Thursday, July 22, 2010

Happy Thursday!
Music Camp was awesome.
John Matthews, a counselor, knows some really good band geek jokes:

“How do you know a trombonist’s kid is on the playground?
He can’t swing and he complains about the slide.”

“What is the definition of a minor second?
Two oboes playing in unison”

He had a joke column on the camp news wall. The “news” was mostly gossip and joking about things that had happened.
The Viking Village demo was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed watching the indigo dye-pot’s oxidation reaction. we know that Vikings used a dye that contained indigotin, which is also found in woad, a dye plant indigenous to Europe. The Vikings could have easily traded for indigo extracts from China or Japan. We forgot lime to make the madder red. The madder dyed some really nice peachy colors despite that. We know that the Vikings definitely used madder, which is also indigenous to Europe. The weld gave a pretty nice yellow. We haven’t yet identified the yellow the Vikings dyed with; it could be that the plant is extinct. Watching Daria cook was almost as fun as eating the food after it was finished cooking. Yum, salmon! The period forge was interesting and I learned a lot. I didn’t know much about the science behind blacksmithing. I also liked the coin-striking and the chainmail making.
Oboe Shopping! The Yamahas were definitely not my favorite. There was one that had a plastic lined upper joint; it had a really nasty, almost buzzing kind of sound. The Howarth was great; it had a rich, dark sound well suited to Elegiac Dance by Michael Head. The LoreĆ© is much brighter and sounded really nice on the faster movement of the Marcello oboe symphony. I tried oboes until there were only two left. I really liked the Howarth, but I’m going to give both the LoreĆ© and the Howarth a chance.

--Amanda