Oboe Reed Maker's Lament
As an oboist, I have tried to cope with the onerous and endless task of making oboe reeds by resorting to humorous inventions to keep my brain from exploding in exasperation. Notably, I had a conversation with a piano instructor at SSU who reported that she grew up in Palo Alto in the same school system as Richard Woodhams, the former principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She reported that he was the nicest young man possible. One day she was walking by the room where he was in the process of making oboe reeds, and "Oh, the language!" she said.
I have concocted ways of cashing in on the reed making process. For instance there was the idea of creating a Reed Channel, which would only show hands making oboe reeds in complete silence from midnight to four in the morning. Viewing this channel would force any insomnia into submission, thereby giving reed making a different and exalted purpose. The motto of the channel: "All reeds All the Time, an Insomniac's Dream."
I have claimed, facetiously, that Moby Dick is really about a frustrated oboe reed maker whose reeds always turn out flat, as mine do. Finally encountering the perfectly pitched reed at the end of the book, Ahab, who is really a frustrated oboist, cries out, "He Rises!"
I invented a commentary on the ever increasing expense of reed making materials Years ago they cost less than a dollar per reed, and now the same materials cost as much as $10 per reed or even more. The Oboe Reed Index, my invention, is an investment instrument, touted on stock market shows, featuring the desperation of the customer base for reeds, oboe players. Given that reeds may only last a day or two of hard playing, the materials to make them are guaranteed to have a market at all times. This is a product group oboists must purchase no matter what, so the sky's the limit on pricing, a huge investment opportunity!
The following is a Reed Maker's Lament I wrote to be sung to Bob Dylan's "Everybody Must Get Stoned"
It is about the need to constantly make oboe reeds if one is to play the oboe at all:
The Reed Maker's Lament
You make them
While you're talking on the phone
You make them
When you think you're all alone
You make them
While you're driving in your car
You make them when you don't know where you are.
Now I would not
Go and bite the hand that feeds.
Everybody must make reeds!
You make them
While you're entering a room
You make them
While you're visiting Grant's Tomb
You make them
When you're sitting on the pot
And when you have a cold
And when you're hot.
You make them
While you're chewing up your food
You're hoping that just one of them is good!
You're angry as
You throw them at the wall!
You realize
They're too long
Or they're too small
You think
You have some kind of a disease
But everybody must make reeds!
