Well, my summer plans have been going down the drain quickly.
Things didn’t work out for me to go down to Arizona. We crunched all of the numbers, and financially we just couldn’t make up the big difference, so I’m still stuck here in Oregon.
I was still going to meet the Webers in Utah for the IDRS convention, play on the masterclasses and work at their booth, but now they themselves are not planning on going due to some last minute family difficulties! So now it looks as though I might not even make it to IDRS.
I’m taking two classes here at the UofOregon, trying to blast out some of my requirements to leave more time during the school year for playing/practicing. They’re sucking up all of my time and energy.
I am backed up on reed orders. After returning from Seattle a week ago, I got a horrible canker sore in my mouth, too painful to play and make reeds, that that set me back a ways. I’ll be catching up on those this weekend.
Seattle was great. Adam and I had a great time at his house and he loved the reeds I brought him. My best reeds seem to be coming from my Brannen X shape, and he ordered 8 more. Meanwhile, he has an Udo Heng profiling machine that he’s trying to get a new profile based upon my scrape. If we’re able to get a good one, I will definitely be investing in one myself. I recently spoke to a music store in the Seattle area looking to replace their reed supplier, now that Jones is in legal trouble and last we heard is at least 8 months or so from production.
I also spent a good amount of time with Laila Storch at her house, asking and getting supplementary information that was not completely clarified in her book. She confirmed a lot of theories I had, and gave meĀ good direction in my research.
One book discussed in my Music of the Romantic Era class is the Whig Interpretation of History which basically states that it is difficult for one to recollect and document history, because man’s tendency is to take the evidence (quotes, facts, etc) out of its original context to fit their specific argument. Ms. Storch agreed with this theory, and noted that she didn’t think she was the right person to write the book, namely because she felt she was “too close to the action” to give an unbiased opinion. I find this very relevant to my research with Tabuteau, and we discussed how difficult it is for someone of my generation to discover “the real Tabuteau” since there’s been so many of his students who teach different sounds, styles, playing, concepts of air, tonguing, and reedmaking. With everyone running around saying “this is what Tabuteau taught…” to lend creedance their style of playing, it’s practically impossible for I to find the “true Tabuteau”. That said, tne thing she did state was that I was right to listen to de Lancie. As she put it, “He probably got the most complete picture, but not the intensity in the upper register that Tabuteau had.”
Back to writing this paper. These classes are killing me.