Saturday, March 27, 2010

Yesterday's Oboe Class, Orchestra Practice, and the Earth Hour

Yesterday, I again had an oboe practice session with my oboe teacher, Mas Puput. Mas Puput is an oboist from Jogjakarta that has played the oboe since 1990-ish. He plays so skillfully that I somewhat am astonished and therefore keep being motivated to learn the tricky yet exquisite instrument sprightly, so that I can play like him someday.
Besides practicing, I also bought a new reed, because one of my reeds had been broken. Reed is some kind of mouthpiece for woodwind instruments that's mainly made of cane and—as for the oboes'—cork. It's somehow important for an oboist to have more than one reeds, because there's always a possibility that any of your reeds may be broken anytime. And it's surely crucial if it happens when you're playing in a concert and you don't have any other one as a spare. You can actually make a reed by yourself, but making a reed is surely not an easy thing to do—it requires skill, knowledge, promptness, and creativity. Until now, I still buy reeds from Mas Puput. The brand is Rico, American-made. I've bought a Vandoren reed once, but it didn't seem to fit my oboe well. Vandoren, unlike Rico, is a French-made.
After the oboe class, I joined the orchestra practice inside the student hall. We played The Winner Hymn and Prelude (Opera in Four Act from "Carmen"), but I didn't manage to play the second one well. It was very much full with high-pitched notes (most of which are on the third octave) I haven't been proficient enough to play ones.
The practice ended at 15.30. I had been eminently hungry at that time that I hadn't yet had my lunch, so I directly looked for someplace to eat at and went home afterwards.
When I got home and opened my Twitter, it appeared that people had been talking about the Earth Hour recently. Earth Hour is a worldwide movement of people turning their lamps and unused electronic devices off to save the energy and show their awarenesses of the climate change. It started at 20.30 WIB, and ended in an hour. I turned off all the lamps and electronic devices in my whole house, except a TV upstairs, because I wanted to watch the Indonesian Idol at 21.00.
So, overall, yesterday was quite a fatiguing day. But, I'm so glad that I've been given the chance to learn the oboe and play in the orchestra—it's genuinely fun! I also hope that my participation in the Earth Hour did really give an extensively lucrative impact to the earth.
So, those were roughly how I spent my Saturday. What about you, readers? Did you have fun yesterday?

1 comment:

  1. Thought that making reeds was pretty common for oboe players, though it seems like it would be tough. I don't even work a lot on my saxophone reeds and that's a lot less effort.

    I'm a fan of Vandoren reeds.

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