It is finished!

My History of Opera Final is finished! I can practice, and sleep, and live a normal life again. Thank God.

And I aced it too.

Not sure how it judges but…

Found from here.

Burning the candle on both ends (just like Da Ponte… and Kelly, and Mozart, and Beaumarchais all did)

Last night I:

• studied from 1:00 pm until midnight
• went grocery shopping until 1 am
• went to bed at 1:30 am
• got up at 4:30 am to pick up my wife from work
• got back home around 5:30 am
• tried to fall back asleep but couldn’t so I got up at 6:30 am (but my wife had no problems sleeping. Grr…)
• worked on my paper until 8:30
• went to the post office to send off reeds
• got my back adjusted and finally…
• was in the practice room from 10:30 to 12:00 where I went over to the library to study and work on my paper some more.
• And now it’s midnight. And I’m finally done with my paper. But I have a listening test study guide I’m supposed to write.
• It’s no use. I need to get some sleep.

My wife needs to learn how to drive.

Lost in a world…

I’ve spent the past 5 days reading up on Da Ponte and his memoirs, the life and times of Beaumarchais, and Michael Kelly’s Reminiscences and it has all come to a point: a 5 page paper of the relevancy of these three men and Mozart’s Operas. And I only had 3 resources available - about 80 pages total of excerpts from three books.

Of course this didn’t stop me from reading further. I enjoyed going back and reading some of Da Ponte’s memoirs not included in my packet of reading (I found it amusing my professor left out the romantic novel-trashy parts and cut right to the chase) and Beaumarchais’ life during and after the Figaro comedies. But after spending so much time reading each detail carefully, I have all of the information floating around in my head (kind of like when you drop a teaspoon of flaky fishfood in the fish bowl), and it’s not settling down to the bottom.

But there are some amazing conclusions that I can deduce:

• The world was a very small place - It is amazing how all of the important artisans of the time (painters, composers, poets, etc) were centrally located, or floated between just a few locations. Reading about Vienna just brings to mind America’s closest parallel: New York City.
• Personal connections and reputation was far more important than any resume - Coming from Korea where the Confucist mindset particularly values one’s own relationship with those around him/her, I can understand this. Usually jobs in Korea are found through a friend of a friend, or by reputation. Da Ponte was fortunate to have the right friend write him a letter of introduction to Salieri, who introduced him to the Emperor, who took favor on him and basically gave him a prosperous career. I think this kind of hiring is a byproduct of a smaller-populated community. (Korea only has 52 million people total, with Seoul being 13 million. The L.A. metropolitan area is close to that size, but the degree of blood relation is much closer in Korea.)
• One must live life like every day was the last - It’s amazing to hear how pissing of the wrong person could end in professional doom. One single person could destroy your reputation, or spread slander of your name and literally blackball you from an entire city or country. You never knew what one day would bring!

Multitasking

The quarter is coming down to the line, and I’ve been swamped with readings and projects for “The History of Opera” class that I’m taking. Most students by now have learned the fine art of “skimming”, while I haven’t. In fact, reading comprehension is one of the hardest areas for me, so I have to read very very slowly and very very carefully, which is probably why I was an editor in Korea; I was so meticulous and critically analyzed each and every sentence. So I’ve spent my Thanksgiving vacation (Thursday until today, being Sunday) reading over Da Ponte’s memoirs about his encounters with Mozart and their plans to produce “Le Nozze di Figaro” (i.e. The Marriage of Figaro) and other readings.

Meanwhile, I’ve been catching up on my reed orders (only 2 behind!) and practicing the Strauss Concerto for the concerto competition which is next week. The problem is, I’ve run out of energy.

I’ve experienced practicing/playing burnout, but I haven’t been doing a great deal of practicing nor playing recently. My Zelenka trio folded, and the chamber music recital is being put on hold until January. But I’m tired. It’s an exhaustion that just creeps into all areas of my life from having worked so hard on my academics. My freshman-Junior year, I pretty much blew off my academic classes, but my Senior year I actually started enjoying them, and it showed in my grades - I made the dean’s list for the first time in my life. Coming back to grad school, I again want to do my best in my academics, and do enjoy the readings and having time to critically analyze all of this stuff, but I think I’m having difficulty with the load. Is it possible?

I always thought that people who didn’t take a full course load had some reason such as a part time job, or an internship, or at the very least, were just lazy. But for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m hitting a ceiling; I can’t read much faster without sacrificing the ability to comprehend what I’m reading; I must still make reeds and fill orders to subsidize our minimal income; I must still drive my wife around at odd hours of the night (6:00 am or so) getting her to or from work.

There has to be a better solution. I’m just not sure what. Meanwhile, my health is suffering, as is my emotional state of mind.

Oh yeah, the ducks got whooped by UCLA to make things worse.

The Academy of Music

A while back ago I speculated that one of the reasons why John de Lancie had such a different and piercing tone was the hall that he played in.

We all know that halls have a large effect upon our sound. Severance Hall had an effect on Mack’s tone which seemed to “fill in” the center of his tone. Avery Fisher was (not sure if they’ve changed it) considered by many musicians an acoustically drier hall. The Academy of Music was originally desired as an Opera House.

On my last trip down to visit Mr. Weber, he confirmed some of my suspicions; namely that it had a unique acoustic effect. Mr. Weber described the hall has having a “thick” feeling about it, so that players were forced to play “through the air” clear to the back of the hall. The stage itself was also unique as well, being laid out at a slight slope. One could drop a pencil from the brass section and it would roll clear to the front of the stage. Underneath the stage was also a storage area, which was covered over, and eventually filled in. Before it was filled in however, it resonated the sound of the orchestra upward and outward, functioning “like the bowl of a timpani” as Mr. Weber put it. Later, in an attempt to improve acoustics, they filled it in (this is confirmed by an acquaintance MF who recently wrote to me stating “The best were the orchestra rehearsals I got to attend.  De Lancie used to change reeds about every five minutes in these, testing out their sound in the Academy of Music (before they killed the building’s acoustics by filling in the dry well below the parquet.)”). Apparently the effects did not have a positive effect upon it.

In any case, it is for these reasons that I expect Mr. de Lancie sounded as piercing as he did, and why the Philadelphia “lush string section” sounded as full as it did; they were trying to play “through” the air.

I would love to write Mr. Woodhams a letter and ask him the changes he made upon his reeds once he moved from the Academy of Music to the Kimmel Center (the new home of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2001. One certainly hears a difference in sound from his old recordings of the Strauss and Brahms Symphonies (amongst others) and the newer stuff.

Alex Klein on Geico Ads?!?!?!?

So I’m watching the Redwings get kicked in the rear by the St. Louis Blues. And then comes a Geico Insurance ad. With Alex Klein. He’s not doing anything oboe-like. He’s not even doing anything remotely musical. But there he is, Brazilian accent and all! What’s going on!?!?!?

So I went to Youtube and searched him and couldn’t find him but I did find this.

 UPDATE : Thanks to the kind reader Bautbois, here’s the ad!

Oh my… a deep breath…

10 hours of rehearsals and a concert later, I have survived this weekend. The U of O Wind Ensemble and Orchestra played a big Gala at the Hult Center and I survived the long hard week of midterms and concerts. Next up is Beethoven 5 (where I’m playing 2nd, for what feels like the 100000000th time) while simultaneously rehearsing our all-Liszt concert which will include a piano concerto, Les Preludes, and Hungarian Dance #3.

I am still keeping very busy. I was up at 6:00 am studying my History of Opera book and am planning a trip over to the Library this evening to watch Alceste. Meanwhile, I made about 10 reeds yesterday, all which finished up very nicely. I’m making some great reeds right now, which is good news since I need to get all caught up on my orders. (SORRY TO ALL OF YOU WHO ARE WAITING!) I have about 15 or so left before I’m  caught up on that end.

I’m working on a chamber music recital in December with Helena. We’re working on the Telemann Quartet (ob/fl/fag/continuo), the Lalliet Trio, Zelenka #2, and one piece yet to be determined. (I’m hoping the other players will come up with something so I don’t have to kill my endurance.)

7:30 am. Time to get to school for my 8:00 am Zelenka rehearsal!

Ah… the life of a grad student.

Percy Grainger

So for Wind Repertoire class we sit around and listen to wind rep pieces, discuss them, and have a lot of fun. In this week’s wind rep class, I spotted a note while looking at the score of Percy Grainger’s Hill-Song no. 2

To Conductor:

All the double-reeds (oboes, English horn, bassoons, double-bassoon) should be played with a soft reed, so as to produce a wild, nasal, “bagpipe” quality of tone. The gentle, emasculated tone-quality produced by a hard reed is utterly out of place in this composition. The saxaphones should produce as “reedy” a tone as possible. Do not try to subdue the naturally “robuster” saxophone tone down to the volume of a clarinet or an oboe; the office of saxophones is to provide a tonal strength midway between the volume of the woodwind and the volume of the brass.

From now on, I’m going to keep two reed cases. One marked “soft” and the other marked “emasculated”.

Midterm over!

Sorry for the delays on the reed orders. My midterms are over, and after this weekend, (a total of 10 hours of rehearsals on Saturday and Sunday, 2 concerts) I should be able to get completely up to date on my reed orders. Sorry for the delay everyone.