Author: oboi
Date: 2014-11-17 10:00
Never play your instrument while cold. It will do okay if cold when you're not playing, but if you have it in a storage room and say, have to set up and play right away in band class, that's a recipe for disaster. Do you have time to warm it up in your hands/under your armpit before playing?
I always keep my case (that also has a leather cover) inside my large backpack. Of course, if you have school stuff, it may be hard to fit other stuff in there, too. I can fit my laptop, the oboe, music, reeds and sometimes reedmaking stuff or baroque oboe in there as well.....yeah, my backpack is almost bigger than me! However, given the weather here, it still gets cold when I arrive at my destination. So I make time to arrive early to warm it up. If I arrive late, then I just don't play till I'm ready (which may or may not work for you).
I don't know if it makes any difference, but I don't play my oboe before I go out when I can (e.g., before rehearsal). Of course, coming back from rehearsal I don't have that luxury. But at least I don't shock it both ways.
I'm a little paranoid about my English horn because obviously it doesn't fit in the backpack and it has a flimsy cover. So I will put that in my BAM case, which at least is nicely padded. But I do wish I had a cover OVER the BAM case itself. I have been wondering whether those insulated grocery bags would work when it gets uber cold. That is, temps that are below -20C (-4F), which is like all the time in the dead of winter here.
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The Oboe BBoard
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