The Funk

And now for something completely different:

The past two weeks have been incredibly trying for me as a music major. I have had a very severe case of "the funk."

You know those days when nothing is going right? The solos you've practiced just don't sound quite right and your sound is entirely mediocre and all the brilliance of the weeks past dissipates into this average, ho-hum playing that ends up in a spiral of self-defeat?

It was one of those days. Except for two weeks.

Maybe I'm just a perfectionist, but it's almost impossible for me to practice when I feel like I sound like shit. There's really no such thing as a "practice reed" for me. It might be a reed that used to be a performance reed and is slightly dead. But usually I don't keep reeds I'm uncomfortable playing in front of people around long enough to have anything that qualifies as a "practice reed."

Over the summer, I'd gained consistency in my reedmaking. I was consistently making reeds that I felt comfortable playing on in public. A few of them were good enough to solo on. This trend kept until two weeks ago, when all hell broke loose.

So the past several weeks have been a long series of me exclaiming "I HATE THE OBOE."

And that's what scares me. What scares me the most is growing to hate the thing I love more than anything. It's like when you've practiced something to the point where it starts getting worse and worse with each repetition. It's like the point where you're practicing a piece for an audition or competition. A piece that you love. And you've done so much of it and don't know what more you can do with it that you start hating it. It ended up that I was judging my own playing so much that I couldn't accept the sound that was coming out, so even the Vaughan Williams, one of my favourite pieces of music ever written, was something I hated to practice.


There isn't a point to music if you don't love it. If you've become that jaded and cynical toward music, then it ceases to be music; it becomes a robotic, machine-like practice. And you get bored. And you start to hate it.


This week was the first time since the funk started that I felt comfortable with my playing. I can never get rid of the perfectionistic mentality to want to correct every slight mistake or waver in my tone. But at a certain point, the perfectionist has to give way to the music. The perfectionist has to just SHUT UP long enough for you to just play.

I ended up not practicing for three days one week. That's the longest I've gone without practicing since...I can't even remember. And it took some getting back into. But what made the difference was to step back from my weaknesses and just let it rest. Let my frustration out without worrying that I'd get behind and I'd never get a job and all sorts of horrible things. You can deal three days without practicing. Just don't make it a habit. Sheesh, performance major.

When I came back to the oboe, I took out the Vaughan Williams and just played. I didn't really listen to how I sounded--I didn't really care. I felt the music. And that's what made it worth working for.