#oboe problems

[weirdstrangeandawful]

Gonna add a totally unrelated funny note about Sleigh Ride from the perspective of an oboe player who has helped teach beginner oboe players.

When students are usually starting out, they start out playing on beginner oboes. These oboes are usually plastic (which makes them easier to hold -- the oboe is a very hard instrument to hold properly for a long time at first), don't have a left hand F key (they use forked F instead) and, relevant to Sleigh Ride, don't have a low B-flat bell key which you need to play those last notes after the horse.

How do you do it then? Well, beginner oboes may not have a a bell key but there are holes in the bell and you have knees. Whilst this is inconvenient because the oboe isn't held vertically like a clarinet and looks incredibly silly and often winds up with you headbutting your music stand, it does work.

none of my moots have TikTok so I’m posting this here

[halfratsalready]

I am truly baffled by the overwhelming negativity of the comments on Just Dance’s socials. We’ve gotten two teasers of upcoming previews and people are already furious, acting like every single map in the game is going to be using “recycled” coaches.

I feel like most of the video games I follow on socials have this problem, where the fan base does nothing but complain in the comments, and while it’s totally valid sometimes, like if an update completely broke the game or something like that, it just feels extremely unwarranted to me.

You don’t have to like everything that they do, but the least you can do is be respectful of the people who’ve put so much time and effort into making the art that you enjoy. Especially when we’ve only seen a super small fraction of what we’re going to be getting in JD25. And ya know what, I love the look of the coaches in the new teaser they just dropped. I love their new looks and think they’re a lot of fun.

I joined the fandom early this year, so this is my first time being around for a new game’s release and I don’t know how people normally react, but the response makes me sad and I wish people would wait until we at least have more previews to pass such scathing judgements on the new game.

[samstudios8108]

Y’know those band kids that love band so much that they decide to do it twice and pick up another instrument?

Yeah I’m one of those band kids.

And when deciding to learn saxophone alongside my oboe, I assumed the hard things would be stuff like learning new fingerings and trying to do a new ambrochure. BUT NOOOO

No. Here in high woodwind land (oboe, clarinet, alto sax and maybe tenor) there is almost no difference between fingerings except for a couple of stumbles (F natural for alto is F# for oboe… bit of pain). And learning a new ambrochure? HA! I’m an oboeist, your single reeded ambrochures are NOTHING to me.

but then comes the crap that I WASN’T expecting to inconvenience EVER. The fact that it takes 10 WHOLE MINUTES for me to set up my sax because I can’t get the ligature and neck strap to cooperate. My single reeds would get moldy every other week because I didn’t know how to take care of them (I fixed that simply by getting a better reed case). THE FACT THAT I RUN OUT OF BREATH EVERY 2 MEASURES on sax, but then with the oboe I CAN GO FOR EIGHT WITH EASE. I have 3 DIFFERENT SWABS FOF DIFFERENT THINGS (neck, a little scrubber thing for my mouthpiece, then the actual sax swab. The SPIT that just slowly OOZES out of the KEYS because condensation is different for the saxophone than with the oboe. I one time got kindly corrected at marching band practice for SETTING MY SAX DOWN ON THE WRONG SIDE. HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT THE SIDE WITH MORE KEYS GOES FACE DOWN BECAUSE OF THE KEY GUARDS??!?!?! THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS FOR OBOE

I would always be like: yeah double reeds are harder because it’s literally double the trouble of a single reed. You have to use more breath. Blah blah blah

NO. Single reeds are WEIRD. I would much rather pay a leg and an arm or forge a reed from SCRATH then have to deal with your STUPID LIGATURES

[doctorwhoisadhd]

also another reason i play picc despite it causing my migraines is because i can use it to win arguments. Like any other instrument you have no right to complain about piccolo being "too high" when i am playing it and it gives ME migraines. like. ok coward. what do u even have to complain about

[supercantaloupe]

was thinking about this in my lesson this morning, how it’s really common for woodwind players to have multiple instruments. like i have two oboes in addition to my english horn but not even including other instruments like EH or d’amore, most oboists i know (especially professionals) will have two or three or more. i know flute and clarinets who’re the same way but i have no idea if it’s A Thing for string or brass players too

[roseband]

why is looking for a bass clarinet to play in store before buying like.... basically like a drug deal

[bi-rezi]

ever since I stopped regularly playing music in some form or another all my music autism just bangs and rattles around in my head. the dark timeline is the one where instead of actually picking up an instrument again I start a YouTube channel for music theory analysis

[deadbaguette]

Day 10 (on the 11th lol): Music ft. The Spartan Princesses Penelope, Clytemnestra, and Helen

Music / Orchestra AU:

Not much lore today, but take a look at my previous post about this Orchestra AU! I have been brainrotting this AU for a while :3 here are the instruments I have somewhat decided on

Penelope: Violin or flute

Odysseus: Flute

Diomedes: Oboe or Clarinet (but I genuinely considered a bassoon)

Helen: Flute or Violin

Menelaus: Saxophone

Agamemnon: Trombone

Clytemnestra: Cello

Achilles: Violin or Trumpet or French Horn or Harp (this guy is never ever gonna stop giving me problems with indecisiveness FUCKKKK)

Patroclus: Viola or Trombone

Paris: I dare say piccolo but maybe like a clarinet

Hektor: Trumpet for one very specific reason

Cassandra: French horn

Ajax the Greater: Big instrument like a Tuba or double bass

Teucer: smaller version of Ajax’s like a trumpet or a violin

Nestor: he strikes me as a piano player or just a percussionist

Antilochus: Piano

[pjsk-headcanons]

mizuki is a flautist because i'm a flautist and i project my instrument onto any and every possible character i can

ena finds out and she's like "oh wow that's cool can you play anything on it" and sits right next to mizuki and proceeds to get whacked in the head with the flute as they start to play hot cross buns

i could project my flautist ways on most of the cast except for a few exceptions, in which i think they'd play different instruments

ena - clarinet

akito - either the alto sax or the trombone. leaning trombone though

tsukasa - trumpet. loud. he'd probably also do colorguard though because Big Flags

kohane - oboe

an - also clarinet

airi - also trumpet

rui - he's a flautist yeah. but specifically for the low ones like this.

no one knows where on earth he bought it from or how he convinced the band director to let him play it but he did and now he's going to make it everyone's problem

anyway yeah ❤️

.

[dontforgetthefrenchhorns]

Just, like, in your experience which section has been the most intolerable to be around and deal with. Also I separated the saxophones this time because last time people were upset I kept them together lmao <3

I'm causing problems on purpose <33

[nonasuch]

Guys, I have a problem.

This is my problem. It is one Ikea DIMPA bag (25.5”x25.5”x8.75”) full of damaged vintage clothing. I need it to be someone else’s problem.

My apartment complex is ripping out the radiators and putting in central heat/air on Monday, so I am deep cleaning my apartment and trying to get rid of all the stuff I need to admit I’m never going to fix.

Everything in the bag is vintage — mostly 40s-60s, but there’s also a couple of Edwardian shirtwaists and some 30s velvet. There is a LOT of it.

Everything in the bag is damaged. Some things are stained, some are torn, some need the buttons or zippers replaced. Some can be restored to wearability, some are only good for fabric.

(It’s really good fabric, though.)

If you are in the DC area and can come pick up this bag tomorrow or Sunday, it’s yours for $50 OBO.

You can pick it up from my shop in Hyattsville on Saturday or Sunday while we’re open, or from my apartment before or after closing.

(I also will probably have a bunch of fabric and craft supplies to get rid of, if anyone’s interested.)

DM me for details.

[bloopitynoot]

3 Shadowgast fics that made me ugly cry

Okay so I read a LOT of shadowgast fanfics and I wanted to share some of the ones that made me absolutely weep. (I was going to wait until tomorrow but I got too excited to share).

All of these have some intense emotional distress, but I promise you all they may be angsty but they absolutely have happy endings.

They are all set in very different AU's, are hefty completed fics, and have similar feels!

1. the breathe before the phrase

(171513 words) by @kmackatie Chapters: 20/20 Rating: Explicit Summary: The ringing note of a concert A is played by the oboe, echoing on its own in the space. It’s picked up by the wind section, followed rapidly by the brass, and the familiar feeling of an orchestra calibrating takes over Caleb. The tonal adjustments as each person brings their instrument into alignment sinks into him and something inside Caleb shifts in recognition as Essek leads the strings into their own tuning. It’s like something is waking up, like something unfurling and firing across long-unused paths of memory. His hands shake slightly, as he raises his bow and joins them, fingers fumbling against the pegs and fine tuners that give him control over his instrument. ---- Essek Thelyss is a leading violinist, his spot as Shadowhand of the Rosohna Philharmonic Orchestra has been uncontested for over a decade. Caleb Widogast is a recent arrival to the city, convinced by his friends to audition for one of the vacant violinist positions. After starting off on the wrong foot, Caleb and Essek get to slowly know each other, discover what brings them joy, create while defying expectations, and find out that what they can produce together may just be better than anything they can do separately.

Why I cried: The amount of pressure put on Essek made my heart absolutely shatter. That plus the pinning between Caleb and Essek had me weeping. The hurt/comfort energy. The bad parent Dierta and of course past Caleb Ickythong trauma healing. Other than the story itself Katie has put so much energy into explaining the music, the playlist is stunning, and the inspiration for the played pieces in the fic are grounded in actual compositions. No spoilers, but the ending is gorgeous <3

2.Till Human Voices Wake us

(66080 words) by @ariadne-mouse Chapters: 23/23 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Additional Tags: Merman!Caleb, no Mighty Nein but otherwise canon setting/events, Neutral evil Essek, Essek-typical anxiety and fatalism, Loneliness, Hurt/Comfort, spooky gothic vibes, some horror and disturbing imagery, the ocean as a threat/love language, Illustrations, drowning themes Summary: Essek Thelyss, lonely and ambitious prodigy, comes to Nicodranas to make a risky gamble with the Assembly. At the water’s edge, he finds himself swept up in another dangerous entanglement he can't seem to escape — and as time goes on, he's less and less sure he wants to. Will his treasonous alliance or the sea itself devour him first? (Or, the one where Caleb is a merman.)

Why I cried: okay so look, this story was so fucking sad I can't even begin to describe it. The love and longing between the two, the tragic backstory for Caleb. Treason = death for Essek (it's a happy ending though so do not worry, but I definitely worried so you don't have to LOL). It also has some stunning art in it!!!

3. what luminous worlds await

what luminous worlds await (178674 words) by @essektheylyss Rating: Mature Additional Tags: Champion of the Luxon AU, Alternate Universe - Future, Space Opera, Religious Conflict, religious trauma, Violence, Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Dreams vs. Reality, Demisexual Essek Thelyss, Past Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Angst, Fictional Religion & Theology, Implied/Referenced Sex, Mention of Using Sex as Self-Harm, several immortals grapple with loss while trying to save the world, so so many liberties taken with consecution, this wouldn't be a problem if you'd EXPLAIN matthew mercer, and/or if a certain drow would give literally any straight answers, (I mean he can't give straight answers when he's not straight), Background Fjorester (Past), Post-Canon, …very post-canon Summary: “You seek my nature. It is a lonely endeavor. Would you like to join me on this path?” “Yes.” — After a thousand years, a divine champion awakes in a lightless cave above Port Damali with little memory to speak of and a beacon in his hands. Even as he struggles to piece the past together and process what he has lost while he slept, the future demands he answer for the crimes of his elders. It offers little in return, but perhaps there are fragments of possibility awaiting him.

Why I cried: Omg oh boy, this one made me BIG cry- honestly one of my favourite fics I have read so far. A true space opera, a story of love, in many forms, over time, space, and multiple lives. I sobbed from chapter one literally until the end. Though I think you will need an A03 account to read this one, but it is worth the wait to set one up. My partner watched me cry so much while I read this. I totally did download and save this fic to send to pals so they can cry with me. It is worth the agony for this happy ending. I might still be crying LOL

[halfratsalready]

Was playing a JD sims save the other day and this poor child Jack sim was going through it. Before he even interacted with anyone for the first time he developed a fear of being inferior, and I’ve never had a child sim have so many nightmares. One night he had, like, four, and he was so tired the next day that I just barely managed to get him into his bed before he passed out from exhaustion after getting home from school. And then he woke up from another nightmare like an hour later. He’s also terrified of the dark. I didn’t even do anything to this poor kid, but the sims somehow just knows.

[honey-minded-hivemind]

Imagine Rewind!Reader going back to their doctor to talk about the recent strange occurrences-

And imagine Morph drove them there(Rewind!Reader might've lost their car recently), letting Reader unknowingly lead them right to the cause of their and the X-men's little 'problem'

Cube anon

Kevin (Morph) is already pulling up in their car, keys twirling between their fingers, grinning and chuckling and calling you to come out out and hop in, or you'll be late~!

(In reality, they're nervous, tense, ready to tear apart whoever gave those f*cking pills to you. Want to know why? Those pills aren't for health or to stop hallucinations... They're to suppress mutations... And as far as they can tell? They haven't seen any signs of yours since the moment they've been here)

Kevin is walking you up to the clinic doors, chatting lightly and trying not ask anything too invasive (conspicuous), and trying to put you at ease. They can tell your anxious, nervous, maybe feeling dread? What kind of doctor have you been seeing? And are they treating you well? Or are they some quack who couldn't tell an oboe from an elbow?

The doors never open.

The place appears closed (or abandoned), not a single person in sight. No stuffy doctor, no tired nurses, no patients with injuries or medical needs...

It's completely and utterly...

Empty.

Yet Kevin reassures you they have just the trick~! And end up lock picking the door, sneaking in while you frantically try to stop them, worried someone could see them or that Kevin could get in trouble. But no worries, kiddo~! They just need to find your doctor's number, their name, where they liVe... And then you can go, maybe get some snacks or a bite to eat, then head home!

Everything goes well at first: finding some abandoned rooms, some leftover medicine, some patient files, an old phone... Until Morph finds your file, and hidden in the back, a name and an extra folder...

And Morph feels themslef go cold, frozen in place.

Because they know who your doctor is, and if that's who's been hiding you, who took you from them... then this is even worse than what they initially thought.

This isn't some stranger or new villain.

This is an old one.

A sinister one.

When Kevin comes back, you're a bit nervous, hoping no one saw them or you loitering or breaking and entering... But Kevin just waves you off, saying they didn't find anything. They ruffle your hair, grinning, and ask where you want to go to eat, and if you're up for a day of fun with them~

And you agree, trying to put your mind at ease.

Yet that feeling of something, like a bubbling dread, rises up again, and you shudder, pulling your hoodie tighter around you...

( @thewickedweiner Cube Anon, yes, YEs! I like where this is going! Any more ideas or asks for 🔦Rewind AU?)

[tsarisfanfiction]

Third Time Lucky

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Angst Characters: Alice (OC), Will, Lee, Michael The death of one head counsellor was unlucky. The death of two was a coincidence. A third would be a pattern. TOApril day 17 - The Cyclical Nature of Things. I immediately thought of Cabin Seven's tendency to have their head counsellors die, so that's my twist on this prompt! This fic is set the same summer as TON, although later on, and is during whatever quest Will ends up on (this could easily be seen as a companion fic to Stolen God or Eclipse, if you so desire, or any other story where Will goes on a quest that summer).

Will was on a quest, and Alice hated it.

Okay, so being temporarily in charge of the cabin wasn’t terrible – her younger siblings were reasonably easy to corral, all in all, and Alice had never had a problem with putting her foot down, although the comforting-younger-siblings-when-upset thing wasn’t quite so much her forte.  It was even good practice, for when the role fell onto her shoulders.

What she didn’t like was the fear that kept creeping in to her mind and heart whenever she stopped to think about her brother’s absence.  It wasn’t so much feeling the lack of support of a big brother, the way she knew the others were feeling – how could it be, when Alice had never really seen Will as her big brother.  There was only four months between them, and even though Will had been at camp years longer than her, and was a year-rounder against her summer stays, he’d never felt older.

No, Alice wasn’t suddenly adjusting to the lack of a big brother to tell her what to do (and be the one to comfort her when something got to her, because teenage hormones were stupid and she hated them).

Instead, she was scared, because she had a terrible track record for head counsellors, and Will being off on some quest or other rather than staying in the relative safety of camp was not helping her sleep soundly at night.

He was her third head counsellor, and neither of the other two had lived to leave camp.

She still remembered Lee, taking her by the hand after she’d been claimed and leading her straight into their cabin, showing her a bunk and letting her jump on the bed even when the frame started to creak in protest.  It had been a massive change from her mom threatening that her bed would break and she wouldn’t get another one if she did break the perfectly serviceable one that she had.  So massive, in fact, that when she’d challenged Lee about it, he’d challenged her right back.

“Those beds won’t break,” he’d told her, and that had spurred Alice on to greater and greater bounces, feeling the wood groan and flex beneath the mattress.

He’d been right.  Her bunk had never broken, no matter what she’d done on it.

Lee’s skull had, and that was a thought she was packing straight back into its box again.

When he’d discovered her oboe – not that it had taken him long at all, and Alice hadn’t exactly been hiding it – he’d shown her where she could keep it, and dug out sheet music so she had new things to try.

The oboe and the flute sounded good together, and they’d duetted more than once.  Alberto Ginastera was a staple, but there were other pieces labelled anon that Lee had plucked out of who-knew-where, and she didn’t know if he’d written those himself, or if he’d got them from Apollo, but she’d never come across them outside of camp and that felt like it meant something.

She hadn’t played any of those pieces since his death.  She wasn’t sure if she ever would.  The flute wasn’t exactly a rare instrument, but the sound of one always, always, made her think of her big brother, her first and longest-running head counsellor, and the idea of duetting with one…  Maybe she would one day, but not yet.

Because Lee was dead and that had hurt, but it was war and death was an inevitability (not that that made it any less painful).  Other cabins also lost head counsellors, they weren’t special for that.

But then there was Michael, and he couldn’t have been more different from Lee, but he’d been her big brother, too (in age if not stature).  Running to him after a bad dream wasn’t the same as running to Lee, because Lee was good with words while Michael spoke louder with actions, but the comfort had been there all the same.

Michael had a temper and a reputation, but even when Alice had pushed and pushed and pushed, he’d never snapped at her or her bullshit.  She still remembered the day he let her braid his hair, the way that he called out her brazen lie about how his hair was the longest in the cabin with a deadpan look and nothing more.

She still had the photos that Lee had taken, but they were only plastered over her wall at her mom’s house, along with so many others from her summers at camp.  There weren’t any photos of their dead siblings in the cabin, because that hurt too much.

Not her – she liked the reminder, the memories of the good times where they were just siblings messing around and not child soldiers fighting and dying in war – but others.  Will, mostly, if she cared enough to point fingers, and on some days she did but most of the time she didn’t.

Because if Will was the reason, then it meant that Will was still alive, and Alice had lost two head counsellors (and many more siblings) already.  It almost seemed like a thing, that cabin seven had done something to upset the Fates enough that things kept going wrong for them.

First Lee, then Michael.  Then there’d been her dad turned mortal, although Alice had managed to miss the entire thing and only found out about it when she got to camp and discovered she’d missed him by mere days (she’d also missed another battle, and she couldn’t be sad about that.  Mad, because she had three more little siblings now, and sending them off to fight without older siblings to protect them felt wrong).

Now Will was off on a quest, and it had been bad enough last summer, when he’d left her in charge on the backline of the battlefield while he slunk around the front lines.  She’d been certain he was going to die, then, and might have spent several nights in his bed once they were finally all free from night-and-day infirmary duties, clinging to her almost-twin and reassuring herself that she hadn’t lost him, too.

Him throwing himself into a dangerous situation again was not helping her nerves at all.  It felt like he’d already taken all of his allocated luck in surviving last summer’s war, and that this quest was just tempting fate.

Alice didn’t know if she trusted fate enough to bring her brother back again.  Given their track record of dying head counsellors, she leaned towards not a chance in Hades and prayed, instead.  Prayed to the Fates, to Apollo, to Hades and Thanatos and any other god that cared to listen and maybe, maybe do something about it.

Maybe, they’d break the pattern.

[supercantaloupe]

if one more thing goes wrong this week i'm going to Fucking lose it