I went to a TSO concert tonight! They played “The Rite of Spring” and Holst’s “The Planets”, so it was a pretty incredible concert. And useful, because of this orchestra piece I’m writing. I came home with a bunch of notes about instrument combinations and stuff. Yes I took notes at a concert! Man, I am a nerd.

Life is okay, I guess, but I have turned forgetful since December began. Also I got an email from my parents saying that my invoice for tuition came, and I owe the school upwards of $2500. Which I don’t have.

Maaaaaaaaaan. How will this work out? STAY TUNED. Anything could happen.

I have been reading Ryan North’s Livejournal from the beginning! It is fantastic, and means that today I am carefully watching how many exclamation points and capitals I write. It’s hard, though. Sometimes I am enthusiastic, and have a tendency to incorporate the writing styles of people I like–like Ryan North, and sometimes Joey Comeau or David Troupes. I don’t know how I feel about this habit! On one hand, I enjoy their writing very much. On the other hand, somehow I have to be original and not a total ripoff? I mean, my comic is already a large oboistic tribute to xkcd. Being original: it is not so easy.

It is exam time, and crackdown-on-score-for-orchestra-piece time, and stress-about-money time. And somehow, somehow, I have to fit oboe into all that. I am going to school tomorrow and spending my day in the studio gouging and practicing (right? Yes!) and hopefully scoring the first bits of my piece. I don’t know what to call it! At first it was going to be “Cyber Music,” which I like, but it isn’t as related to the Internet as “Internet” was, so it is not cyber-like at all. Ex that one off. Then I came up with “Not Digital, But Digital,” which I also like, but I feel like it’s ripping something off and I can’t figure out what.

Conundrum! What shall the title of this piece be? It shall require thought. Usually I am able to come up with titles with no trouble, it’s one of my favourite parts of composing, and often comes first or near the beginning. This one…well, we shall see. I’m trying some new orchestration stuff, though, like a horn section and solo viola, or muted trumpet, bassoon, and ‘cello, or vibraphone with a rolled-up towel placed along the back to mute it and oboe. It could be neat? I’m trying to think outside Beethoven! It was interesting to see how Holst and Stravinsky applied the “orchestral sections” practice: Holst does it more than Stravinsky, but they both mix it up! There was this really cool combination of alto flute and english horn that I really liked in “Rite.” It was pretty hot, I’m not going to lie.

I have this friend, Christopher, who I think is someday going to be a brilliant orchestral conductor. Going to concerts with him is awesome because he always has something insightful to say! He, being the kind of person who has many different recordings of a certain piece, also has a lot of orchestral knowledge that I don’t, so I usually believe him. When I hear a good orchestra play I am like, “Whoa! Awesome!” and he will be like, “It was good, but this and this and this were off,” or “I would’ve done it this way,” which I think is great. It helps me listen better the next time. Today his comment was, “The Planets showed just how far the TSO have come, and The Rite of Spring showed how far they have yet to go.”

We were sitting in the top balcony, waaaaay over on the left, so we couldn’t see percussion or violins or the end of the horns and flutes (apparently I missed the Wagnerian tubas! Disappointing!), but I did get to watch the oboes. Both pieces had lots of them! Man! It was a good show for the TSO oboes. It’s interesting to watch them because they all have such different styles. I was noticing Keith Atkinson plays his oboe further out from his body than lady-oboist-who-might-have-previously-played-with-Saskatoon, and Cary was doing his usual thing with his face which makes me try to mimic it *every time* and Frank Morphy played bass oboe really loudly, which was impressive! Way to go, TSOboes.

Also, apparently it is the new thing to get up and leave right after the last note is played? Everyone started clapping and a bunch of people stood up, and I was like “Standing O? Really?” and then they all just…left. They couldn’t sit for a few minutes of clapping, they couldn’t wait for the orchestra to be recognized, they just had to bomb out to their cars! I mean, I am not in favour of standing ovations all the time, but neither am I in favour of people not acknowledging the musicians at all! Yeesh. I am concerned.

In other news, I need to do laundry, Laurier’s bassoon studio is putting on their annual Vivaldi Bassoon Concerto cycle on Saturday (you should come! It is free, and there is delicious food! That I am helping to make!), and it is past my bed time.

Goodnight? OR GOOD MORNING?

So I came up for a title for my symphony piece! It’s going to be called “Analogue” because it is more organic than “Internet” and “Internet” was supposed to sound digital. Also, what a neat word. I am halfway through the skeleton of my score, and am going to have a short score done by next week, hypothetically. Hypothetically! I think I shall, though, when I actually sit down and focus I am super-productive.

I had a composition lesson yesterday (which was a double, with Matt Vandersluys whose compositions remind of Yann Tiersen, which is *awesome*), and an oboe lesson the day before (in which I got both my studies crossed off). Now I am solidly into exams. I finished my first one an hour ago, and I happy about it, but a little sad because it was a great course! Cyborg Fictions, taught by Andrea Austin.

Whoa, I just got back to my computer and realized I did not post this. So I am back from the oboe dinner at Jim’s! He made curry, and Aimee’s chocolate fountain was *awesome*. We are probably going to have it at the Oboesoon Band concert, so you should come! Anyway, before dinner we listened to a bunch of recordings of Tombeau, and after dinner we compared recordings of Scheherezade. And we watched a 1976 video of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy playing “The Planets,” “Pictures at an Exhibition,” and “La Mer,” which was cool, because Jim would stop and tell stories about DeLancie and Woodhams and Curtis and Ormandy. And then we watched a bunch of old videos of Jim playing oboe (including one where he talked about oboe on “Oopsy the Clown”) and *then* we watched an 80’s pop music video that Jim was in by an artist called Octavian, who is secretly the timpanist of the KWS. There were a few videos, and one had Jim, and a couple had Tommy Kay, who is the principal flute of the KWS, and they were fantastic. Fantastically hilarious and awful.

Example:

(Tommy Kay is the bartender. He is in this video also. Hilarious! I can’t find the one with Jim, unfortunately, but it is called “Susan,” so if you find it, let me know!)Anyway, it was super-fun to sit around Jim’s fireplace and watch old-timey orchestra videos and drink raspberry chai and listen to stories. Oboe parties! They are awesome!

In case you haven’t noticed, the site has been undergoing some crazy change recently, and I have been trying to fix it (without much success, but at least you can read the blog posts now. If you squint at them). Our Noble Sysadmin has been busy recently, so we will get it fixed as soon as humanly possible!