MooPig Woodwinds

BIOGRAPHY [SOURCE]
Retrieved entirely by Pat Darnell

Barrick Stees is the Assistant Principal Bassoonist of the Cleveland Orchestra. He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the University of Akron.

Sought after world wide as a performer and teacher, he has concertized extensively in Europe, South America and Asia, including a solo tour of Hong Kong and China. His appearances at international music festivals include the Santo Domingo Festival in the Dominican Republic, the Festival Y Escuela de Santa Fe de Bogota, the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, and the 2000 International Double Reed Society Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He has given recitals throughout the United States. His solo appearances include performances with the Hartford Symphony, the South Bend Symphony, the Brevard Music Center Orchestra and the Cass City Bach Festival.

Awarded the 2001 Presidential Scholar Teacher Recognition Award from the United States Secretary of Education, he has taught at Michigan State University, the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Brevard Music Center. He was previously Principal Bassoonist with the Hartford Symphony and has played with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Detroit Symphony.

Stees received a bachelor’s degree and performer’s certificate from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with K. David Van Hoesen.

He has commissioned and premiered many new works for the bassoon, including Windows, a concerto for bassoon and orchestra by Daniel McCarthy, premiered in 2005 at the Brevard Music Center.

His first compact disc recording, The Romantic Bassoon, with pianist Philip Hosford, was released in 1994. His second recording, Opera Fantasies and Paraphrases, a compact disc of music from the opera for Claves Records was released in 1999. His latest recording, Nostalgica, comprised of music he commissioned for bassoon and string quartet by composers Charles Ruggiero, Daniel McCarthy and Miguel del Aguila, represents the culmination of his efforts in commissioning new music for the bassoon.

We have decided. Over the life of this edublog we will become reed makers. We are going to call the company “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Reeds: MHR.”

There is no thing quite like a perfecting reed, shaved and edged ready for the Holidays. It occurs in most seasonal markets that good student grade reeds become scarce. Well, we cannot have that.

But don’t hold your breath… it will take a visit from a zen master to get this enterprise started. First things first; but I promise as long as there is breath in me, I will put my reeds where my mouth is.

pd\ aka MooPig

The student reed inventory is getting low and I’m in the market for medium to medium hard student quality bassoon reeds.  I have been using the Jones Artist, but now those are unavailable.  Because I buy the reeds and give them to my students, I’d like the cost to be between $7 and $10 per reed and I usually buy in quantities of 10 at a time.

Entrepreneurs,  now’s you chance to sell your goods.  If you’re making bassoon reeds and have some to sell, please leave a comment with your email, price, delivery time and terms.

Thanks,

John

Her mother finally left us alone in the living room. We sat on the divan. Julie was in her hand sown pink and lace empire waist dress from school completed with silk Poppagallos. She had the look of anticipation as we sat there in the room right out of Architectural Digest.

Picture a living room with all hand made furniture from exotic woods, Queen Anne chairs with rare fabric upholstery’s. Imagine an antique upright in its own little alcove; I think it was actually once a player piano, still played by her Mom. Consider light fixtures made of antique ship’s brass and Italian glass, and drapes floor to ceiling pulled to reveal the picture window of their wide lawn, beds of Azaleas and enormous Magnolia tree in full bloom.

I said, ” Can I play some music for you?”

Julie kind of looked at me as if I don’t have to ask. So, I ran out the front door and retrieved my clarinet case off my bicycle handlebar. And came bounding back in. I flipped open the case and assembled my clarinet. Julie kind of flicked her long blond hair to the side. She sort of bit her lip like she did, but didn’t say a word.

“Okay, I’ll play this new song we learned in band,” I said. “Me and David Munson have been working on it.”

A clarinet is a blunt instrument that can inflict much pain on the musician, and the innocent bystander. I had forgotten that, as I began to lick and slobber all over the reed repeatedly; to smear cork grease while assembling parts; and to flare my nose as I sucked in air; and to deform my face as I get ready to blow… Julie’s eyes grew wide.

Of course I started sweating as adrenaline surged through me in fight or flight magnitude, so my black horn-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses slipped down my nose.

Open G… good start; my A buzzed like a bus tire on a rain soaked road; then the enormous squeal on B natural… “What, in heaven’s name is that?” screamed her mother from the kitchen.

Julie took the opportunity to run into the kitchen, “Oh, Mom it’s Patrick on his thingy.” Long quiet pause, silence in the kitchen was deafening, then after some scuffling, Julie and Mom came back in to the living room: “Patrick, bless your heart, when did you start playing that?” her mother said as she looked at the greasy, weary and worn black wooden and silver clarinet dangling too close to exquisite turned rosewood legs of the divan, saliva dripping in proximity to her fine silk fabrics; “Isn’t that going to ruin your beautiful teeth?”

I’m hoping my blog partner will step in and join the conversation:

When my colleagues and I disagree over departmental policy, there’s a deep philosophical rift behind it.  I believe that their beliefs stem from their own educational experience and the lack of exposure to a humanistic reconstructivist.  I believe that you have to have a measure of self-esteem before you buy into some idealistic rubric of rules and objectives.  It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, with an educational slant; when students feel “safe”, they’ll start on the road to self-actualization.  In my classroom, I have a wide variety of students;  some ready to learn and others lacking in fundamental skills.  But if they’re there, there must have been some motivation at some point.  It’s my job not to crush their love of music, but at the same time, there’s a huge amount of mastery learning that must occur before they leave my theory sequence.  My colleagues point to the book and say “learn”.  I entertain, joke, discuss, test, retest, and give sermons on a weekly basis.  My measure of success is when I see students that have failed my classes (usually due to absences) and they tell me how much they enjoyed my classes.  I used to have a remedy for absenteeism;  –call the parents.  Unfortunately, I discovered that the Buckley Amendment prohibited me from sharing information about their performance or lack thereof with anyone except the student.  All I can say is that my remedy really worked about 80% of the time.

Why the reflection on teaching?  Well, I just spent a few moments on a site that never fails to affirm my beliefs and inspire me. Interested?

Check out : http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/2008/11/12/why-we-exist/

Peace,

-J

Dr.  Jones has come out of retirement and re-acquired the Jones Double Reed company and is once again making finished reeds.   I like the Jones’ Artist bassoon reeds best, but all of their reeds are playable and you can’t say that about many other companies’ reeds.  Unfortunately for me, Ken at Discountreed says that the Artist Series has been discontinued.  Now what do I do?  Learn to make bassoon reeds again?  

Nah,  life’s too short to pull out the teakettle and hot plate again.  I found one “Clone” reed from Miller that I plan to try.  In the meantime I’ll just brush my teeth before I play and take extra special care of the 3 remaining Jones Artist bassoon reeds in my case. 

BTW, if you like standard reeds at low prices, I’d recommend two places:  Ken at Discountreed and the online store at Weiner Music.  Ken gives fast service at low prices.  When you live in the boonies like me, you can’t afford to drive an hour to buy reeds for students, so I order in quantity and shop for the lowest prices. The Weiner Music folks (especially Sharon) are really nice and I’ve had them go out of the way to make things right when I had a problem with an order (cracked reed cases from the UK).  Their prices are excellent, too.

Ken and Sharon, I blog for free reeds!  If you like what you read, I’d be happy to write some more!

This is a Bassett Hound:

 Source

Basset hound
a medium-sized, shorthaired dog with very short, bowed legs, long ears and a long body. The head is large with loose skin and large, pendulous lips. One of the achondroplastic breeds. It is subject to familial disorders of the platelets and primary glaucoma.  (source)

This is a basset horn:

 (Source)

A bassett horn is a member of the clarinet family, normally pitched in F but occasionally in G. Its compass extended downwards to written c (sounding F), a major 3rd below the lowest note of the conventional clarinet. Mozart used the basset-horn, particularly in masonic pieces. Some early basset-horns are sickle-shaped, others are sharply angled. The tone is apt to be rather thin and watery.  (source)

Clarinetists should never attempt to play a basset hound; that’s illegal in most places and it really annoys the dog. Plus you have to throw away the reed when you’re finished.

 Eric Dolphy never played a basset horn or a bassett hound.  He played bass clarinet.

Basset horns are best played by people with a sense of humor: