Blog of the Week: Sometimes Not Breathing Is Believing
Originally published on March 3, 2015 by Andrew McCann at www.alexanderand.com/blog.
Technically, this pigeon is playing the English horn. [Artist unknown]
One of the students was an oboist. The oboe can be richly beautiful. But this young man would puff himself up like a pouter pigeon before he began playing, and the sound that emerged from his instrument was harsh and laser-like—I imagined it peeling the varnish off the floor of the stage.
Vivien Mackie let him play for a bit and then had him stop. “I want you to try something, just as an experiment,” she said. (I’m paraphrasing.) “Just try once to begin playing without taking a breath.”
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