Lesson 01/14/04

Fred was still getting over whatever illness he had last week, so we didn’t play any of my duets.

Instead, I mentioned that I’d been having some trouble playing with the 2 1/2 reed this week. I put it on Monday and played fine for about 5 minutes, and then I couldn’t get anything out of the horn except air or a magnificent squeak. Tuesday I was able to play with 2 1/2 reed for about 20 minutes before the same thing happened. Fred’s not sure what’s going on, but I may just need to work more with the 2 1/2 — using my jaw to add more pressure. Plus, it’s not unusual for a player to have two strengths of reed that they play.

I had put my 2 1/2 reed on, optimistically, and played a few things with it tonight. The sound is pretty good, when I can get it out. And, of course, I didn’t have any of the problems I’d had with the reed at home. I’m going to continue working on three of the duets I’ve been practicing. I’m also going to continue working with A-major, trying to play a few pieces to better ingrain the scale in my head and fingers. Right now I still find it hard to play, especially fitting in G# — the side key is a bit awkward to get to in a hurry. Fred pointed out that I can just keep that key down for any of the lower notes (F, E, D), so as long as I know a G# is coming up, I can get the side key down anytime before hand. I’ll work on that with the pieces I’m playing. Eventually, I trust, G# will become second nature….I hope.