Might as well practice!

I took advantage of a calm but awake baby earlier today, plopped him on a blanket with a blinking lights toy in my oboe studio, and practiced my newly fixed oboe (thank you, Sawicki book!). Harry didn't mind my out-of-shape technique, tone and tonguing, but I did! I've been playing once a week, at an early-morning clinic I'm teaching at a high school (see previous post). That is not enough. I need to find more practice time. I need to find more work-out time. I need to find more mani-pedi time!! Well, we can't have it all.

I did manage to practice for another half hour later this afternoon. I had a student's father call to say they couldn't come at our newly agreed-upon time. They came an hour early; I was available, but with them coming basically unannounced, I had Harry with me. The dad was insistent that they are flexible and don't mind me having Harry there during the lesson (!), ("don't get a babysitter just for our lesson!" (!!)), and even if I had to stop the lesson to deal with the baby, that was ok with them. Not ok with me. I'm not that kind of teacher. Since they were there, and Harry was again pretty calm (I was in the middle of putting him down for a nap), I agreed to teach the little boy. This was only his second lesson. He's a cutie, but I have a feeling it will take him a while to grasp a lot of basic concepts. He's got a great attitude and is really enjoying it though, so I'm willing to teach him. Anyway, luckily Dave came home (I wasn't expecting him, so it was a welcome surprise!) and took Harry upstairs for the last 15 minutes of the lesson.

I had hired a babysitter to come for 5:30, the time this lesson was supposed to take place, so I decided not to cancel her (I had one more student at 6pm) and PRACTICE!! Maybe I should do this every week!!! I really needed to get back to basics. I did some articulation exercises and scales. PHEW!! I'm in baaaad shape. My max tonguing tempo is down about 30 clicks. Yikes. I'm going to spend some time with that. And reeds? Forget about it. Time to pick my battles, and reeds can be bought for now. (I never thought I'd see the day when I'd say that.) I'd like to do a recital sometime this year (maybe in the Fall), so I need to shape up!!