Playing two programs a week with Grant Park has had me thinking about how I prepare for a first rehearsal. With only 2-3 rehearsals on a program before a concert, it’s imperative that every musician knows their part (and hopefully the piece) cold for the first rehearsal, so that rehearsal time can be devoted to [...]
Read MoreFlarp
I was cleaning out my desk the other day and came across my whole collection of Monumental Reed Notes. The collection is actually just a stack of Post-It-Notes from my years of study with Richard Killmer at Eastman. I thought I would share some of them with you. Don’t worry about the detail… at first. [...]
Read MoreIt’s always fun to travel to festivals and gigs out of town, but it can make for unpredictable reeds. Planning ahead for multiple scenarios with a case full of gorgeous reeds is the ideal situation, but how realistic is it to make a reed in one city and expect it to be the same somewhere [...]
Read MoreIf you make a living playing music, you are probably aware of the following points: you are in business (as the sole owner of You, Inc.) marketing can be a major key to your success Music is both art and business, and if you depend on it to keep your lights on and food on [...]
Read MoreI woke up one Saturday in February to find a huge article in the New York Times about the abundance of available oboe positions among the nation’s top symphonies. As a member of the “next generation” of oboists that was mentioned in the article, I took issue with some of the stuff that was said. [...]
Read MorePlaying the oboe is hard enough as it is, so I try to keep my reed philosophy as simple as possible. I believe there are only a few things that make a good reed. The rest, as they say, is just opinion. A good reed must have: response – if it doesn’t make a sound, [...]
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How do you know if you'll like an oboe reed before you play it? You can't. When the rubber finally hits the road, it hardly matters if the reed is a great one, perfectly customized to your every desire, if it just plain doesn't work well for you. 
My name is Maryn Leister. I am a graduate of the Juilliard Pre-College Division and the Eastman School of Music, where I was a student of Richard Killmer. After graduating from college, I lived in Nashville, TN, then headed to Knoxville, TN, New York City, and finally Chicago...
