reeds

Yesterday I had a couple reeds that were really "whimpy" that I was going to break and then I thought I would give them to my student. Which I did, except one which I thought was too hard, so I worked on it a bit and suddenly it wasn't too bad...so I used it for orchestra. It doesn't quite vibrate enough, but other than that it was great. Hmm.

Orchestra was fun last night - again we played Russian Xmas and this time my reed wasn't leaking. Maybe because it has been raining for 2 days - but great news as of course I didn't get around to making new EH reeds.

The only really annoying thing was the Messiah. We are doing 2 solo mvts on the Xmas concert but we are using the Prout edition, which is a whole boatload of instruments that didn't even exsist when Handel wrote it. So I am tacet during Daughter of Zion, and the flute plays all the solo stuff. Which wouldn't bother me except she so obviously has no idea how to play baroque music! And she is a wonderful player, but there is a skill to that - I'm sure the jazzers in the orchestra are thinking the same thing when I play the solos in the world premier jazz piano concerto we're playing. Ah well. I have offered to buy the parts for a "real" orchestration but I don't think we can have them by this year - espcially since I'm not sure which version to buy. I want one (which I have played) that has only oboes, bsn, and tpts; and with the oboes on two parts (I have played versions where the 2nd doubles the first a LOT). Anyone have recommendations?