Well, I kind of got a new hobby this weekend. I'm going to start to consider reed-making, from growing to playing. I've got the playing part down, and the growing part pretty much takes care of itself once you acquire
the Arundo, which I have done. It's all the inbetween bits that I'm considering taking up.
Anyway, I went to
Double-Reed Days, and had a terrific time for the short amount of time I spent there - the first lecture was on the history of double-reed instruments, and as I was sitting there in the class, I found myself saying "
galeran would be really interested in this class. Aargh!
galeran is going to kill me for not telling him about this!!"
I learned, among other things, that the curator of the instrument collection will let any Dukie play the instruments.
Including the crumhorns.
I haven't had a chance to get over there since I learned this, though, so it hasn't happened yet.
After that lecture, I went into the vendor area (two vendors, but very interesting nonetheless), and talked about reeds and instrument repair and whatnot for over an hour.
I had my pipes on campus, so I went and got them and dug out a dead reed for the reedmaker to take apart, and she said that it's very similar in structure to the oboe reeds she makes. We talked about how reeds are split, and how they're cut and shaped, and so on. I'll just keep absorbing knowledge until I'm ready to try it myself.
And after that, my brain got full, so I went home.
The spousal unit is out of town at a tree conference (bunch of oaks standing around a hotel lobby with cocktails in their hands branches), so I'm single-parenting it this week. Loads of fun.