Unflinching Mic

I really don't like recording myself, although I can see I need to do it more often.

I recorded myself playing the first movement of the Mozart Concerto and all of my excerpts yesterday. I hate recording myself, because when I listen to the playback, I am forced out of my little fantasy world where I heard what I wanted to hear, and confronted with the actual sound waves that came out of my bassoon, and pummeled the microphone on my Mac.

Results? First and foremost, I found out the standard rule of expression always applies to my playing: You have to exaggerate whatever you want to be heard by someone else, or they will never hear it. Any time I thought I was playing over the top robust, or with great dynamic range, it always came back as "kinda loud" or "sort of crescendoed". Also, some slight droops in pitch came across right in the middle C to E range. I'm hoping that's the newness of the reed I used talking, but good to realize that problem, regardless. Technique came across pretty darn clean, actually. My ever present rushing seems to be beaten down for now, at least.

Overall, not bad. Not going to win me a gig in, say, Portland with that playing, but it's coming along. The audition for the one year principal spot in Colorado Springs is coming up at the end of this month. I'm hoping to have a decent shot at that. We'll see.

So, lessons learned: Exaggerate! Play in tune! Or, as a friend of mine always use to jokingly put it, "Just play all the right notes and don't choke. That's all there is to it."

Words to live by.

New Blogger Feature

Found a feature of Blogger, called "Blogger Play", that lets you add a gadget which displays a simple slideshow of the photos being uploaded to blogger. I decided to add it to my blog. Check the lower right hand side.

Fascinating just to sit and watch random pictures flip by.

Time Out!

You know, the Fast Food Feed Bag video from the Onion was a funny post. That, however, was posted on July 1, and it's only so funny so many times. So, I guess I'll give you something else to read, in the form of me talking about myself. If you'd rather see more Onion videos, you're invited to go check them out here!

Thanks, those of you who are still here. I would have probably gone to the Onion site, by now.

Anyway, not much happened over the summer. Went to Phoenix, but you already knew that. Then drove up to Ridgway, Colorado to visit my pregnant sister, her husband, and their now given-away-to-other-friendly-homes dogs. (That had something to do with a 1 bedroom apartment, two big dogs, and a baby on the way, I think.) Came home. Went to Durango, Colorado a few weeks later to visit my parents. Came home.

Been practicing the excerpt list for the Oregon Symphony audition, which is coming up at the end of September. It's a principal audition, which means a) I'm practicing a much different set of music than my previous auditions and b) I probably have even less of a chance of getting this gig. The good news is, the excerpts are actually coming right along. Maybe I'll put in a good showing in Portland.

I composed my own cadenza to the Mozart Concerto, first movement. Thought it turned out decent, though I reserve the right to (most likely) modify or ditch it completely some time in the future.

I couldn't talk about bassoon and not talk about reeds. Been making lots more lately. Have a pretty good "starter stock pile" for the next few months. I'm starting to see why Dr. Ishikawa likes the Australian cane that I ordered on his recommendation. They last a really long time. Most of my reeds from my May auditions are still kicking - and not old man shuffling, either. I'm talking high-flying, roundhouse karate kicking. I'm really quite impressed. None of my old reeds ever lasted close to this long. Of course, this cane seems to take at least twice as long to break in properly, but I think it's worth it.

"Say, Kent," you must be saying. "You have a misleading title to your post that has nothing to do with reeds!" Don't rush me! I was just getting to that!

So, what is the title of the post referring to? That would be the name of the program that CU offers that lets students in good standing take up to a year off of school without sacrificing your position when you come back. It is, unfortunately, the direction I'm headed for at least a semester, as I will most likely not be going back to CU at the end of the month.

The reason for this? Money! As in, none! The university was more than happy to take lots of my cash last year. When I have none left for school this year, they seem okay with that, too. Apparently, the bassoon studio has enough good players, so they don't seem all that upset to see me go. I asked for aid. They said they'd see what they could do. That was a couple weeks ago. Haven't heard from them since.

You know why I'm not that upset about this? One reason: Practice time! Do you know how much more time I'll have to work on just playing the bassoon over the next few months since I don't have to take any stinking grad school classes? On more than one occasion, I resented how much time away from the bassoon I spent writing papers and doing research last year. Now, I don't have to worry about that. Make reeds. Practice excerpts. That's all I have to do.

To those who think I'm not making any sense, I'll say this: I've always always wanted to be an orchestral player from the moment I picked up the bassoon. Teaching has never interested me that much - especially teaching at any sort of college. It just seems to me that a master's degree is aimed more at musicians who want to teach in some official academic capacity.

So, if I'm going to try to get a gig playing on the bassoon, I need to focus on playing the bassoon. If, in a couple years or so, I haven't landed a job, yet, or if I'm happily playing in a group but decide a degree would help down the road, I can certainly go back and finish.

Dr. Ishikawa has already said he would continue to teach me privately, and still give me access to the reed machines in the studio. Good news! I also have a pro bassoonist friend in Virginia who has offered to give me a sort of informal lesson, as well as introduce me to other bassoonists who he says are wonderful private teachers with great audition tips. Even better!

Ironically, at CU, even not going to school costs money. The Time Out program has a stupid application fee that I could certainly spend elsewhere. Oh well.

So, there you go. I don't post for more than a month, then I go on and on and on and on.

Now, all those who made it to the end, go watch a video on the Onion.