I have been teaching music lessons for a private tutoring and music business since October 2019. Twice a year they have a recital and encourage faculty to also prepare a piece to perform.
Since I had just started teaching with them and didn't have anything prepared, I ducked out of the Dec 2019 recital. When the June recital rolled around, I had the pandemic as an excuse, even though I had started learning Harlem Nocturne.
I could not figure out how to play without an accompanist: my jazz pianist friend Kelly Flemming Dallmann had suggested I learn this awesome piece, and then we found we could not rehearse together or apart. I started trying to learn how to accompany myself, to record a solo oboe track and then play chords as a second track (oh hi D7b9 chord!). I also considered tricking my boyfriend into learning these complicated jazz chords to play with me (I did succeed in tricking us both into playing Bach two-part inventions/etudes as a duet).
Kelly and I exchanged dozens of takes of us attempting our parts without the other player. These takes were very helpful to me and also very frustrating as recording oneself without another player's part causes me to scrutinize every sound, the beginnings and endings of every pitch, the gasps of breath trying to make it to the next phrase without any cover. Cringe after cringe. It's sort of the worst part of music for me--the solitude of playing out of context, without the magic of communicating with other musicians.
As the deadline loomed for submitting a video for the Dec 2020 recital, Kelly and I stepped up our rehearsing and recording. A week before Christmas, with all the busyness of that time of year, Kelly made the trip to my house for a masked socially-distanced take or two (or ten). There were many good moments musically, and this is the one I chose to share:
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