Sunday, January 26, 2025

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. 

Thursday, January 23, 2025

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. 

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

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