I have been a bad blogger/comicker. So bad. So lazy. So…running out of ideas. Had a crazy oboe experience? Tell me! I’ll probably turn it into a comic. Someone say something in your lesson which amused you? Tell me! I might turn it into a comic. Come up with a terrible pun about double reeds or music in general? Tell me! I will *totally* turn it into a comic.

Anyway. I am going to see what I can fish out of the idea pile for the next little while. The problem is that I keep jotting my ideas down on little scraps of paper during masterclass, and then they get lost…I’m sure I’ve got a bunch in my various clipboards and notebooks. Oh, how I wish I were more organized!

But yes. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ideas!

What is new…in the non-oboe parts of my life, I’m writing a duet for trombone and trumpet. I’m using Ragas, but trying to not make it sound like Indian music! It is going to be fun and bouncy and probably called “Scoot”. I’m also starting work on a piece for orchestra. The KWS comes every year and does a reading of student composers pieces. Peter suggested that I do one, so I am! I am expanding my string quartet from last year, “Internet”, into a longer, more complex work. Man–Peter was doing his best at my last lesson to intimidate me. “So which instruments do you want to have playing together? And what will they be doing? And at what dynamic? Who should be in the foreground? Where do the others sit? What mutes/techniques should they use? Okay, next bar.” Thanks, Peter. Theter. So I am a lot more nervous than I was–and I was already pretty nervous. Less so about the actual writing, since “Internet” is pretty minimal, but…I mean…JIM will be playing. Jim will be playing my music (and he has never heard my compositions) and he will almost certainly be judging me. Uh oh! And Edwin Outwater will possibly be conducting!      UH OH.

That said, the reading is not for a couple of months.

DID YOU KNOW that in Waterloo it is legal to park on people’s lawns if there is no “Private Property” sign posted? Did you? These construction workers have been parking in our yard every day for a couple of months now, and every time we call bylaw, they just say, “We can only give them a warning.” Now a van has taken to parking directly in front of our door, which is a safety hazard! What if we were to have a fire and emergency vehicles weren’t able to get in? Anyway, I am contacting people like crazy and leaving notes under windshield wipers and hopefully something will be done. I hate construction. They have also torn up the sidewalk on both sides of the road so that it is impossible to walk anywhere but down the centre of the street, and even then I get all muddy. Yeesh.

P.S. You guys, Nico Muhly’s blog is the greatest. You should check it out. Peter keeps hinting that NUMUS might get him to come to KW for Open Ears which would be super-exciting!