My band teacher used to say “well someone has to play the Oboe”. I chose the Baritone. Like a Tuba, except smaller. The best thing about the Baritone is that you get to sit in the back row. And even better, when you empty your “spit valve”, you get to fling it over the rest of the band in front of you. It was great to be a baritone-playing band guy. But an Oboe player?
Even the word “Oboe” is strange. It derives from the 16
th Century English word “hautboy”
from haut; "high, loud, and high-pitched”. The sixteenth century history included having King
Henry VIII
sever ties with the
Catholic
Church and declaring himself head of the church in England. I may have my English history wrong but
I believe the driving factor behind this decision was that King Hank wanted a
boy and she gave birth to the future
Elizabeth I
of England, whose gender disappointed Henry. But in the midst of all this, some
totally un-political folks invented the Oboe. Sounds plausible.
The Oboe is such a strange looking instrument. Like a clarinet with the degrees of
difficulty ratcheted up. The
folks that play it look like they are trying to blow grapes through a straw.
Even after my spit-slinging, back-row-sitting,
baritone-playing band experience, I never really noticed the Oboe players. How prominent can this bizarre
instrument be?
And then this happened: “An Oboe player in San Francisco had an aneurysm on stage
while playing the Oboe.
William
Bennett, the longtime
San Francisco
Symphony oboist who suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on Saturday night
while performing
Richard
Strauss' Oboe Concerto.
He was 56.”
The poor gentleman’s head exploded whilst trying to blow
into that tiny reed.
I began to wonder what the life expectancy of Oboe players
was compared to other instruments.
So I searched. First thing up, a Yahoo Answers question:
“Is it true that playing oboe can shorten your life
span & make you cannot hear well?”
Best Answer:
”I think all that backpressure must take its
toll on a person's brain fluid. After a time you'll probably be skipping down
the street in a gerbil costume playing your oboe trying to entice owls into
your car. I've seen it happen! Tragic.”
After six years of inactivity on LefthandedandColorblind, I
uncover a conspiracy worth blogging about: Oboe playing shortens
your lifespan.
Another proof in point: James Brown –
oboist, teacher and producer of countless editions of oboe works – died today. Shocked neighbors saw Jimmy Brown
stumble from the wreckage of his home in Malmesbury , UK after it was destroyed
by a gas explosion today. Owww, It Feels Good! Although it may not be the same James
Brown.
And so it began.
My friend, Nashville Rich, and I began a conspiratorial
watch. We both frequently attend
the San Francisco Ballet performances and we began to watch for head explosions
in the Oboe “section” of the symphony.
After the very unfortunate event with the exploding Oboe player across
the street, we figured it would be best to monitor the situation. Conspiratorially, SFB began to
introduce two Oboe players in their
symphony. A strategy of fault tolerance I am certain.
During one performance, I received an important text message
from him indicating that he was “hermetically sealed in Saran-Wrap” in case the
current-night’s Oboe player exploded while trying to “blow grapes” through his
reed. A disturbing thought in any
case when one pictures a middle-aged man hermetically sealed in
Saran-wrap.
So I investigated further and found a disturbing article
about Oboe player “Dick”:
“So once a year, Dick pulls out his “oboe mouthpiece”–a teeny tiny
mouthpiece with a teeny-tiny single reed–and tells us about how he used to
bring it on tour and tell the other musicians it was “just in case” or whip it
out and warm up on it to scare the pants off them (because it sounds
reed-iculous).”
I may have to provide a better answer to the Yahoo Answer’s
questioner. Should you take up the
Oboe as your instrument? Perhaps,
but flinging spit from a baritone is way more interesting.
And safer.
