Hibernate

 It is so cold. Like -4 F cold. That -20 C if anyone cares. I guess fortunately I have not had any gigs this week, although I did turn down one in Great Falls, Montana, where the temperature is even colder. It was actually kind of a difficult thing for me to say no, but it is six hours away, I would have to spend three nights there (home stay), and the pay was only $50/service. They did have a small per diem and $300 for travel, but that is only half of the standard mileage for how far I would be driving. Usually, I would not quibble about money since I am in the fortunate position of having an engineer husband, but that just seemed excessive. 

On the upside, I then got a call to Sub for the big symphony, just one night, but I will be playing for a conducting workshop! They split the orchestra the night. I will be there so I will play first without a second Oboe. And they’re just doing some little things, Schubert‘s unfinished, Strauss Die Fleidermaus and Tchaikovsky 5. Yikes. Just a lot lot of music to be prepared for. 

And the next weekend, I’m playing with the farther Bigish Symphony (About three hours away, but my brother lives there so usually a fun Family visit occurs). That should be fun, but there is also a lot of music for that. It’s a movie night pops concert and I’m playing second which should be fun. 

My baroque Trio has a performance at the end of this month- I’m really trying to elevate my level of playing, Even though I could get away with doing far less. Same with my little symphony, it is frustrating, but I have decided it gives me a good place to practice my soft articulation and prep for other gigs. One of my best friends in the symphony of more than 20 years, has decided to step down from her principal position next year. Although I have thought about it many times, I don’t think it is my time yet. 

Finally, I reached out to people about playing in a quintet, and of course, two of the people want to do afternoons, and two of the people only will do evenings. Ugh, I know I will end up being the quintet bitch (Organizer and Procurer of music) and I really don’t want to do another evening thing. I’m considering reaching out to the evening people and saying I will participate, but one of them will have to take the lead if they want to do something, guessing that will lead to nothing. But hopefully we can find a couple other people to do an afternoon thing! Scheduling is always the hardest.

Come to me…

 Just participated in Jennet Ingle’s The Oboe Is Not Your Friend workshop- it was great! And a couple of tips - but the one that really resonated was bringing the oboe to me (not leaning in to the oboe). 

This is not new advice to me, but it really impacted my playing yesterday- I think between using more embouchure to articulate and my Alexander Technique body awareness I found a really good place to be. I still find myself falling into a more tight and contorted position, but being aware is helpful. 

Lexapro

So today, I am starting on a very low dose of Lexapro to see what it does to my anxiety. 

Earlier this year, I came to the shocking to me conclusion that I am an anxious person! I think after Jim’s Health issues last summer when things were getting back to normal, I realized all the things I felt were classic anxiety feelings. It seemed helpful to me to own that, rather than just feeling overwhelmed a lot of the time. 

I mentioned it to my GP last December and he recommended a therapist. I was really thinking I could just whine about my troubles for a while and maybe do some meditation, but she was super focused on prescribing drugs. Not sure how I feel about that, but reflecting on the way home, I decided I have been to therapists and whined about my feelings for my whole life, and I certainly have had the opportunity to incorporate meditation and yoga, but I have not taken advantage of that. For the most part anyway. 

I’m going to try this, and it seems like an exit strategy is not too difficult. Supposedly, I should see some results within two weeks, the thing that my therapist mentioned that make the most impact on me was that it would “quiet my thoughts a bit”. I often feel like everything is in a whirlwind in my brain, hoping this will help. 

Stupid tuning note

 So today after almost a year of really concentrating on making my note entrances more gentle - I feel like I’ve had another breakthrough. I noticed I haven’t posted for a long time and I will have to do better at keeping track, but today’s aha moment was embouchure. I just need to use so much more to get the control that I want. It seems so obvious, but it was truly an exciting moment this morning when I finally figured that out. Huh