Lessons on the Anatomy of the Oboe

AND so, the tubular shape of the oboe could be called its neck. We had thought of expressing this by saying that the body of the oboe is its neck, but anticipated the manner in which it would have revealed a problem concerned with the naming of things: the danger of confusing those two portions of our anatomy, the body and the neck. I know the objection may be raised that nothing is less familiar to us than our own necks; to which I would reply that if we were to lose them, to have our necks somehow severed from our heads, the effects would be immediately, in fact painfully noticeable. To begin with, we would find ourselves considerably smaller than before; for another, the notion of "craning one's neck" would become absurd, since we possessed no such thing. Besides, it is only because we have necks, and because our existence is inconceivable without them, that we may permit ourselves to name the husk of the oboe its neck. Of course, I am aware just now that the phrase "tubular shape" has been replaced by the single word "husk." Why have I done this? Was it because I failed to keep in mind the original term for that elongated form which suggests to us the oboe? Was it because I found the expression "tubular shape" both cumbersome and pompous? Or was it because the word "husk" leaped into my imaginaiton and demanded so urgently to be employed? The answer to all of these, as you may have suspected from the beginning, is no.

2

LET us hold the oboe in our hands for a moment. What does it remind us of? Or rather, I should say, "What are we thinking?" I make this distinction for several reasons, the most essential one being that if anyone were to respond identically to both these questions, it would show that they had failed to listen properly. Other reasons come to mind. I am holding an oboe in my hands. I think, "What does it remind me of?" It reminds me of a neck. Still, I am no longer happy with this evocation. Are you? Perhaps I have said too much, perhaps too little. Perhaps I have said nothing at all. If I have said too much, then the damage is done, and I shall be forced to go on talking. If too little, then I assume some ideas must have been omitted, and I may be permitted to go on. In the event that I have said nothing at all, it probably will be construed to mean that no substantial questions are left to be asked on the subject I have chosen. Which of these is so? Who is able to tell if any of them are so? Not I. The oboe? No. Oboes cannot talk. I know that complaints will follow from this remark: composers will insist that music is a source of speech, or that musical instruments are imitative of the human voice. To challenges like these I must insist on answering, "Has anyone ever heard a voice that sounded like an oboe?

3

WE ARE having dinner. Upstairs the oboe is sleeping in its case. But this is language! Dismiss what I have said. Please! There's no longer any point in it. I was unhappy, so I wrote "the oboe is sleeping in its case." There is no more to it than that. We are able to tell ourselves that objects are sleeping only because we ourselves are not [sleeping]. Oboes never sleep. Of course, to say that oboes never sleep is not to say that oboes are awake at every moment. Nor is it to say that they are sleepless. Hearing an oboe out of tune, who would be foolish enough to say, "That oboe must be tired?"

4

WE ARE having dinner. Upstairs the oboe is lying in its case.