Blog Post #3—Interviews, Replenishment, and Some Stupid Filming (3)

Oh boy.  It's the end of Week 3, and I've actually gotten a lot done!  While I've taken a step back from physically making reeds, this past week I've really pushed myself to get the mechanics and methodologies down, and then put them back into practice this coming week.  Additionally, I got my interviews done!  Yesterday (3/4) before going into Philly for the day, I had a wonderful conversation with Heidi Brann, an oboe player / reek maker form Illinois who made the beginner kit I use.  We talked for about 45 minutes, and I think our conversation passes my Small Talk Test (please see my process analysis essay).  Below there are pictures of all the notes I took from our chat, plus I filmed the interview as well.

The good thing about this diagram,
is that it clears up some of the specific areas
of an oboe reed that I was not entirely sure of.

Then, today (3/5), I had my other interview with Isabelle Bender, a sophomore college oboist at West Chester University.  For my interview with her, I focused more on actually getting some tips and tricks help, rather than verbal questions.  Below there is a picture of a diagram she drew me, showing the different parts / measurements of an oboe reed (I can't art this well).  Likewise, I also filmed the question portion of this interview; however, I stupidly accidentally filmed it as a time lapse (Gabe, you're doing film making, hmu...), so I will have to look at the notes I took instead to look at as my sole reference.

Overall, the interviewing experience was extremely fun, and I'm really pleased with how those turned out.  As someone who generally gets has a lot of anxiety when it comes to talking to people I'm not familiar with (mostly my peers, oddly enough), I was surprised to find just how much I enjoyed conversing with these two reed making experts.  They both had a lot of good insight, and I'm so excited to share with you guys some of the things they said!

Seeing as I finished my interviews just today, I will wait to post about them as my next Extra Blog Post, and I fully plan on cutting down the video I took during my phone call with Heidi Brann (seeing as the video right now is 40 minutes long); keep and eye (ear?) out for it!

Finally, I got a new book and some more supplies!  The reed blank in the picture is actually from Isabelle Bender, so I feel extremely compelled to treat it as though it were my first born child.  Also, the book I've been using is called Oboe-Reed Making: Simplified, for a reason, and I think at this point it's just too general for me to actually really start making something of high quality.  Not that I know all there is to know about the basics, but generally speaking there aren't really "levels" to this process—it's do or die (please, I choose die).

WELL GUYS, we finally did it!—a blog post that isn't a million words long.  Sorry I don't have new pictures of any reeds I've made; I plan on working on a bunch this week as well as editing the video for my interview from yesterday.  Feel free to comment on that blog post once it's up, as it will most likely be much more exciting.

As always, thanks for reading!

- OMB

For Blog Post #2, I commented on: Meltzer, Lee, Suchodolski