Crippling indecisiveness strikes again

In the last six hours or so, I've gone from having only one option for a camp to three, potentially four. I received an acceptance from Interlochen into their woodwind ensemble, from Tanglewood into their oboe workshop, and I was already accepted into NYSSSA. I haven't heard yet from Tanglewood about the woodwind ensemble, but I should be hearing soon. I'm third on the waitlist, for one spot, and I'm feeling somewhat optimistic despite myself (and despite my father's pervading pessimism).
Initially, I really wanted to go to Interlochen: I'd heard glowing reviews about it from everyone I knew who went there. But, now, I'm reading the course description of the oboe workshop on the BUTI website, and I'm getting positively ecstatic that I'm accepted into that. I can't do Interlochen if I do the workshop, though - and that's where things get messy.
If I do the workshop, I either get to go to NYSSSA or the BUTI woodwind ensemble, depending on whether I'm accepted to the ensemble or not. If I am, I'll know two people going - if I don't, I'm not sure I know anyone attending. (By the time I'd get to the workshop, I would have met Robert Sheena already, and I consider that to be knowing someone. I'm a pro at befriending (not sucking up to, may I clarify) teachers, and I don't see why I shouldn't. The workshop, so says a friend of mine who attended one last year, usually only has a few students, maybe five or six. In a group that small, I'm usually not shy at all. In fact, quite the opposite.) Interlochen starts right away, and it overlaps with the workshop.
I'd like to do Interlochen, but this workshop is calling me. Two weeks of intense study? I don't think I can say no. I just have to wait and see, and Interlochen is requesting that I respond with a yes or a no by Friday.
Update: After more debating, I'm turning down Interlochen and accepting the BUTI oboe workshop. I can't say no to that, under any circumstance. (I feel pretentious for turning down Interlochen, but no matter.) Robert Sheena and John Ferrillo for two weeks? I think so. 

My musical existence in ten words (plus an emoticon)

Ordinarily, I'd give a little run-down of how last night's rehearsal went, but I think it's better summed up by our star (and only, but he's great, so it's not a good-only-because-he's-the-only-one thing) tuba player, who tweeted this during rehearsal:

Honestly, I don't think I ever have a need to post about our rehearsals again, save publishing a link back to this. 

Another Weekend Update, but Boring and with No Seth

This week has, altogether, been pretty fantastic for music.
Yesterday I got a good bit of playing in, though not as much as I'd liked (I'm never satisfied). My run-through of Mozart's Concerto in C was incredible: it was one of those moments where I thought "I knew I was good, but I didn't know I was that good". I seem to have a sort of issue where I think too much about what I'm doing, and thereby mess myself up. I think of it as "getting in the way of my fingers", and when I stepped out of the way, damn - it sounded great.
I still haven't heard anything from Laubin about when my order will come in (I was told last that it would be sometime this week), nor have I heard anything from Interlochen. Theoretically, I should be hearing in the very near future if I'm in or not. All applications with payments were due this past Friday, so the audition tapes of those who were waitlisted, like mine, will be reviewed in the near future. I don't know when I should be hearing by, I never received an exact date. All I know is I'm back to becoming anxious every time I see a notification for an email - it's back to waiting on Tanglewood or Robert Sheena all over again.
Yesterday, I thankfully redeemed myself from that absolutely terrible concert I'd done the week before at the local Ethical Society. (For those wondering what that is, it's a kind of humanist organization; it's what I was brought up with in place of Catholicism or some other religion like that.) I played the first Metamorphosis by Britten, and then Wagner's English horn solo in Tristan and Isolde. I wanted to play some English, but didn't have an accompanist, and therefore needed to find something solo. So, Tristan it was, despite it being more than a little weird to be playing something at a recital-like situation out of an excerpt book.
Meh; it worked. I can't complain.
Quintet rehearsals have been odd (as in, on Fridays) as of late. I don't know why our coach continues to schedule them for Friday: we get absolutely nothing done. Whether it's like two weeks ago, where nobody could stop giggling or being too energetic for their own good, or like this past Friday where it was more a quintet of zombies than instrumentalists, it doesn't work. At all. But, we still have another rehearsal this coming Friday. I'm not quite sure how well this plan was thought out.

Once again, my reeds betray me

Wow, do I have updates.
First off, I finally got in touch with Robert Sheena (of the BSO and BU's English horn and oboe professor, in case you're new to this topic, which I find hard to believe), and a date for a lesson is set for late April. (Finally.) The actual time hasn't been set yet; I'll be contacting him again about two weeks before to set up the specifics. I'm beyond excited, and alternately beyond terrified - it's all dependent upon whether I'm feeling confident in my abilities or not.
At the moment, I'm in between. I had a horrific concert today (the audience wasn't critical though; it's hard to describe, but they appreciate and clap for anything as though you're Garrick Ohlsson), largely courtesy of my reed. Oh, my God. That reed. It worked fine yesterday, though not as well as I'd liked, but today was just bad. I wasn't unprepared or under-prepared, I was just highly betrayed by my reed. Again. I'm going back to the same place next week, and am going to fix my reed before I go, to redeem myself. I need two solo pieces (no accompanist available then) so I think I'm going to be doing the first Metamorphosis by Britten and then the Tristan and Isolde solo for English horn, just so I can actually prove I got to All-State not by a mistake. I swear I didn't.
(I think one of the most embarrassing parts of that concert was the fact that my teacher was finally able to come to a recital and decided to go to that one, the first one he'd ever been to. At least, as an oboist, he understood that sometimes the reed just will not work under any circumstances.)
I had another recital, this time at the conservatory, this past Saturday as well. This was oboe and English; the final movement of the Strauss concerto for oboe and the first movement of the Wolf-Ferrari for English horn. I got many compliments that I'd never received before, despite it being not the best concert I ever played. (I thought it was god-awful, but others seemed to disagree.) The coach for my quintet, who's also the assistant dean, said I phrased very well and it seemed to come naturally; the executive director said I'm a natural on English horn.
I don't know what to do with myself with all this praise.
It doesn't sound like much, but this woman - the executive director - is rarely one to give compliments. It's all somewhat dampened by today's performance (I'm not going to even go into it; it'll discredit me from ever being able to say I'm a decent musician) but I'm still pleased.
Also, I was waitlisted for both the woodwind ensemble and oboe workshop at Tanglewood. This bothered me a lot at first, but I'm preoccupied enough by Juilliard auditions and NYSSMA and the fact that in 40 days I'm meeting Robert Sheena to really think about it. I'll hear by April 13 if I get moved into one of the programs. My fingers (and toes and eyes and anything else that's crossable) are crossed.
All in all, though, a good week. I kind of liked how I didn't have to pay much attention to schoolwork and was able to concentrate on music. It was weird, not having much homework and being ahead of schedule on projects, but I think I ought to keep this thing up.

Stravinsky Snark

I don't know whether I'm technically "allowed" to post this, but I am anyway, because I just find it funny.
In English a while back, we had to write an essay based upon this essay by Stravinsky. I (and my opera-singing friend who could relate much more than the rest of the class) enjoyed this far too much, especially upon discovering that Stravinsky was as sarcastic, irritated, and cynical as I could have hoped.
I won't share the essay (especially since I don't actually remember if we wrote it or just analyzed the piece), but here's the work by Stravinsky, in words rather than notes, for all of you to check out. I don't claim this to be mine - obviously, as I've mentioned several times that it was written by Stravinsky - and I owe credit to the College Board for even publishing it. I haven't been able to find it out of the AP context, at least as far as the internet is concerned.

Conducting, like politics, rarely attracts original minds, and the field is more for the making of careers and the exploitation of personalities - another resemblance to politics - than a profession for the application of exact and standardized discipline. A conductor my actually be less equipped for his work than his players, but no one except the players need know it, and his career is not dependent upon them in any case, but on the society women (including critics) to whom his musical qualities are of secondary importance. The successful conductor can be an incomplete musician, but he must be a compleat angler. His first skill has to be power politics. 

In such people the incidence of ego disease is naturally high to begin with, and I hardly need add that the disease grows like a tropical weed under the sun of a pandering public. The results are that the conductor is encouraged to impose a purely egotistical, false, and arbitrary authority, and that he is accorded a position out of all proportion to his real value in the musical, as opposed to the music-business, community. He soon becomes a "great" conductor, in fact, or as the press agent of one of them recently wrote me, a "titan of the podium," and as such is very nearly the worst obstacle to genuine music-making. "Great" conductors, like "great" actors, are unable to play anything but themselves;  being unable to adapt themselves to the work, they adapt the work to themselves, to their "style," their mannerisms. The cult of the "great"conductor also tends to substitute looking for listening, so that the conductor and audience alike (and to reviewers who habitually fall into the trap of describing a conductor's appearance rather than the way he makes music sound, and of mistaking the conductor's gestures for the music's meanings), the important part of the performance becomes the gesture.

If you are incapable of listening, the conductor will show you what to feel. Thus, the film-actor type of conductor will act out a life of Napoleon in "his" Eroica, wear an expression of noble suffering on the retreat from Moscow (TV having circumvented the comparatively merciful limitation to the dorsal view)and one of ultimate triumph in the last movement, during which he even dances the Victory Ball. If you are unable to listen to the music, you watch the corybantics, and if you are able, you had better not go to the concert.

Well, then.

Good news: Robert Sheena finally(!) responded. The delay was through no fault of his, though; I was sending emails to his Boston University address, and he apparently never reads that. (My mother thinks that's absurd, but it makes sense to me, having just gotten through a wave of endless spam.) The solution is rather roundabout, but I'll explain it. Hopefully I didn't already in a previous post and am just suffering from short-term memory loss as to what I've already posted.
Just over two years ago, I bought a used Loree English horn from Patrick McFarland of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, having gotten wind of his buy-and-sell business through Laubin in Peekskill. My father being the avid socialite that he is kept up a meager correspondence with Mr. McFarland, occasionally sending updates on how the horn was doing (i.e., when it went to All-State). Thank goodness for this; I'll never complain about my father's chattiness again. It does wonders.
Mr. McFarland had said in an email once that he would be willing to give me the down-low on any teachers I was interested in to help me with selecting a school. With my issues with reaching Mr. Sheena, I figured, heck, I may as well. I sent him an email last night (it actually sent around eleven thanks to a lousy server), and received a response this morning: he had forwarded the note I sent to him to Mr. Sheena.
I was mortified, though without a real reason.
This was all straightened out this afternoon, when Mr. Sheena responded to the note with his email that he uses. I don't know how students find this address that he uses, but I have it, and I used it. So far I've sent another message explaining why I had been trying to contact him (sample lesson, in case you've forgotten), and a few thousand thanks that Mr. McFarland is on this green earth. (I also sent a message to Mr. McFarland directly; easily the most frequently used word in the note was "thanks". I hope he doesn't think I'm being a suckup - I'm just genuinely that thankful. I know who'll be coming up in my thoughts next November.)
I haven't received any response to the email sent to the preferred address yet, but I sent it mere minutes ago, so I'm not expecting anything. At this point, I'm just so glad he actually responded, he could say anything and I'd accept it.
So, I'm signing off so I can go print out the email he sent and frame it on my wall.
Have a good day, y'all.

Because I may as well color-coordinate something since I neglect that with my outfits

My mother thinks I'm nuts.
I know this, and she does, and so does anyone else who knows both of us, and it's all okay.
I finally ordered all the stuff that I've been considering buying (cane, shaper tips, the handle, an English horn easel which for some reason I never bought before this, and a reed case) and, true to form, I'm already thinking of the next oboe-related purchases that I want to make. I'm well aware I just spent over $500 on supplies. I choose to ignore this for the time being.
My next focus is thread for reeds. Being in full spring fever mode, I have a nice palette in mind of naturals and earthy colors. Of course, my mother thought this was boring and absurd, but I like color-coordination. From Charles Double Reeds, I'm currently thinking of spring green, "yummy" chocolate, chartreuse or tan, and white just because I've never seen anyone with white thread. (There's probably a reason, i.e., it's boring as anything, but I figure it's better than the red thread that everyone seems to have.) I'm also thinking maybe wisteria or lilac to add some color-wheel contrast to the whole deal.
I can't believe that I'm honestly spending this much time thinking about this.
...
Wisteria; I'd like the spring green/wisteria contrast. I'm still not sure about chartreuse or tan; the tan clashes with the brown, I think, and I'm not sure how chartreuse would look next to spring green. The only things I'm sure of are spring green and brown... and once again I'm woken up to how absurd this is.
This, friends, is what happens when a person with a slight eye for visual arts becomes an oboist.

Also: 3 emails sent thus far and no response. I've been told by a friend of mine I should contact Sheena via Facebook. As invasive as I think this is, I may go for it. I'm still somewhat undecided.

Nitpicking, nitpicking

As it's no longer the first rehearsal of this half of the season, the chronic nitpicking has begun in my full orchestral ensemble. My friend, who is a first violin there, missed rehearsal last night as she was at the Secret Policeman's Ball in NYC the night before (or something like that). I said (as I've done this before) that I would live-blog her the rehearsal, so she would get a taste of what she was missing.
I didn't actually finish it, as I gave up halfway through and just got generally irritated, but I did it for the most part. I'm going to post it, just because I think it makes a good kind of filler post so my blog isn't as dead as it was for the last two weeks or so. I would ordinarily worry about whether a college or conservatory would see this, but I think any orchestral musician has been driven mad by conductors enough times to understand.
Here goes:

• 2/3 oboes. Again.
• Played the A. Nobody tuned.
• Awkward.
• And the nitpicking begins.
• Restart Rienzi.
• Re-restart Rienzi.
• Picking at intonation.
• Stop.
• Lecture.
• Restart.
• Wws [woodwinds] played in cut time accidentally.
• Myself included.
• Stop.
• Lecture about practicing.
• Restart.
• Stop.
• Lecture about tone.
• "Anaemic"
• Strings only.
• Yes, he said our tone was "anaemic".
• Lecture on dynamics.
• Tutti.
• Stop.
• Lecture on dynamics.
• Stop.
• Percussion nitpick.
• Stop.
• Lecture on interpretation.
• Horns are giggly.
• Trumpets are apathetic.
• Stop.
• Percussion nitpick.
• Stop.
• Woodwinds.
• Stop.
• Strings.
• Tutti.
• Stop.
• Brass nitpick.
• Condescension from the trumpets to the conductor.
• Points go to Sophie's brother.
• Trumpets got kinda sassy.
• Horn nitpick.
• Stop.

At that point I gave up. I stopped sometime between a half hour and 45 minutes into rehearsal (my iPhone doesn't tell me exactly), and this kept going well into the second hour. I'd say more, but I think this speaks for itself.

Let me note, however, that I didn't get to mark down each and every stop and start. There were many, many more.

And people wonder why I'm so often in a bad mood.