Nightmare on Patterson Street…

So back in early December, I sent my English Horn to St. Louis Woodwind and Brass to have some major keywork done. I needed the octave system converted from an automatic system to a semi-automatic system, an articulated C#, and a screw added on the F#/G# articulated key (the bridge). I specifically stated not to ship it with insurance, because they were sending it 1-day air. How much damage can happen via 1-day air?

Well, he said he’d have it done January 15th, which he almost did. He shipped it out January 17th via 1 day UPS, and was supposed to get here the 18th. It didn’t.

It turned out they put the wrong zip code, and didn’t put the apartment number on it, so when it got to Eugene the 18th, they couldn’t deliver it. It was removed from the truck and scanned, with UPS putting the note:

POSTAL CODE LISTED FOR THE RECEIVER IS INCORRECT. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN CORRECT POSTAL CODE AND COMPLETE DELIVERY. / THE ADDRESS HAS BEEN CORRECTED. THE DELIVERY HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED

Well, it didn’t come that Saturday, and Monday was the holiday, and didn’t come Tuesday. So I went out to the local UPS warehouse where they load the trucks, and they said, “Well, when we unloaded it from the first truck, rather than be reloaded into the Redelivery cage, it was loaded into the Going to Chicago cage. In this case, it should arrive in Chicago on Thursday (January 24th) in which it will be 1-day shipped back and arrive Friday morning.

“Well, okay.” I figured.

Friday morning came. And it went. With no English Horn.

I called every day this week and nobody at St. Louis Woodwind and Brass or UPS knew where it was.

Now the package has tracking on it. This isn’t supposed to happen! Every step it takes is scanned. But somehow it magically disappeared in the Springfield warehouse without being scanned. Talking with UPS, they said they weren’t responsible for more than $100. It’s a $5000 instrument and all I was going to get for it was $100.

Well, guess what showed up in the apartment office today! The English Horn showed up, with no notes on my door. It wasn’t scanned. It wasn’t accounted for. Nothing. And even the internet hasn’t shown any change in status since January 18th.

Odd. Very odd. I have some theories as to what happened, but for now, I’m just glad I have it.

Meanwhile, besides the wrong address, I would like to say that they did a PHENOMENAL job on the instrument. The silver keywork looks impeccable, and was reasonably priced. I can’t imagine the keywork being any better.

Well, at least the nightmare is over.

 Moral of the story: Use USPS registered mail! It’s automatically insured up to $10,000 and safer! They also have priority registered mail!

Back from Bellingham

Just got back from Bellingham, where I visited a friend of mine who is a missionary to Kham Tibetans in China. He’s visiting this weekend in Bellingham, so I thought I could see Peter and see my friend.

I returned Sandra, so if anyone is looking for a used oboe, call him up and get your hands on her! She’s a real killer! If I had enough money for two oboes, I’d keep her. But I don’t.

I also tried out a Loree IH English Horn and compared it to an Loree LV English Horn he had and his own A series English Horn. His own A series English Horn is simply put the finest English Horn I’ve ever played. That said, that IH English Horn is one of the finest English Horns I’ve tried in a long long time. The projection and resonance is there, and there’s a nice creamy but open sound in the horn. The silver looks spanking new, and the horn itself has never been cracked. Right now, he’s decided not to sell it (sometimes he just likes to keep amazing immaculate horns and just look at them) but if anyone is seriously looking for a killer English Horn that they need to project in a medium to larger orchestra, think about that one. Think HARD. He’s probably selling it for $6500, but I could definitely see him selling it for $7000.

A great trip, except on the way home while stopping for gas north of Vancouver, I crossed a lane of traffic without seeing a median in the middle of the road and cracked my oil pan. I spent 2 hours talking to insurance, waiting for the tow truck, and getting to the nearest Amtrak station, and taking a Amtrak bus home for 3 hours. My car is stuck in Portland. Rats. There’s a lot of money (i.e. time/reeds) down the drain!

In search of Barbara’s voice… (or my voice sung by Barbara)

So in my lesson my instructor told me this.

“Cooper you play very well. You play technically perfect and have a great sound. You play in tune, and have everything there, but I feel like you haven’t found your oboe voice yet.”

She followed the statement up by…

“When I hear my teacher play, I know every time that that’s Stephen Taylor. Sometimes his tone changes, or his vibrato, but he always plays like Stephen Taylor. When I hear you play, sometimes you play amazing, and sometimes you’re just playing.”

So I’ve been thinking about how to find my oboe voice. She said I just need to listen to myself, but this doesn’t exactly give me a whole lot of direction. I called Mr. Weber and had a good conversation, and he encouraged me to be patient, and that my oboe voice would come with time and maturity.

I also spoke with the topic with my stand partner Kitty and my friend Liz, who both stated that they feel like they play with their voice on very special pieces, which I would tend to agree. Strauss would be one for me, as is the Bach A minor partita. But how to find your oboe voice so that every time you pick up that instrument remains elusive to me. I wonder how many musicians out there can say they have found and truly feel comfortable with their “instrument voice”.

Contest Results

Well, I didn’t win. There was one winner, who played the Nielsen violin concerto. There were three honorable mentions (10 contestants total) and I was one of the runner ups so I’m pleased with the result.

I’m a “somewhat rare” one…

Patty did it so I thought I’d do it. And no, if my best friend jumped off a tall building I would not do it too. That’s different.

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ISFP)

Your personality type is caring, peaceful, artistic, and calm.Only about 7% of all people have your personality, including 8% of all women and 6% of all men You are Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

CDs! Woohoo!

So I figured it’s been a super long time since I bought a CD, and now that I have time, I’d order some. So I did. Can’t wait to give them a good listening to.

• Judith LeClair : New York Legends - Working on the Telemann d minor tafelmusik Quartet. Great recording!
• Holliger : Telemann Concerti - Another one of the “once lent and never returned”, can’t live without this one
• Alex Klein : Bliss and Britten Quartets I’m planning a Mozart/Bliss/Britten Quartet concert for next quarter followed up by the Mozart EH Adagio for string quartet and EH
• Holliger : Baroque Sonatas - Really, who does baroque like Holliger? (Well, Alex Klein comes close.)
• Holliger : Mozart EH Quintet - More prep for the recital. Very rare recording!
• Tabuteau : Mozart Quartet - Hard to find! And pricey! But you never can have too much Tabuteau, can you?
• Alex Klein : Krommer and Hummel Concertos - I’m sure the Hummel is amazing. I’m not too familiar with Krommer’s concertos.
• And finally David McGill’s book on music, phrasing, and Tabuteau’s number system. Sounds interesting, eh?

I know… I know… I splurged. But once a year isn’t bad, is it?

It is finished!

The competition is finished! I don’t find out who won for several days, but I can say this, I clearly don’t have any expectations. I didn’t play very well; some things like my tempo and breathing got off, probably from nerves, but some things went pretty decently. I can say that I went “all out” and played as if it were my last.

Last night I spent some good time in Beall Hall and was able to try out the two oboes,  and narrow my reed choices down to two. Tonight I showed up early and was able to confirm my decision; I played Sandra with my orange reed made with a RDG Mack tip and Loree cane. It couldn’t have been a better reed.

Anyways, my professor was pleased which is a big relief, because if she wasn’t I would have heard about it for the rest of the year (i.e. “Remember what happened on the Strauss!?!?!?). Now I can get back on track with my reedmaking and all of my playing commitsments.

Preparations, reeds and Sandra…

Well, it’s T minus 2 days, and crisis struck 48 hours ago when I came down with fever and “digestive problems”. It wasn’t pretty, and kept me out of school for the past three days. I haven’t played much in the meantime, and I missed my dress rehearsal this morning, where I was going to test out 5 reeds with two oboes for my professor to hear and help me pick one.

Yes, you read that correctly. I’m using TWO oboes, which I’m even considering relinquishing Barbara! When I told my wife this, she cried and told me I couldn’t name another oboe because it gives it too much personality, and she felt like she was giving up a family member. My wife is a very soft-hearted person (which is why she so perfectly contrasts my often harsh drastic personality) and is just full of love and care. But anyways, the other oboe I’ve been pondering is a 10 year old MP Loree, a DM bore no less! I think it’s a remarkable instrument, and I’ll be the first to admit that Sandra (upon telling me I couldn’t name another oboe, Namju named her) plays better than Barbara. She has more resonance, is smoother in notes and creamier in tone, and holds the high notes up better. As I told Peter Hurd, the owner of the instrument, it’s like with Barbara, I’m directing the car by pushing it around from the outside, from left to right, backwards and forwards. However, with Sandra, it’s like I’m driving the car, easily taking it anywhere I want.

The problem if I buy Sandra is that I’m not sure how it will effect my reedmaking for myself as well as my business. Making reeds for Sandra is VERY difficult, and only my very finest reeds work well. The ones that are just “acceptable” for Barbara don’t sound nice at all in Sandra.

So tomorrow from 3:30-4:30 I have the concert hall and I’ll go there by myself, and maybe recruit a couple fellow oboe students to go tell me what they hear from out in the audience. I’ll probably play Sandra for the recital as I did for my last run-through in studio class on Tuesday, unless there’s a big difference in sound.

If anyone’s looking for a new “pre-owned” instrument, I’d strongly recommend giving “Sandra” a try. I believe Mr. Hurd is asking $5,500 for it.  It’s in tip-top shape.

T - 7 days and counting.

I practiced a hard 2 hours tonight and my mouth is certainly exhausted. I know it’s there. There’s not a whole lot more I can do with it. I just need to do it!

Sunday can’t come quickly enough.

Oboe BBoard: The Value of Barret.

On the oboe Bboard they’re discussing the relevance of Barret to today’s music, and it simply boggles my mind. I know I’m coming off as very opinionated on the thread, and even perhaps somewhat arrogant, I can’t help but chirp in my opinion. I’ve spent too much time with too many excellent teachers on Barret learning too many valuable lessons to let this topic go by me.

Some opinions include that it’s not applicable to “what needs to be learned today”. Why learn anything from Barret when we can study from Beethoven!

My personal feeling is that you don’t even need a single book to teach a good lesson. A good lesson teaches you something musically that you can take away from and apply it to whatever you might be playing at the time, being Mozart or Poulenc. It just so happens that Barret gives us a book with orderly systematic etudes, which teach one concept after another and builds upon the previous etudes. However, many have learned from other books, and the traditions of Barret is passed on less and less. Sellner, Barret, Ferling, and Gillet were the only things taught at the Curtis Institute of Music from Tabuteau and de Lancie (I’m not sure what Woodhams teaches, but I’m sure he does a good deal with these methods). Mr. Weber said he never once looked at a solo piece, excerpt or anything else during his 4 years with de Lancie, because he learned everything he needed to know from the etudes, and learned how to apply the concepts to the music on his orchestral parts. (I forwarded the website address to him, and he got very cynical about it too, sending me an email to post under his name which I did on the thread.)

Yes, all of these concepts could be taught without a method book, but the book puts it in an order, and helps us compartamentalize the information. It gives of very simple examples to practice the concepts and skills, and then gives us harder examples to work up our chops.

It’s too bad that Barret isn’t still taught very much because it’s such an important part of our American Oboe heritage tracing back to Tabuteau. Mr. Stolper, a 1st generation Tabuteau wrote in numbers representing Tabuteau’s number system into my book which he copied out of his own Barret book from which Tabuteau himself had written. Mr. Mack also wrote some notes in my book that Tabuteau had written in his book. These notes I will cherish and pass onto my student, who has just started the first Progressive Melody.

I view the whole situation like this: you can go to the hobby store and buy one of those model airplane kits which has the balsa wood precut to size and shape, which each side marked a color-coded number to paint (also included) and you slap together the wood with some glue and paint it up and you got a plane! Or… you can go to the hardwood store, buy your own wood, a saw, sandpaper, pencil and ruler, your own shades of paint, and design your own airplane (I’d make a U2 stealth bomber). Which one would you value more? Which process would help you to build a model car of a Ferrari? Enough said.