Adult Masterclass : Rebirth of the Phoenix!

Blogger statistics show that people have been searching for information about IMS and various pain-related questions. I’ll give an update on my progress next time and touch on why I think some people might consider the treatments don’t work, when in fact they do, to the extent they were intended to.

Frankenstein’s demise foretells a new birth!

Early last year, I wrote a blog post (Frankenstein's First Steps) with a title that essentially forecasted my whole oboe year. I hope this post will do the same.

I started this blog roughly 8 months after beginning to practice the oboe with some regularity, having left it nearly untouched for 10 years … well doing an average of 30 minutes a month… The blog was to motivate me to practice more seriously and to track my physical hurdles. Other people had similar stories to tell and sharing them on other venues had proven really comforting and encouraging, so I thought this blog might prove interesting.

During the 10 years of near abstinence, every time I picked-up the oboe produced mixed feelings:

1. sheer joy and a feeling of breathing fresh air after having held my breath underwater (swimming in the heavy burden of math and software assignments)
2. horrifying frustration at sounding as bad as a beginner, made much worse at remembering the recitals and concerts I did, including such difficult repertoire as Symphonie Fantastique and Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune.

By the time I started the blog, I thought my playing was decent for an amateur, but recordings left me feeling really embarrassed, again mostly for the memory of how I used to play. Now, a few weeks ago (a touch over a year into my blog or a year and a half into my oboe re-birth), I participated in a master class for adult amateurs and played the 1st movement of the Saint-Saëns sonata… and I did so believing I could pull it off without insulting music.
…This alone means I made some very decent improvement.

Adult Master Class – Lesson of the Phoenix!

Huge credit is due to the organizers of the Ottawa Oboe Extravaganza. They had the incredible foresight and showed real community stewardship by inviting adult amateurs to play on stage to receive the tutelage of an excellent oboist, Susan Morris of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra and Ottawa Youth Orchestra Academy. This activity really makes people feel like they belong to the musical world and it shows just how far one can get if we follow our dreams wholeheartedly.

It was only a week before the event I realized I could play in the master class. I was in the process of recording the last of 3 duets for 2 oboes by Nino Rota. So I only had time to practice excerpts from Petrushka, and only a little bit. On the night before the masterclass, I had to wait at the university for hours, so I found a spot to practice and a gut feeling told me to do something else: the Saint-Saëns would be a much better show off of my improvement in articulations and dynamics. I didn’t have the parts, but I had played it so much in the past that practicing from memory was not a problem.

Contrary to Expectations

The masterclass started and adult amateurs ranging from the very beginner to the much more experienced than myself went on stage. About 30 minutes before my turn, a cold draft ignited muscle spasms in my neck and fibro-fog set in: I was mortified to go on stage. I went anyway because I had made such a fuss with Chip to go… it would be really bad to back down. Chip had participants explain our musical stories and the fibro-fog created such confusion I could hardly speak with any coherence at all.

So I started playing the 1^st movement of the Saint-Saëns sonata. I would have expected notes to cack, articulations to fail, dynamics to freeze and so on… the usual! But instead, I was surprized that my slurring felt very smooth, my pp and ff dynamics seemed very distinct and solid and both the articulation and release of notes were in full control. Actually, even most of the rhythm and character was quite solid. What went berzerk was that nerves seemed to make me loose my embouchure, bite like a shark and therefore sound like tin can! … and naturally the fortissimo triplet arpeggios slipped and fell like Sandy Hill covered with freezing rain! (Ottawa winter applied to playing the oboe…)

This anxiety was very strange, because I never used to be nervous in concert…. at least, not enough to fear playing on stage. Exams and rehearsals used to mortify me, really intimidated about playing with my peers and betters. But public performance bliss usually trumped all anxiety.

My next steps as a musician…

Here is where the Phoenix comes in. The legend says that, at the end of its life, the Phoenix bursts into flames and is reborn of its own ashes. Well, if I did crash-and-burn at that masterclass, I hope is was a fire ignited by my year of blogging (practicing and recording) and that it ended the dark silent now past. I hope it means that now I can be reborn of those ashes and perhaps begin a new musical life with possibilities that I am as yet too inexperienced to imagine.

I must imagine that my next steps, as a musician, would be to overcome the anxiety I felt at the masterclass and regain my former performance bliss. I suppose, then, that I need to meet people and find the proper ensemble in a setting suited to my profession as a software engineer.

If the Almighty wishes it, then it will be and the Phoneix will fly in a beautiful blaze, its tears with the power to heal and wings capable of carrying even my dreams into reality.

IMS Update and Performance Endurance

A little note on recent observations because people have been coming to this blog have been Googling “IMS” and such.

Practice Endurance vs. Performance

I’m at the point now, where I can practice (alone) for about 2 hour “straight”. Seeing as I’m just about ready to record a short 4-movement baroque sonata, I figured I should be able to play all movements from beginning to end. Uuuuhhhh, no! No such luck. I can do the 2nd movement, though loosing the musical character, and my face just blows out half way through the 3rd.

More endurance is definitely required for a performance than practice, when we stop and retake and rest in between. I suppose, then, that Cooper Wright’s advice was well given (see comment from here). Also, I’ve noticed that:

1. when the mouth gets tired, the shoulders and hands tense up;
2. when the arms gets tired, the face tenses up.

I don’t know if this is just me (because of fibromyalgia) or if it’s a general rule for everyone, but I think young musicians should pay attention to this.

IMS treatment, one month later

I am now seeing my physiotherapist every month instead of every 2 weeks. The last few times (still bi-weekly) the needles did not hurt anymore, hardly felt any twinges at all. But this time, the reaction was similar to approximately the 6th treatments… that is, not too much pain, but still a lot of reaction (sweats, soreness, fatigue). My physiotherapist was pleased to explain that it wasn’t because of more time between treatments, but because I had begun swimming and training: I am challenging my body and it is reacting to it. This is good because pushing the limits and treating the symptoms will help improve.

She did emphasize that blips between the notes when playing is bad news: it means I am not taking enough care of nerve mobility. My nerves are still constricted, so I need to do her exercises more. The exercises I presented in a previous post  are far, far, far too advanced for me. She said, if I can comfortably do those, I don’t need physio anymore! However, the roller foam exercises for myofascial release are excellent and important. Now, I do those with a rolling pin where the huge roller can’t easily reach, and I have noticed more relaxation and control of the pedals when driving!

She fully agreed with the trainer at my gym that I should not work on building the body quite yet, rather, I should stretch muscle groups that are almost always problematic in people who sit at a computer (or reed making table). Once I have gained enough flexibility in the legs and nerve mobility in the arms, then my body will be able to build muscle mass without risking anything.

Reflexions on Video #2

So a little time has passed since my You-Tube of O Souverain and the following reflections should be made:

1. My fingers move with much more fluidity and even rhythm than ever before, even in the best of my days and even though my physical condition is much worse than back then: thank IMS for that! I still have to regain speed and re-learn all scales, but I'm struggling much less than I ever used to.
2. 30 minutes a day is not enough to build real endurance.... or if it is, it'll take more than the one year I spent on it.
3. Strangely, I can practice for hours, but this relatively easy piece tired my lips enough to sag notes at the end of crescendi: baroque repertoire (especially the technical runs) seems easier.

During the winter, I had challenged myself to do one (small) recording per week, just to motivate myself to practice more and push to better quality of playing…. well….. that didn’t work out! No matter what, as soon as I hear the recordings, I notice “small things” that can be fixed with just one more take, then just another knife stroke on the reed, then another take!
Conclusion: recordings take time away from practicing and making reeds!

Video Production:

Making a good looking video is hard! Lighting is a huge deal and... well... let's just say I won't argue with my wife anymore when she tells me to use wrinkle cream under my eyes!

I bought an expensive web-cam because I thought it best to stream directly into the computer (not possible with affordable handi-cams)... I was wrong. I don't know if I need more RAM or if high-definition is just too much for Windows 7 (I must try Linux now). The choppiness in the video would have not happened with a handi-cam and I could still mix the audio track and synchronize easily enough with Windows Live Movie Maker (Macintosh has the equivalent and Linux is supposed to also): this would allow me to continue to do multi-track recording and use my special recording device.

What has improved:

1. My sound quality (tone colour) is much deeper and more open, generally better than it has ever been, even in the best of my days. Is this due to better reed making and materials (staples, shaper, scrape technique) or is it due to my oboe being revoiced? This is difficult to say as it could also be due to better attention to what I hear and how I practice.
2. My general sense of phrasing: articulation and dynamics were probably better years ago, but they have definitely improved since my 1st recording in February and I have definitely refined my sense of short and long term direction for the melody compared to 15 years ago.

What remains to work on:

1. General sound control and finger technique. My rhythm is more even, but I still tend to anticipate the beat a lot, especially when doing a crescendo or running short on breath.
2. Better breathing-in: the exhaling is fine, but my abdomen seems tight and I think this contributes to the fatigue.
3. Learn to fully relax lips in just a few beats of rest.
4. Acoustics: recording in a room with more reverberation!
   This could mean moving my desktop computer to my dining room… need to try!

Frankenstein's First Steps

Frankenstein's Monster was a living creature made from parts of dead people. That's what I felt like when I was able to start practising for real again. Sure, I had blown a few minutes every month or so; in fact, about 5 years ago I was able to do a whole summer with 2 hours a day of experimenting on reed shapes and scraping techniques. But that’s nothing like knowing that you can now do up to an hour or more each day and know that the hopes of becoming good again are no longer in vain!

But Frankenstein's monster had his own problems: despite his huge size and strength, he was also rather weak and helpless. His sense of balance was all wrong, his muscular coordination was shaky at best, the mobility of his joints was impeded by all the surgeries and his speech ability was pretty well non existent. This is pretty much how it is for me, having fibromyalgia and degenerative disc disorder. I remember everything I used to be able to do, I still aim for better, but there are days when I am just not physically able. And also like the monster, let's not beat around the bush, I have a tendency to say what I think in ways that can very well get people irked! This is actually made much worse on days when "fibro-fog" sets in or when pain makes me just plain grumpy and impatient.

The first thing you lose when you get tired is rhythm... or at least that's what they used to tell us at the university. I found that, for the oboe, the first thing you lose is your mouth: endurance along with intonation and dynamics! But strangely enough though, and I had noticed this when I took week-ends off at the Conservatoire, it seems that my tone quality gets better! I guess its the softer embouchure. Well, there might be hope for the monster: endurance is still very difficult for me, but I do seem to be able to play reasonably in tune now. My dynamic range seems alright, but recordings contradict each other depending on the equipment I use. Long tones do help, but with so little time to practice each day, I don't tend to favour them. They are also discouraging because the consistency of sound is more difficult with less practise. Strangely, practising scales and such seems to help with endurance too.

Rhythm is truly difficult, I don't mean patterns and speed, I mean evenness and consistency. I had a problem playing just before the beat even in the best of my days. I find that practising with a metronome is useless unless I record myself: then, I can more easily grasp where and how I'm speeding up or anticipating. It's almost always a function of fatigue: when I'm running out of air or when my gut support is starting to strain, then I speed up. I will anticipate the beats at the beginning of passages when my mouth is tired. Even after several bars of rest, when the lips are tired, I tend to rush the metronome.

Well, at least I know what to work at and there are no angry village mobs out to burn me alive (yet).... or at least I was able to evade those from the past! ;-)