Friday, July 16, 2010

Feathers

Feathers are apparently the item of choice when out comes to wiping out an oboe.

Yesterday, my very talented son managed to get his feather stuck inside the top of his oboe.  Tightly.

It took the power of a mother, who knows that her son absolutely needs his oboe for camp, to get enough of the feather out of the oboe so that the job could be finished.  Imagine, if you will, Mike pulling the feather with a pair of pliers while I hung on to the oboe for dear life.  We totally awed his teacher, who was convinced that we'd have to take out for repairs.

This morning I causally mentioned that little squid would need a new feather.  No, I was told, his instructor gave him A new one.

This post is being written from the garden of the Manhattan School of Music where I wait for little squid to get out of camp.  On my way here I saw no fewer than six feathers scattered across the bike path.

A sign?

2 comments:

Cookie said...

I never knew that. How interesting.

Thank goodness you and Mike such a good team.

xo

patty said...

This is why I have my students use a soft cotton swab! I have had feathers stuck and, even more frequently, I've had the "pull through" silk swabs get stuck. The soft cotton swab I use can't pull all the way through ... but it never gets stuck!

Cheers!

(Hope you don't mind this random commenter dropping by.)

If you are interested in what I use, go here: http://www.forrestsmusic.com/swabs.htm ... it's the top one (Black Cotton Oboe Swab)