Bloggin' in Muncie, IN

I'm a little giddy right now. I wonder how long it will take for Dave to get sick of my enthusiasm. We drove to Bloomington (actually, Normal) Illinois yesterday (leaving at 3:30pm, we didn't think we'd make it all the way to Muncie), and continued on to Muncie, Indiana this morning. We made it to the conference registration just fine, with a few grumbles of getting lost along the way...what else is new? It's Jill and Dave here. The reason why I'm giddy is because I'm surrounded by hundreds of oboists and bassoonists. This is a little different than the saxophone conference. First of all, we are far less cool. We are proud to be double reed geeks, and in our own way, we are even cooler because of it. Secondly, there is a higher ratio of women to men here than in Slovenia. Maybe more women play oboe or bassoon than saxophone, or maybe it's simply the sex symbol status of the oboe over the saxophone. Think Don Juan. Thirdly, because there are two different instrument families represented here (even though we're technically in the larger "double reed" family, and there are more sub-groups like contra bassoon and English horn), you have much more variety in your concert/recital choices. The last time I went to an IDRS convention, I'd say I went to about 70% oboe recitals and 30% bassoon. At the saxophone congress, it was all saxophone. Duh... What I mean is that soprano sax, alto, tenor, baritone and the periphal sopranino and bass saxophones, are all...saxophones. Maybe someone outside of the oboe/bassoon world would argue that oboe and bassoon are essentially "double reeds" and thus similar in the way the saxophones relate to each other in their family, but they're simply wrong. This all just means that when you're sick of oboe recitals (as if that would even be possible!!), you can go to a bassoon recital next door. When you're sick of hearing sax (not that it happened...well, maybe on crazy alto-tethered-to-a-dancer day), you don't just want to go next-door to another saxophonist.

The exhibits are also amazing here. Much bigger than at the World Saxophone Congress. They take up two floors in one building, and I'm salivating at the idea of hand-selecting my own cane tomorrow morning before it gets picked over by cane-hungry oboists by the end of the week.

Welcome to my world. I'm going to enter geek mode now. The blogs that follow will center around the performances and shop-talk of the conference, so those of you who are already tuning me out may want to check back in after next Sunday.

Happy oboe-ing!