Hey guys,

How many of you play oboes?! Now don't get me wrong, I love playing it... but I feel like I'm in the minority! In a huge school I've been the only oboeist for 5 years... until a year 7 started this year. Bear in mind im in year 12 and I now have to share a lesson with a complete novice cos we're the only oboes around!!
Does anyone else get this problem?!
Sitting all alone in band, surrounded by a whole army of flutes clarinets, saxes, etc?!?!
Argh! I feel so ALONE!
Oh yeh, and another thing that bugs me! It's so hard to get hold of music! I went into a shop the other day, do you have and oboe music please? "Oh no, we dont have ANY oboe music!" well thanks alot!!!
Please tell me I'm not alone , and there are other oboes feeling equally unloved out there too!!!!!!!!

Milly

p.s., if you don't play an oboe... start now!!!!

Hi Milly

My daughter plays oboe and she is really mad that another oboe has joined her band. she sees being the only one as a big plus. I know what you mean about music though, Flute and Clarinet next day delivery, Oboe two weeks or more and those are exam pieces!

It's really annoying, isn't it?! I had to change the pieces I wanted for my last exam, because if i ordered the music it would take 4 weeks to arrive! what i'd really like is some nice jazzy stuff, but it's so hard to know what to buy, and there doesnt seem to be that much on offer!
i suppose being the only oboe isnt too bad now i can play well, but when i first started i nearly died of embarresment tryign to figure out how to play stuff on my own!!! hehe!

milly

For interesting music, check the exam syllabi.
Schumann - 3 Romances (grade 7)
Loeillet - Sonata in C major (an easy grade 6 piece, seriously)
Erm, can't remember much off the top of my head!

The Schumann Romances?!?! Aren't they in the Diploma repertoire?!?! they're so hard!

I'm working towards grade 7, but some good pieces i've played are:
Saint-Saens sonata (grade 8)
Bellini concerto (grade 8)
Cimarosa Concerto (grade 6)
Bach Adagio from Cantata 156 (grade 6)
Marcello Concerto (not sure)
Vivaldi concerto in A minor (not sure)

dont know if any of that is helpful for you but anyway!

musicmouse

I play oboe and I know at least 6 other people in my nearest surroundings who does, too...

I play the oboe too.............. I know three other oboists; one of them isn't what you would class as a "real" oboist though, he is a saxaphonist and has never had an oboe lesson. As a result he has picked up some rather intresting habits.

I'm the only oboist in town. If there's anyone else around they're lying low!
I know how lonely it can be...I play in a wind band, in the middle of the flutes, it's good experience as I'm the only one, but I do feel a bit invisible.

About pieces, I get mine from a shop in York, at the moment I'm playing the Handel Fitzwilliam Sonata as it's an easy piece to get going on again...but boredom is setting, time for a change. Having said all that, I spend quite a bit of time practising the wind band music.

Hang on in there, the oboe's a brilliant instrument!

I find that in my school windband. I am the only oboe and I am sitting amoung hundreds of flutes. If I get the choice I go and sit with my friends who play the Clarinet.

In our school orchestra the string are playing a piece by bach and woodwind had to find somthing to play. Long story short we are playing a piece a really random piece can't remember the name but it is embarrasing and very easy. The problem is, is that the oboe part is the filler or flute 3 part so I just play the odd note and have rests most of the way through. Do you find this a problem; not having an oboe part I mean? I end up playing flute parts a lot.

When I used to play the bassoon it was horrible! Unless I was playing in a really fantastic orchestra, I was constantly handed cello/oboe/even clarinet parts sometimes! The level of ignorance of people who should have known better was shocking... Yep, and if I did get my own part, it was a boring 'filler'. In one piece I had a 65 bar rest at the beginning, played long notes for about 3 bars, then 65 bars more of rests... it was mind-numbingly dull! No wonder I gave up in the end... lol.

Hi Milly,
I hope you find out the real benefits of being one of the rare oboes: get good and you will always be in demand. At least the oboe plays C music, so you can play other melodies.

Have you heard, or heard of Paul Sartin? (Look him up!) Then go and hear him,
He is a superb oboe player who seems to have become THE oboe on the English folk music scene.
Almost every folk album I pick up seems to have at least one track that he has contributed to.
I'm not surprised: he is immensely exciting to hear and is part of a number of groups, duos, fours and a big band called Bellowhead. That's as well as being a classical oboe, violin and singer.

Hey :-)

Good places to get music -

http://www.howarth.uk.com/ - *the* oboe shop. They stock a load of music, as well as everything else that an oboist might need
http://www.musicroom.com/ - they stock quite a bit, and can usually get less obvious things fairly quickly

There are a few oboists around, but we're mostly invisible in the crowds of flautists and pianists :-)

m

Hi I'm an oboist myself as well as a pianist but I find that being an oboist you are always in great demand.

For instance at Univeristy there were just two oboists who played in the orchestras including myself and even during the rehearsals I would sometimes be the only oboist. I do occasionally get asked to stand in and play in local orchestras or concerts where they need an oboist.

At the moment I play in a local orchestra each week where I'm the only oboist and usually a flute normally has play the second oboe part. So I am used to being an only oboist in an orchestra. Unfortunately there seems to less and less people taking up the oboe.

I was once asked to play Jesu Joy of Man's desiring on the oboe but I knew this piece was difficult as there are hardly any breathing spaces and originally the oboe part would have been played on an organ oboe stop. I turned it down and played something else instead because anyone in the know will always avoid playing this particular piece on an oboe!

I am at the moment working on the Bellini Oboe Concerto in Eb which is a lovely piece, the Saint Saens Sonata and the 6 Metamorphoses from Britten. Britten is quite challenging because it works on your technique.

Just a quick Ebay search:

http://instruments.search.ebay.com/oboe_Sh...gZ1QQsofocusZbs

Steve