I'll be busy tomorrow :-)

Good air

I have a new mantra now as I'm playing:  Good air, good air, good air . . .

I sort of came up with this revelation on my own and then it has been more than substantiated through all the books and websites I've been reading and my past lessons.  Before I never understood why the oboe was always likened to the human voice and all this talk about singing through your instrument.  Finally I understand that the air really is everything.  It's the entire reason why any sound comes out of the darn instrument.  I was always blowing wimpy air into it before, being so preoccupied with everything else:  notes, fingering, intonation, etc.  Yet, a lot of those problems were being created by poor air support.  Or at least were being made worse.  I've completed my first week back at practicing every day and the main focus all those day was improving my support.  Second main focus was regaining my embouchure and endurance. 

Today was my first rehearsal of the new year and it went quite a lot better than previous rehearsals.  I had the chops to last until the end of the rehearsal w/o fatigue.  My intonation was better.  I projected better.  I think my sound was better overall.  I even read well!  We practice Copland's "Little Horses" and there was this funky syncopated part where I was pretty exposed but I actually was pretty close to nailing it.  So proud!!  We also revisited Mahler's Kindertotenlieder No.1, which I really love for the beautiful sad melodies.  As a whole the group sounded better on it and I think I am slightly more expressive than before.  I really want to do it justice.  I tried not to worry so much about technique and to focus on the air and line and I think this created a better performance from me.

I'm so elated right now.  It's always such a high to play in the orchestra but today I think I really pulled my weight.  I owe it all to regular practice.  Boy, what a difference it makes.  The only downside to this is going to be that my reeds will not last as long.  *gulp*  Ka-ching!

Honey, I'm hooooome!

Holy moly. Did three years really pass since my last update? I can't even believe it.

As you can imagine, I've been busy. You know, with those new little people in the house? I ended up with two terrible sleepers in a row so was under the spell of pretty severe sleep deprivation for years. That didn't help me at all moodwise. I was already grappling with the loss of my dream career and much of my identity. So now looking back most of that time seems like a dark blur. I didn't start to emerge from that until I started working out last Spring (April 2011). A local friend dragged me to a boxing gym and I was immediately hooked. I had done martial arts before and had a great time and made some great friends. But that had been 21 years and 70 lbs ago. Plus I had become so out of shape that I would get winded going up one flight of stairs at home. Despite the odds, I kept going at it. As the pounds came off (33 down so far), so did a lot of the negativity. I felt the best I had in years. Happier, stronger, more confident. It was a good thing that I was feeling like that because this Spring I got a surprising and unpleasant diagnosis. I have an autoimmune disorder that's affecting my liver. Once again I was sucked into a depressive vortex for several weeks. One night I cried out to God to carry this new burden for me because I just couldn't take it. Suddently I realized that I had to just keep living. It was the only option. My condition may make me very ill in a matter of years or decades or never. So what was the use of me worrying about it constantly. So I picked myself back up and continued plodding along. I got more serious about what was going into my body in order to try to reduce overall inflammation. I became very busy with the kindergarten application process for my oldest. We got accepted into an outreach program that places minority students into area independent schools. It was like applying to med school all over again! And the Fall was once again the busiest time of the year at work. Had a lot of projects and so far they've gone quite well.

So where does that leave the music? I never did stop playing, though I wasn't practicing regularly, or much at all, anymore. My quintet keeps meeting. Usually every other Sunday at our horn player's home, which is just one mile down the road from me. Our cellist has been ill so we have welcomed a bassonist. She is an amazing player who has inspired me to get better. And it's been fun to listen to the change in color with the typical instrumentation. But we do still welcome our original make up whenever our dear cellist can make it. It's really a very special group of people that I feel *SO* fortunate to be a part of. Some times I just can't belive that they took me in. I'm just a little schmuck compared to all of them.

Speaking of taking me in . . . I joined this other group a few months ago. An ORCHESTRA!! As in a big group of people that plays symphonies!! *swoon* So it's a friendly local amateur orchestra. Basically perfect for me. They actually take anyone, no audition needed. I was afraid of how they would sound, but it is actually much better than the other amateur orchestra that I had been in briefly before I had Alanis. And in the past few months the ranks have grown and everyone has been working hard to better themselves and it's sounding much better. I've already had the opportunity to play some of my favorite symphonic movements: the first from Mozart's 40th and from Beethoven's 7th. For 2013 we have some more in store including the first movement of Schubert's 8th. I am in LOVE with that right now. My melodies are absolutely gorgeous. They sit well on the instrument and I think I can get them to sing how I want. And I get that beautiful little resolution at the end of it. Can NOT wait to play it at rehearsal!!! Though I'll have to resist the urge to sing "This is, the symphony, that Schubert wrote, but never finished" during that second theme.

Then there's this other little piece that they've got programmed for Feburary: Copland's "Quiet City". Can you say "English Horn"?? Remember, the whole reason that I started playing oboe in the first place?? So my long time dream is finally coming true. I'm so giddy!! I've rented an English Horn (with the option to buy, I just need Toyin to check it out for me). I spent my entire practice session on the piece yesterday and it went better than I expected given that I had really only played EH twice in my life before that. The intonation issues are different on EH so far. It seems to just be more consistently flat in the upper register but can be easily fixed with better air. The finger positions are taking some getting used to. My right hand in particular is feeling cramped because my crazy double jointed thumb is all out of whack. So I've been feeling some strain on that right forearm. Need to figure out how to make that work better. Also am having a very difficult time reaching the C# key. There are two spots in the piece where it becomes an issue so it's something I definitely need to address pronto. In general it feel really nice to play the EH. Some of the notes sound so luscious even on this older horn and with little old me playing. And some of the notes in the middle sing really beautifully as well. It's really quite a joy. And because I've been having to blow a lot more air (and better supported) for it, my oboe sound is starting to improve again. Double win!!

So today was my third day in a row practicing for the first time since uhhhh 2008 or something. Can't even remember. All I know is that I'm ignited again and I want to get better!! My last push was to go from elementary to intermediate. Now I want to go from intermediate to advanced. Am going to keep doing my daily sessions (though shorter than before probably) and hopefully meet with my teacher at least monthly. Was looking online for some kind of practice log community but didn't find anything. That's when I remembered my little ol' blog. Am going to try to be accountable on here. Plus I am soooo excited about the prospect of playing wonderful music with a lot of other people, that I just have to share it! Hoping my readers come back eventually :-)

Need new goals

Despite my lazy tendencies, I am still type-A at heart, and so I'm going crazy living with no goals right now. All of my adult life the idea of going back to school to became a physician was at least in the back of my mind, if not at the center of it. So now that I've taken this detour I admit that I feel very lost. I need some new goals to work on.

One of the things DH and I have been discussing is whether or not to relocate. I was born and raised in New York City and the thought of being far away from it fills me with dread and fear. But fear of what, I can't quite say. It just feels "wrong" to even think of living elsewhere. Well actually over the past few days I think I'm beginning to understand these feelings more. The City represents opportunity to me. Nevermind that I rarely ever take advantage of any of the cultural or intellecual activities offered there. But I like knowing that they're there. It represents that ideal me that I could/should be. But what use is it struggling financially (and in bad weather) to be near something you don't ever see? The few other cities I've visited usually fall short in my eyes, but even the smallest of these have a fair amount of stuff for the kids to do. And since the things I am leaning towards now are family-oriented anyway, then perhaps I can be ok with the idea of moving.

Why do I even want to move? Well now that our focus is more financial I guess I feel the need to "win" at that game. Our townhouse is ok, but not great. I wish the layout were better, I wish we had a deck, and I wish the town was nicer. My friends who have moved have been able to get so much more house in other places. Having this place was certainly a factor in my NOT being able to go to school. If we could move somewhere else where we'd be just as comfortable, if not more so, with less money than that opens up the option for me to return to school someday.

Yes, I said it. School. There is no way that I will not continue to scheme going back for something. MD is still an option but as the years and kids come and go (no, I am not pregnant again . . . yet) I know that it will become less likely. I am considering other health care careers now, because I still feel pretty strongly that that's where I should be. I certainly wouldn't want to retire from this stuff. I'd prefer to be wheeled away from my patients instead.

But anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. School can NOT be one of my new goals. I just walked away from it and I NEED to devote my energies to other things. More pressing things. Things I can do something about now or in the short-term future.

For sure one of my goals is to slowly work ourselves out of the financial mess we're in. It will probably take another two months for us to pay off a lot of little things we owed here and there (including us dipping into overdraft). After that we will start focusing on those pesky credit cards. Let's just hope our old car doesn't clunk out of us before we're ready for a new car payment. Go, go Saturn!

We still need to really think about where we want to live and what's important to us. I guess that's why I keep bringing it up here in my goal post. If being able to subscribe to a concert series at the Philharmonic were critical to me, then maybe we'd have to plan to stay around here or around some other major city. But with major cities come high prices. I just spent a week with my friend who lives in a mansion in NC. At first I was a bit put off by the lack of activity near their home, but after witnessing how happy her 4 children are, playing outside and riding their bikes with no fear of crime, etc., it made me wonder. We're such homebodies now that 99% of the time we would rather stay home than do just about anything else. So if that's the case what does it matter if we're living in a suburb of NYC or Kalamazoo? I kept going on and on in my head about wanting my kids to have a feeling of belonging to something, and that's something that I feel that those outside the cities sometimes lack. To me all the "communities" we visited felt so bland and generic. But then again I have a biased and probably wrong opinion based on my own very limited experience. I guess I am just so scared about making wrong decisions in terms of raising her. I have a track record for making bad decisions, you know. I do feel that in the end none of that is what matters in terms of raising your kids. It's what you do inside the house. Or at least I want to believe that. But a part of me feels very strongly that the outside influences are vast. Many of my friends who grew up with my in the inner-city have gone very far away from that with their own children. But then I fear that I'd not be in touch with my children's experience at all because it would be so radically different. And I also fear my kids turning out like some of the people I met in college who were deathly afraid of anything different from them. UGH.

Ok, wait, I am digressing. Goals. Let's stick to goals. It's not like I can even start to think about a relocation until we're better off financially, which may take 3-4 years. And I'd prefer to have a second baby while we're still near our relatives in NY. Not that they've been anywhere near as helpful as I would have liked (a whole other blog post), but they're all we have for now.

Definitely I need to redefine some music goals. Very short term I just need to start practicing again. Once I can get back into the habit I can figure out how to get back to my lessons and what to play.

Another goal that is slowly coalescing in the recesses of my being, is that of becoming more healthy. And no, I don't just mean working out, though I definitely wish I were more active, but have some inertia issues to deal with. It would be great to do a triathlon with my husband, but that may never happen. I am really only starting to become informed about toxins in our environment, especially our food, and how that affects development. So I suspect I will definitely be boarding the organic bandwagon once I can get all my sh*t together. We are so far removed from that kind of lifestyle with all of our Dominican fried stuff that I get overwhelmed thinking of all the changes at once. But I do want to devote a significant amount of energy and probably money to this end. Just not sure how to start attacking the beast. I think that for now we are going to research getting a reverse osmosis under the sink filter.

I have a feeling this whole organic/more natural thing could turn into something bigger for me. As I may have mentioned I went to a talk at a wholistic health center and that left me wondering if perhaps my future health care career could somehow integrate that. This is yet another way motherhood has changed me, for the better. Before I couldn't even consider healthy options because I was so stuck in my ways of selt-medicating with food. But now I've become a Mama Bear and I want to make the world a safer place for the cubs.

So what does that all mean for me? Too soon to tell. We'll just have to wait and see.

Sullied

I keep wanting to steer this back to my optimistic posts about learning the oboe, but instead I feel the need to vent about completely unrelated negative feelings instead.

I thought I was done grieving over medical school, but apparently I'm not. I may no longer be in the deepest part of the ditch, but I'm still muddied. And I think that in order to clean myself off I need to deal with all these feelings instead of pushing them aside.

The other day I was going to make a post entitled "I'm a loser". That's exactly how I felt that morning, and that entire week. Driving up to work evokes feelings of disgust in me because every morning I remember my triumphant "last drive" up here. Back then the possibilities were endless. Now I'm back like a dog with its tail between its legs. What is there to look forward to in this place? Though I did what seemed to be the best thing for my family for now, some days I feel ashamed that I sold my soul for 80k.

God has blessed me with a lot of gifts. Or maybe it's just one gift that manifests itself in many ways. Let's call it "learning agility". This has allowed me to pick things up very quickly, particularly academics, but it works well with art and even physical activities too (or at least it used to). All my life I've felt compelled to learn new things and master them, but in the end I am not great at anything. I guess the gift is a double-edged sword. I think I've never learned to really work through things to get to the next level. I like things in the beginning when they're easy and once I have to put in more effort, things lose their lustre. There are many reasons why I wanted to become a physician. But I suspect one of them was that I saw in it my sole chance to finally become great at something. It was supposed to be something beautiful and noble, that would combine goals in several areas of my life. Giving that up has left a hole in me that I am not sure I'll ever be able to fill.

I'll try for sure. I'll try to focus on all those other unfinished things in my life. And I will focus on become the best Mom ever. But I know I will fail at that, because as a human we all do. No one can be perfect. But I already feel the unrest building inside. The urge to hate myself again. But this is not the model I want to set up for my beautiful daughter. I want her to be strong and self-confident. I want me to be strong and self-confident.

This weekend I felt good, and got a glimpse of a different life (sans medicine) that could perhaps still be fulfilling. I'll still be scheming my way back in the back of my head, but I intend to focus on all that I have, instead of what I have lost.

I'm going to build the life that I want. But I know that before I do that I still have to face a few more demons.

Ok, now I can get some work done.

Weekends

It's about 12:45 am and I just finished putting away the clothes that I laundered earlier. So I am officially done with all the errands for the weekend and can relax for a bit. Oh wait, it's already Monday morning. WTF!

There are many things about being a working mom that suck. One of them being that you have almost no time for yourself. I'd heard people complain about it before but never appreciated it until just now. In terms of "me" time this weekend, all I had was when I sat down to watch a 1 hour show on my DVR. And since I skipped the commercials, it wasn't even a full hour to myself. Holy moly! So now I am facing an entire new week of work and I didn't have a chance to unwind. God help me.

Saturday was a wash. I took Alanis to her little gym class then back home from nap. Then I got paid for a 30 minute survey on appliances. I was supposed to be at quintet rehearsal all that time, but I got confused with the date, and they ended up finding a flute player to sub for me. Afterwards, we went to DH's cousins' wedding. By the time we got back home it was baby's bedtime. Oh I did get to play WoW for a bit on Saturday, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Today we tried to cram in all the errands that should have happened over the two days. Did I mention that we got invited to said wedding at the last minute (after I had jam packed the weekend)? First to Home Depot to peek at window treatments. Why does everything have to be so complicated? I just need to replace the ugly ass cheap fabric vertical blinds with unsafe cords that we have. Why are there so many choices in blinds nowadays? And why did I fall in love with the expensive ones like always? So then back home for nap #1. Made my special breakfast smoothie (a knockoff of the discontinued Mango Passion fruit smoothies once offered at Dunkin Donuts). Baby woke and ate lunch then we went to Costco. BIG CROWD. Next, the regular supermarket, More people (all probably on the same frantic race that I was). Back home for more laundry. Then dishes and mop the kitchen floor. Put baby to sleep. More laundry. Plan trip to NC. Fold laundry. Relax on bed. Ahhh.

Hmm, not sure why I am breaking my blog hiatus with this babble. But I just needed to get rid of some of this manic energy.

Still on leave

Still on leave from everything . . .

The clock is ticking in terms of my seat at school. At this point it seems unlikely that I will reclaim it. There are many others more worthy vying for it. I don't think this means I will never practice medicine, though it probably does mean that I will not practice it as an MD. I'm almost done grieving that.

There is a possibility of my considering fields that my ego didn't allow me to before. This is a long term plan (5 years). For now I am trying to find a way to be home as much as possible. This may mean returning to my old corporate job for a while. *sigh*

Even the musical side of me has been sluggish to return. Thankfully, the woodwind quintet is going strong, even with the weakest link (me). We are meeting again tomorrow, three weeks since our last rehearsal. How many times did I practice in between? Twice. This is pitiful. At least the baby no longer cries when I play the oboe. I need to just push myself to do it every day, even if just for 10-15 minutes. I keep saying that, but the gears are still not back in place. Soon. Soon.

2008 Recap

Stolen from Terminal Degree's blog . . .

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

* Delivered a baby
* Was a medical student
* Did NOT work for more than half the year

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't even remember my resolutions for last year. I suppose one of them was probably get back to my pre-baby weight. And seeing that I am now 10 pounds under it (nursing in a wonderful thing), I did keep that one. The other ones probably had something to do with doing well in school and spending less, both of which I failed tremendously at. Well, it wasn't that I did that poorly in school, it's just that I quit. And let's not even go into the money situation. If there is one thing that need reform this year it's that. I do want to get healthier in 2009 by eating better and starting exercise again. I also want to practice oboe daily again.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yours truly. Several other babies were born this year too. Can you say playdates . . .

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No one I was really close to, thank God. Mom's last living uncle passed away though. As did the father of our old church choir's lead singer. Oh, and an ex-member of the choir also lost an aunt and cousin.

5. What countries did you visit?

We did not travel anywhere last year because I was in my third trimester or with newborn. I definitely want to go somewhere in 2009. I don't think I'll be brave enough to ride in a plane with the baby yet though. My hope is to drive to NC to visit my 5 friends who relocated there. Maybe seeing all 5 is unrealistic, so let's say I will visit the 2 I am actually close to.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

Money. Sleep. Energy.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

April 12-13th. When I think of having the baby I don't only think of the actual birth. I tend to relive the entire experience starting with the mild contractions the day before.

August 22. White Coat Ceremony. Will either be my indoctrination to a new profession or forever a reminder of what could have been.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Giving birth to my daughter (no one was more scared or clueless).
Nursing her in spite of MANY difficulties (").

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not being able to handle medical school under the circumstances even though I don't think anyone could have.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Some PPD

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Our Sony HD TV.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

DH. I always knew he'd be a great father and he didn't let me down. Also my brother deserves honorable mention for growing up a hell of a lot.

13. Whose behavior made you depressed?

Someone I was counting on acted apathetic and aloof, more interested in their own needs than in mine when this was an opportunity for them to finally be there for me.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Baby stuff and food for us.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Watching my baby grow. Briefly, training to become a doctor.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Pocketful of Sunshine

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?

a) happier in many ways, but sadder in some
b) thinner - YAY
c) way, way poorer - BOO

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Sleep and study. However that would have been impossible as their occurrences were inversely proportional. I also wish I had played more oboe and gone outside more when the weather was nice.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worry

20. Did you fall in love in 2008?

Deeply in love with my little baby. It's indescribable.

21. What was your favorite TV program?

Baby Story and Heroes

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Hate is a strong word. But I did meet some annoying people.

23. What was the best book you read?

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't read any books last year other than random baby stuff and school stuff. For a while all my brain could handle were magazines.

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Reicha Wind Quintets

25. What did you want and got?

We got so much baby stuff thanks to generous friends and relatives.

26. What did you want and not get?

A minivan

27. What was your favorite film of this year?

Didn't go out to the movies but saw a few flicks at home. I kinda liked Ironman.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Don't recall what I did on my 34th birthday. I think that by then the panic about school was kicking in.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Having gotten that support I wanted from the person mentioned above.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Crappy. I couldn't have cared less . . .

31. What kept you sane?

DH and WoW

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Hugh Jackman

33. What political issue stirred you the most?

The election

34. Who did you miss?

Wish my paternal grandmother would have been around to see the baby.

35. Who was the best new person you met?

Several of my classmates were really cool. But more importantly I managed to rekindle a couple of old friendships.

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

You can't be perfect. Sometimes just-good-enough is best.

4th year anniversary!!

Holy moly! How did this happen so quickly??

December 9th was the 4th anniversary of my starting to play the oboe. *applause* Because I ended up taking about a 6 month hiatus after the baby, I technically haven't been playing for 4 years. But 12/9 is an important day for me regardless. It matters less exactly how long I've been playing for and more that I found that enraptured me.

Though I am disappointed in what I have lost over the 6 months that I didn't play, I should still celebrate how far I've come since that rainy December evening when I brought home that old Selmer oboe and attempted to blow into it. I have definitely gotten down all of the basics of the instrument and was starting to make way into more intermediate/advanced territory. I am studying with an AMAZING teacher, made reeds, am exploring the repertoire, and have even managed to play with others, including in an orchestra and now in a woodwind quintet. I can take those off my music bucket list (even though it's only the beginning of my playing experiences).

I like to make my musical resolutions for the new year on my oboe anniversary. So here are some of the things I wish to work on for 2009:

* First and foremost, I have to get back to a regular practicing schedule. I suspect it will probably take another month or two to happen but the sooner the better. I need to not be super ambitious and just aim for 15 minutes a day to start with.
* Revisit scales. My fingers are completely clumsy these days. I want to work on ALL the scales again (not only the easier ones).
* Revisit long tones. For sound. Enough said.
* Work on getting the pieces I was studying back under my belt: the Marcello concerto, the first part of the Mozart, and Schumann Romance No. 1
* Continue playing with the woodwind quintet on a regular basis
* Possibly audition for the wind ensemble my flutist friend plays in. This is a big maybe because it's out in Brooklyn.
* Work on sight reading! If the quintet stays active I will get to do this through them.
* Pray that the quintet stays active. :-)
* Start to think more about phrasing and expression. I thought I was getting good because I could finally play things. But I was only scratching the surface. Once you are technically sound enough to tackle major works, then is when the real work begins. I do still have a lot to work on in terms of dynamic control, but I think do need to start thinking about expression. During the last quintet meeting I was able to read through the Reicha more easily, but after listening to a recording of the piece (Op. 88 No. 4, by the way) I realized that I was way off in terms of feeling. I wasn't even on the bandwagon. I am aware that that is advanced territory but I see no harm in starting to work on it now.

Hmm, ok I guess that's a lot of stuff. But basically I just need to practice again to get myself at least back to how I sounded at my best, so that then I can continue to improve from there.

Go go oboe studies!! May this coming year be better than the last!

Played so much my face hurt

Today I checked something off my musical bucket list. I played in a quintet! Notice I didn't refer to it as a woodwind quintet. We have a cellist playing the bassoon part, but the rest of the instrumentation is winds. I am so psyched and still can't believe it. When I started playing the oboe playing in an orchestra seemed like the holy grail. I got a little taste of it last year and while it was definitely wonderful there were a few things that made it slightly less so than expected. Firstly, when you play at my level it is impossible to get into a balanced group. What I mean is either the other orchestra players are too amazing for you to even breathe their same air, or you end up in a group where the many players (bless them) are not good. In my limited experience this affects the string players the most. But as much as one would like to play symphonies, it becomes a bit difficult to rehearse when the backbone of the orchestra is weak. After my short-lived experience with the woodwind quintet, I realized that such an intimate group would be even more fun to play with in certain ways. It's certainly easier to find a balanced group when you only need 3 or 4 others. You end up playing a lot more often, not counting out 96 bars of rest. And because you play more in general, you also get more solos, which are opportunities to grow (and shine). The downside here is the limited repertoire. That's why a quintet sort of became the new holy grail because there is more music available for it.

I had been contacted about the quintet many months ago, through someone from the ACMP. It took him quite a while to contact different people and get the right instruments together. Perhaps about a month ago he emailed me to say that the 5 had been chosen and that a rehearsal was in the works. I very slowly dragged myself out of my funk and managed to blow into my oboe a few times. After a visit to my teacher and a new reed I blew a few more times. But it wasn't until he emailed me to say the rehearsal was 2 weeks away that the fire really lit my butt. I am not quite practicing daily yet, but over the past couple of weeks I went up to about every other day. Ok, maybe every third day. Still dismal, but a HUGE improvement from what I was feeling even still a month ago. Or more like not feeling. But thank God, at least this aspect of me seems to be returning. Certainly the elation I felt after today's rehearsal is a good sign.

I was super nervous driving over there. I ended up not practicing yesterday nor this morning, opting instead to play with the baby. As I left I realized this was only the second time I would be more than 10 miles away from her for a few hours. No wonder I felt sadness mixed in. I arrived just in time and the others were already there talking happily. It seemed as though they had known each other for years but had in fact just met minutes earlier. They were very welcoming and I was somewhat shy and set up a disclaimer beforehand: "I had a baby 7 months ago and hadn't been practicing until recently, blah blah blah". It was a low pressure setting and they were all understanding. I was just praying the reed would speak at all. I didn't have high expectations for my actual playing because the practice sessions at home were not that great. Also, I was struggling immensely with endurance. Lo and behold though, I ended up playing for 2.5 hours today!! I still don't quite understand how I pulled it off given that I could only practice for about 30 minutes on that reed without feeling like my face would crack. Maybe it's the presence of other people? Maybe it was a muse? Whatever it was, I am amazed I lasted the entire rehearsal. There was one time where my embouchure died (with a funny fart sound too!) and I stopped playing for a few minutes. I also did take a 5 minute break too. But other than that I was all in. As much as I could be.

Amazingly, they were actually impressed. The cellist referred to something I played as "beautiful". And afterwards the clarinetist said he was very impressed and that I played very well. I had been emailing him about my troubles so that he could expect the worst. And that he did. So I guess he (and I especially) were pleasantly surprised when my playing was more or less at the level of the other players.

Things that were better than I expected: sound, intonation, endurance
Things that were as bad as I expected: sight-reading, dynamics, articulation
Things that were worst than expected: NONE!!

So all in all, it went better than I had hoped. We played several pieces that different players brought in. I am assuming that will be the format every time and that we will keep on playing the ones we liked. My favorite was Reicha's Quintet Op. 88. We played stuff slower to help us read through it, though sometimes playing faster actually made it easier because we felt it better.

In terms of my sight-reading, I don't know how else to get better at it other than by doing it more. Are there any techniques though that can help?? My rhythm is what is the worst. I can get through phrases with chromatic notes or big intervals as long as the rhythm is simple. If there is any weird syncopation or unfamiliar rhythmic patterns I tend to mess up the notes. Worse yet, I get flustered and forget to keep counting and then completely lose my place.

My phrasing I am not as concerned about right now because I know that will come with continued studying. It's certainly better than it had been. I never worried about it when I played bass. And as a merengue saxophonist the concept of phrasing is completely different than in classical music. Phrasing back then referred almost exclusively to a composite of tonguing and "swing". In classical music it's a completely different beast. I feel that it is what will take me to the "advanced" level, but with a lot of technical things to still focus on I am not going to drive myself crazy about it. I will do what I can now, but I don't expect to reach wonderful levels of expression just yet.

Ok I am starting to ramble. Let me ramble some more. One interesting thing we talked about yesterday was whether it is good for colleges to have "core" curriculums that include the study of great classics and Western art and music, etc. Having gone through Columbia's core curriculum I am certainly on the "pro" side of this. Though I wish I had taken it more seriously back then I do believe some of it stuck. Certainly it did in the area of music. How else could a Dominican oboist have been created in the first place? I had very little exposure to this music growing up but that mandatory course pierced my heart and changed my life forever. Amateur or not, I am a musician today because of that course.

Lastly, on the topic of wind quintets there is a great article on Imani Winds in the New York Times.

YAY! Can't wait for my next lesson. :-D

Back to life, back to reality

Now that the clouds are clearing, I was excited to find that my desire to practice is slowly returning. I have actually practiced twice this week!!!!

The first session was bad, as expected. It wasn't so much because of the intonation, sound, or agility, which I expected to be less than stellar. What really killed me was endurance. I could barely keep my embouchure in place and after just a few notes I felt like my face was cracking. For my second session I went back to an older, softer reed and that helped with endurance. I was able to actually play some scales and even ventured through several passages from the Schumann (Romance No. 1).

I guess I should admit that my desire to practice didn't come entirely from within. I got an email about a quintet rehearsal in about two weeks. *gulp* I am really, really excited about it and hope we can really keep it together. Too bad I am not in great shape though. But let's see how far I can get between now and then.

Kindermusik & Wind Ensemble

Several weeks ago, I had a fortuitous encounter with someone I went to grammar school with. Actually, this tends to happen a lot whenever I am back in the 'hood. I'm sure people would be surprised by how much NYC neighborhoods can actually feel like small towns in that way. You tend to function within a 1 mile (or smaller) radius and you become familiar with the same people and establishments. Because you tend to walk everywhere the chances of you bumping into someone you know on any given errand run are actually quite high . . . especially if you went to the same school of about 700 students for 8 years.

So anyway, this girl is younger than me (her brother and I are the same age and went both to junior high and college together). Turns out she has a 15 month old and is now a Kindermusik teacher. I had been toying with the idea of putting the baby in some kind of class. Gymboree was up in the running, but was a bit pricey and out of the way. I felt like it was more for me than for her at this point, so I was very happy that this Kindermusik stuff kind of found me. So far, I've been quite happy about it, especially the CD that was included in the learning materials packet. I was very glad to hear REAL instruments in the soundtrack, not MIDI. In fact, wind instruments are very well represented, including *gasp* bassons, oboes, and even an English horn cameo! Sign me up!! In addition, there is a decent rhythmic variety to the music too. One of the tracks is a polka, while another has a jazzy sway. The songs are fun to sing, though a bit high.

Oh yes, the baby does have fun too. It's so cute to watch her interact with the other babies. I thought she'd ignore them, but they fascinate her and she tries to touch them when they're close. The instruments inevitably end up in their mouths. But every once in a while she gives them a good shake or tap:


Speaking of wind instruments, I got another email from the person who is trying to organize a local wind ensemble. Apparently we've reached quorum and the first rehearsal will be sometime in November. *gulp*

I have an oboe anniversary coming up and I was going to say that my goal was to get back into shape by then, but then I realized that I was only leaving myself a little over a month. So my new goal will be to be practicing every day again by 12/9. Not quite up to an hour plus, but at least 15 minutes. If this wind ensemble does really take off, I think that would really help me overcome inertia.