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Signed on to flute and oboe lessons (and some serious goals)

Well, I've officially signed on to flute and oboe lessons alongside with my lessons for clarinet! That makes me a very happy man! Alongside with my bass clarinet and alto, tenor, and baritone saxes, and piano, two new instruments enter my repertoire! For those who may not know, I've had a desire to learn the flute and oboe in order to increase my musical repertoire. However, due to time, other bigger issues, and practicing on sub-par instruments, I couldn't pursue such an endeavor. And now that I signed on, I can. Of course, this has inspired me to form some serious goals for college:

  1. I will get involved as best as I can in my college's music department. I want to get involved, but primarily in music. Not only am I in the jazz and wind ensembles, but I am seriously considering joining the jazz combos if needed and possibly the Drumline (previous experience in percussion is not required I believe, but I will ask). I will also want to still be involved in the pit orchestra.
  2. I will learn the flute and oboe. I know I've just signed on to the lessons for flute/oboe, but these are the instruments I've had a strong desire to learn. With learning these two instruments could open up learning other instruments related to flute and oboe. I also plan to seriously get back on my piano skills as well. After all, it was piano that made me want to do music in the first place.
  3. If possible, I will better my music arrangement skills. I know this has become a recent hobby, but it's a fun and challenging hobby that really makes you think outside of the box. Hopefully (I will contact my music theory professor about this one), I will be able to use Finale to do this. But, I'm a performer first but arranging and composing will always be a side project for me.
I am still undecided about joining the union as of now. Other news include me receiving 2nd tenor sax in the Jazz Ensemble which I am very pleased about. I have my clarinet chair placement audition for the Wind Ensemble (concert band) tomorrow so I will tell you my placement. And here's my jazz ensemble folder. Sorry for the bright light. That was the flash from my phone.
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I sense your excitement at entering the university as a music major. Speaking from personal experience let me remind you there are only 24 hours in a day. Membership in 2 or 3 performing ensembles takes a lot of time, not only rehearsing, but practicing your parts and performing too. You will be taking other academic classes that require a great deal of reading and studying outside of class time. Studying privately on your major instrument(s) or doubles will require several more hours a day in the practice room to get the maximum benefit. My advice is to be realistic to start out. It is better to do a few things at an exceptional level that to do several things in a mediocre fashion. Pace yourself. You don't need to reach for all of your goals at the same time.
 
If Lou Sacchini is still there, do yourself a favor and study with him as much as you can.
 
Speaking from personal experience let me remind you there are only 24 hours in a day.

As a college music professor, I echo this. College music departments are full of fun things to do, but sometimes students become "ensemble majors" and end up spending expensive extra years in school because of it. I applaud your enthusiasm but I suggest you touch base with your academic advisor to make sure you're not doing anything that will delay your graduation unnecessarily.

I have practice hours expectations for my private lesson students at the university, as do many music professors. Taking lessons on multiple instruments would quickly add up to a full-time job in the practice rooms, on top of a very full course load, sometimes a part-time job, and hopefully at least a little bit of social life.

I have a couple of graduate degrees in multiple woodwinds performance, which involved a number of years of many, many, many hours of daily practice. I am not in a position to judge your individual skill level, but in most cases I think that undergraduate students are better off focusing mostly on one instrument (as I did, to my benefit) while developing mature musicianship, rather than being diverted by the beginner tasks of a new instrument (or two!), and then pursuing secondary instruments during the summers or later on in graduate study.

My two cents. Good luck!
 
OTOH, undergrad can be a damn fine crucible too. make all your experiments & get all your ya-ya's out (aka: "the old college try" ;) ) before things get serious & ya gotta bring back the bacon. This is the time in your musical life to take the risks. At least it was in mine, and thankfully for the world at large, it put a mercifully quick end to my aspirations as a vocalist. rofl. just know where& how your breads gonna get buttered by the time you get to the middle o the artichoke, to mix food metaphors. :) & WHO KNOWS? you might end up licensing the sync rights of your original sound effects to animated blogs, producing custom ad blitz shorts for asian sax manufacturers, ID-ing weird historical woodwind artifacts, or sitting 1st clarinet in a big 5. its all ahead for you comrade. good luck. (ah, if i knew then...)
btw
I'm all in favor of organized labor, but joining [a] musicians union honestly wont yield a lotta benefit until youre out in the jungle trying not to get eaten by even bigger fish by banding together with bunches of smaller fish ( can we *stand* yet another food metaphor here?) I feel also that membership in [a] performing rights organization is likewise essential for endeavours in arranging/composing.
 
Thank you all. This is all very good advice. I know there's gonna be a lot of things going on in my life for the next four years and a lot of good and bad things will happen, but music will always be there for me. It's been almost a year now since I've joined this forum, and I've learned a lot things and gotten a lot of practical advice from many experienced woodwind players who know more about clarinets and saxes than I do in my nine collective years of woodwind playing. It's been a great year and I am eager for new things to come:-D
 
An update on clarinet chair placement, and it's a little weird: I'm switching between clarinet 1-3 for different songs in our upcoming fall concert. Sometimes I'm clarinet 3, and others maybe clarinet 1 or 2. It's kinda weird for me, but I'm pretty sure I can make it through. I made it through the first week of classes as well. So that's the update right now. We have some pretty awesome songs for the upcoming fall concert. The hardest but catchiest is a song called "Arabesque". It's a concert band song with a Middle Eastern feel. Others include "Twilight of the Gods", "Symphonic Proclamation", "October", "Old Churches" (the weirdest but the coolest one), "Haunted Carnival", "Daydream", and "Summer Dances". All average out between five and six minutes long. Great songs too! Also, I'm the only male clarinetist out of seven clarinet players in the ensemble. The other six are female.
 
Remember, you play a clarinet, not a chair.

One of the reasons that I was moderately successful as a musician was because my desire was to put whichever group I was in over than worrying about who's 1st chair, etc. You need me to play 3rd clarinet? No problem. You want me to cover that trumpet part? Can do. First chair soloist is sick? I'll give the part a try.

Hey, the last time I was tested, I blew away the other six sax players on the same piece ... but I played bari, so I was always "first chair."
 
Remember, you play a clarinet, not a chair.

I get confused with "part" and "chair" a lot! And I will be switching between parts (giving myself a little reminder). Some interesting facts about the wind ensemble is that we have a violinist playing the oboe part, a cellist covering what I believe is the bassoon part along with the actual bassoonist, we got a string bass player (which I've found out is kinda common in concert bands), and a few adults in the band. I'm not sure if their adult students, but we got a few adults playing in the band
 
Well, here's my flute. I got it from my band director today to use for flute lessons. The oboe is coming soon, but I don't start oboe lessons until next week. It's quite a nice flute and has a good sound when I tested it out. It's made by a company called Gemeinhardt, which I've never heard of before. Anyway, what reads on the flute is the following: "Gemeinhardt", "Elkhart, IN, USA", "2SP", and "H44927 (the serial number I'm assuming)". I also got this weird looking attachment to it as well. Not sure what it looks like though. I've seen this on alto flutes, but I don't know. I was told not to use that attachment for now though.
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The attachment is for small people who can't comfortably reach the standard setup.

Gemeinhardt is a major maker of flutes, and not some off brand. It is a decent instrument for a beginner.
 
Well, I finally got my oboe. And wow is it something. From what I see on the oboe it was made by a company known as Conn. I've seen this name a few times, but not so much. The serial number is P205. I have no reeds either but my band director emailed my oboe instructor about the lack of reeds. She will have a reed for me but i gotta reimburse her. Below is the picture of the oboe.
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All right, an update on the oboe. The Conn oboe I had gotten didn't actually work, so I got a new oboe. This time it's a Selmer USA oboe with serial number B44284. I still have to get a beginner's reed but hey! I got an oboe that works!
 
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