oboe!
just had my first lesson with my new teacher, which was really really cool. i hadn't really prepared anything because i didn't know what she would want to go over but i played some Handel pieces because i loooove them and my fingers behaved prety well considering i hadn't played them for months and months and months. the first thing she did was completely reorganize the way i play. i don't know if it's a difference between american styles and english styles or what, but she had me hold my oboe way higher than any of my other teachers which made my mouth go all crazy, which she reorganized as well. and oh my goodness my posture has gotten so bad! and she won't let me sit down while i play, which is probably good for me because i hate standing up while playing and i should probably do it more. then she was like, oh my goodness what is going on with the scrape of this reed? and was confused (and yeah, she knows it's american but she was still a bit baffled). and she's set me some exercises from my horrible, evil book (that makes me so very frustrated, but only because it's good for me, so you know i love it really) and told me to work on the Handel pieces some more, keeping in mind all the bad habbits i need to break and everything i need to remember. and she's going to give me the links to some reed places that she thinks might make american scrape reeds over here so i can stop getting them from the states. she's really nice but she won't let me get away with anything, which is a really nice change from my oboe teacher at school. he just kind of shoved solos at me and i would play them with him trying to accompany on the piano and that was pretty much it. no progress there. so yeah, i think i might be getting back on track, even with the strange way of playing. and that's cool. i have no idea what i'm ever going to do with oboe, but it's fun and it might come in handy some day. so yes, that's my news for the day. it was very exciting. my next lesson is in new weeks. and i'm actually going to have to practice :)