Monday 13 May 2013

Consolation of music

It has been a while since I've written.  There is a lot that I could talk about - the British Double Reed Convention where I saw the wonderful Pauline Ooetenrijk give the most expressive oboe performance I've ever seen, my new Cor Anglais which I am slowly getting to grips with, my first wind quintet rehearsal or the orchestra concert, including a couple of prominenet oboe bits, I am playing in on Saturday.  In truth, none of these seem to matter very much at the moment.  Two weeks ago my other half was diagnosed with recurrent cancer.  He started chemo last week.

Needless to say oboe practice, striving for goals, targets and all that goes with it has completely fallen off the list of priorities.  But finding an escape and time out from an incredibly stressful situation through playing music has shot right up it.  I've not done a huge amount of practice over the last two weeks.  I have had days when I couldn't play at all, other days when I've just sat and played through pieces I know. 

We don't know how things will go or how long it will take.  Orchestra rehearsals will finish for the Summer next week, my oboe teacher is quite flexible so I will see how things go for the rest of this term and will  need to reassess in September depending on how things have progressed.  It may seem a trivial thing to be concerned about this time - but news like this makes you reassess every part of your life, everything you spend time on and forces you to rethink whether you should be doing it.  Oboe is such a big part of my life that I need to think through what I need to either give up or continue to best be able to support my partner through this. 

I will continue to play.  My partner says the most important thing is to keep doing the things that you love while you can - otherwise the cancer has won.  He makes me play when I don't really feel like it! I usually feel better for it.  In retrospect,  part of the reason for working so hard at all this when things are going well is so I can have the consolation of music, and especially of playing music, when life is hard.  Music gives expresssion when there are no words.  I suspect this blog will fall by the way side or at least become rather sporadic.  But I hate it when blogs just end with no explanation so here is mine.

Thanks for reading x

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