It's starting already. People at work are seeking me out about buying their kids musical instruments. The latest was this morning, a guy who I've never actually talked to (he works in the adjoining suite of offices, I think they do some sort of marketing stuff) came over and asked me to recommend an oboe for their daughter, who is 14 and about to graduate middle school and go to a high school where she has to supply her own oboe. I wasn't about to tell him to buy her what I have, a Loree that's worth several thousand dollars and a pain to maintain sometimes, so I sent him here and told him to call them up and talk about plastic oboes.
I hate recommending plastic oboes, but until you're sure you're going to play it seriously it makes no sense to spend thousands on a wood oboe and then a lot more to maintain it, all the while worrying about cracking it. I knew pretty early on, but it sounds like this girl is still deciding whether she wants to be Heinz Holliger or one of the Spice Girls.
Do any of them play oboe?
I like looking around the net for stuff about oboes and oboe-playing from time to time. Double-reed players collect into little groups, all the oboists and english horn players over here, and all the bassoonists over there. Single-reed players don't seem to have nearly the camraderie that double-reed players do. We're odd.
I remember that when my parents got the Loree, I knew what it was but I don't remember being all that excited about it. It's one of those things that I suppose grows on you over the years, as everyone else you went to school with puts their clarinets and trumpets and flutes in a closet somewhere until their parents sell them (cheap) while they're away at college, and you're still playing. I can't even remember how many people dropped out of playing music as I grew up. A lot. I bet there are still a lot of instruments in closets all over Minneapolis.
Fargo misses your comments when you don't leave them.