Would it be worth investing in a new case? My first (cheap plastic) oboe came in one of those hard cases with two catches so you can't think it's shut when it's not. My second (expensive wooden Marigaux) oboe came in a case with a zip. This was just after the pupil I mentionned above had dropped her oboe for the second time so, after dithering for a bit, I sold my first oboe on with the zip-up case and kept, what seemed to me to be a safer case, for the Marigaux.

My zip up clarinet case has a velcro bit on the front, so it stays together even if you forget to do the zip up. Perhaps sowing some on would be helpful?

I hope the repair will go well.





Arg!

my reeds are getting chipped and unplayable at an alarming rate at the moment...

It didn't happen like this before...

It's happening to you too? We seem to have spent a small fortune on reeds recently.

The relative humidity has dropped quite a lot in the last week - no rain for some while and we've had some mild dry weather too. Now it's gone cold and dry.

Make sure the tips are thoroughly soaked in a little water (not saliva) before even crowing them!

Well the repair was relatively painless. We took the oboe into Howarths by 11.00am and it was done by 4.00pm. The repair to the bent key and replacing a spring and a NEW REED came to just over 40 quid!
Very cold day to be wandering round London, though. Thank goodness the oboe is alright

Sara

Glad it wasn't too bad and didn't cost a fortune to put right.



Ours are not so much chipping but wearing out more quickly, maybe it's the same reasons though, I also think there may have been an increas in playing too.

If the weather is cold and dry then rescraping the reed will make them playable again - it happens a lot here in the winter as we have less rain than in the UK.

Problem with reeds. The mh reeds from the brand I used from the beggining don't suit me so I have to get winfeild mh reeds. I HOPE THEY ARRIVE SOON!!!! I have to get used to them before the parents evening/concert, which is unlikely because it's next wednesday, or play in the concert with a medium reed that's slightly too soft (not a disaster, but still...)



Even my dad thought the reeds weren't doing my tone any good...

I thought when I took the cimarosa video it didn't have a bad tone like it does now, but maybe once you get used to them?



very expensive, so I'll have to be less clumsy *hopes all of them will last for 6 weeks each, which is unlikely because of my carelessness and laziness*





If that fails, my teacher is making reeds for me.

Liz I'm sorry to hear about your reed problems. I hope that they come quickly.

I've played the Winfield M reeds and find them too soft, but ok for practice. Otherwise I've got some Chinese reeds which are really hard (they have to be scraped by either me or my teacher) but sound lovely and even play with a chip out of the tip. Which is just as well as they're expensive!!

Liz it took my daughter a while to adjust to playing on harder reeds but once she did her tone got much better.

I know you have a good Oboe but one of the problems initially was the poor quality of the Oboe. Her sound began to sound worse because the Oboe couldn't cope.

The reeds arrived today



Winfeild reeds have a different scrape to the ones I used before. I don't know how this will affect the tone or my playing, but it seems to have a nice tone.

What were you using before?
I bought winfield reeds for my cor anglais and like them - my teacher was also favorably impressed by them (and said that could you buy reeds of that quality in France he probably wouldn't bother making them for all his students).

The one I used before.... It's the one that is in Howarths as 'Andrews reeds'. It has a w scrape.

Aha - now I see where your other thread is coming from! Wonder how long it'll be before we all start taking photos of our reeds and comparing them? (Which could be quite fun!)

Parents evening/concert tonight!

Good Luck Liz, I hope it goes well...

Let us know how thigngs go won't you...

Regards

Andrew

Me too!! Best wishes!

It was OK.



I made a few mistakes, but it wasn't too bad, and the tone was good with the winfeild reeds

Well done , Liz, I´m sure you were a good embassador for the oboe! What piece was it again?

Sara

Glad it went well

Cimarosa mov 1&2

Well done Liz, I am sure you were a great success...

Andrew

I rehearsed with the accompanist for the festival this evening. It went well enough

It's next wednesday, but because of reed wareing, I don't feel like practicing in case I damage it...





And I have at least 1 other oboist in the same class as me (i'm playing in the grade 6/7 class) So it will be interesting Same teacher as me. Did grade 5s on the same day

I wouldn't not play on the reed. Reeds also change if you don't play on them. Ideally you want to have two that you like playing, just in case the worst happens and you damage one as you are warming up on the night. Don't you have an oboe lesson on Tuesdays? In which case you can ask your teacher to retouch them if necesary.

Good luck for the festival
What are you playing?

I hope that all goes well next Wednesday. I'm sure you'll be fine.

I'm playing "Gabriel's oboe" on Saturday, in a church service at noon. I've played it and played it and my teacher has taken it apart...so I hope it will be ok, but I'm starting to get nervous, even though I've played it before.

I've been meaning to ask this for ages...does anyone have any strong recommendations for basic books on reed making/adjusting. I'm thinking of trying some of the partly finished reeds from Howarths, as a way of starting with a bit of reed making, but rather feel that some written help as well as teacher type help might be useful. The two that seem to be at my sort of level seem to be the Evelyn Rothwell book or one of the Dr. Downing series, but I don't know either of them.

Good luck


I have the Evelyn Rothwell book. It has lots of photos in it I bought it because I thought I'd like to have something to refer to at home (and because it was in English) but in the end I haven't really used it mainly because she does everything slightly differently from my teacher and I decided that it was easier just to follow his advice (especially since his reeds are the only ones I have ever played on).

I can now bind them on and scrape them to a playable state. What I am still having trouble with (need guidance for) is how to get them from a playable (ie all the notes come out) to a decent (ie they have a nice tone over all octaves) state. In this respect I don't know that having partly finished reeds would be that much help, in fact I'd probably be even more cautious than I already am because they are more expensive than the piece of cane I tie on myself. (My teacher keeps telling me that my scraping is too cautious, just like my playing ).

Thanks! I'm playing the Handel concerto in G minor mvt1 and 2.


Good luck itchy!

The Rothwell book is quite good, BUT, speaking as someone who is also trying to teach herself to make reeds from a book, it is actually really hard to learn and jolly confusing, even with lots of pictures. I have particular trouble with tying on, and spend quite a lot of time swearing, dropping things, and generally getting in a mess - I've now given up with that stage until I have more time to learn it, and/or find a teacher who can just show me.

It's slightly easier with the scraping part, but there's still a lot of info to take in all at once; my approach is just to scrape away, copying my favourite reedmaker, in a fairly haphazard fashion, and then work out afterwards what worked and what went wrong....

I've rapidly come to the conclusion you can't really learn it from a book...

I've got an oboe lesson tomorrow after two weeks holiday and I was really looking forward to it. Then yesterday when I was teaching and writing on the blackboard my shoulder got really painful. Today it was even worse (by the end of the morning it had got to the point where I was wondering if I could write with my left hand instead) and even though I got home earlier and could have done some practice my shoulder was too sore and it hurts to lift my arm

I stopped at the chemist and bought some anti-inflamatory cream and am hoping it will be less painful by tomorrow morning.

Hope you are feeling better and the shoulder is less painful.

My daughter couldn't play her Oboe in the lesson yesterday because of a virus. She's thoroughly fed up wiht it having had it weeks.

both of you. Hope they're both better soon.

The longest I had to have off is a week...




I don't know how I'm going to play in the festival tomorrow...
Handel concerto in G minor mvt 1&2.
Reeds too resistant suddenly - warm water should help, but I don't know
Technically unpredictable piece I hope practice makes perfect before going
water in the keys just removed, so I have to get used to playing normally again

Is the shoulder better Kerioboe? and the Virus notmusumum's daughter?







The festival went well.

Sometimes the notes didn't come out when I tryed to play 'p', and the fast part was a bit clumsy at one place, but I managed to get 87 marks and I was asked to play in the gala concert on saturday I wonder if the oboist in the grade 8 class will be there....?

Well done Liz 87 is a fantastic mark. Did you get a medal for that?

Good luck on Saturday too!

Sara

Good on you!! All your hard workis really paying off,

Virus not gone but slightly better thanks!

I'm debating on inflicting my oboe on the orchestra...

Go for it!! I'm sure they will welcome you wiht open arms.

Yep. well not a medal, but the class tropie. I got the heighest mark in the class



Thanks.













Do it!! It's fun

Congratulations Lizbun

Rosemary, I'd take your oboe to orchestra - I presume you'll be the only one - in which case it's much more exciting than being one of many clarinets

My shoulder was better to the extent that I could actually pick up an object but playing the oboe was really very painful despite dosing myself on paracetamol before I went.

However....
it turned out to be an interesting experience in overcoming nerves. I made a complete hash of Bb minor scale to start with because it is one of the ones I don't know that well and I couldn't concentrate properly on the notes because of the pain and I was beginning to think I would have to give up and cut my lesson short but when I started playing the Saint Saens, which by now I know almost off by heart, I went onto some sort of auto-pilot and it was the best I've every played it. All my attention was on the pain in my shoulder and I could hear myself playing from the outside (if this makes sense) and was vaguely surprised about how nicely I seemed to playing. When I'd finished, to my great surprise, my teacher was full of praise about how good it was and how I'd finally managed to let myself go and play without restraint.

I don't know what the next step on is from here. It seems a bit masochistic to need to be in pain to play well and also I don't want to do any lasting damage to my shoulder (I know a couple of older colleagues who have very serious shoulder problems as a result of writing on blackboards).

Yes, all 4 of them What point debating we didn't even have enough people for a rehearsal, I was the only clarinet!





Thats good. Not the shoulder obviously, but being able to play on auto pilot and hear yourself. I get that occasionally when I perform and I always play much better... Its as if you're somewhere else, and that seems to work! If only we could do it all the time...

Well done Liz, 87 is a great mark...enjoy the concert on Saturday. I think I'll be playing with the wind band in a similar sort of concert on Saturday.

I'm busy debating whether or not to enter a instrumental class next year. Perhaps sense will win and I won't do it, but I can't decide whether to go for the performance experience or to stay at home and avoid the risk of public humiliation... I would have to enter an all-age class, and there are some seriously good players around. They expect at least a G7 sort of standard, but there are no hard and fast rules.

On my Oboe, my tone is quite good in the lower range (even if I say so myself ) but in the higher range it sounds pinched and strained, any tips, or exercises I can do to help it?

Thanks, Pianoboe x

Ps. Also thought I'd resurrect this thread

Are you using enough diaphragm support? Sounds like you're trying to use your embouchure to get up there rather than your diaphragm muscles.

I'm a big fan of long note practice (giving it to my students that is, I don't like doing it myself!). Try holding a low G for 5 slow-ish counts, then go up to a high G for 5, trying to make the top note as lovely as possible. Repeat going up the scale.

May I also add that if you imagine you are singing, open your throat, use your diaphragm to support the air as Claire mentioned..Also close off your nasal airways and allow the notes to literally sing. Try to form an egg shape in your throat, open it up and keep the embouchure relaxed...don't lip it up in fact lip the whole thing down, let the whole embochure relax...if you are relaxed then your notes will sound freer and more centered...Tuning will be much easier to adapt if the embochure is relaxed...

Enough from me...

kindest regards...

Andrew

For some reason I find this works even better if you do it with your eyes closed (I think because you can then concentrate on not doing anything except adding the octave key).

Complete change of subject...

I have spent hours (literally) trying to perfect a two-octave run in the first movement of the Saint Saens Sonata which starts and ends on D but which has C naturals instead of C sharps. My brain knows that this means it is really in G major but my fingers took weeks to accept this and to stop playing C sharps. Last week my teacher told me to start having a look at the last movement and I discovered that this ends with a two octave run starting and finishing on D but with C sharps. I couldn't believe it and my teacher just laughed

On a slightly more serious note. According to my teacher, when you have worked on a run long enough (forwards and backwards, with different rhythms and different articulations) there comes a time when your fingers know what to do and then you should stop thinking about the individual notes and just aim to put the last note on the correct beat. I can just about do this when he is accompanying me on the piano (mainly because he flatly refuses to slow down at this point to force me to keep going) but most of the time I just give into panic and half the notes don't sound or my fingers get in a mess. He keeps saying it's just a question of confidence and that I just need to trust my fingers. Any ideas as to how I can convince myself that I can play it?

Thank you, I tried this when practising just now, I obviously can't expect any miraculous changes, but hopefully it will come...though it seemed to sound better...I'm ok up to top G# but A upwards sounds pinched, and Bb upwards is always flat (I've no idea why the A is in tune )

How annoying about the runs...good luck with them! In reassurance to you, I wish I was good enough to play the sonatas!

I completely see what he means about aiming for the last note, the trouble is your fingers need to know how to get there! I would do this kind of passage with a metronome - work out what speed you can comfortably play it at correctly (even if that is half the proper speed!), then go up a notch on the metronome. Then play it at the new speed for a day or two - you shouldn't find it too hard as it will only be marginally faster than what you were doing before. Then up another notch, etc etc, until it's up to speed.

I have already done this - which is how both he and I know my fingers can get there. He claims (and since he demonstrated it to me I have to say I agree) that it actually sounds better if you don't play it absolutely regularly but play the first few notes slightly slower and slightly accelerate the last ones. I think it is probably more a problem of air than fingers with me thinking "oh no, I hate this bit" and tensing up.

I hope you can get the scale done soon!. I don't practice my scales enough to have problems like that lol






New music arrived today



But.... The Oboe won't work properly at the middle joint, so I have to see my teacher and see if she can fix it...



It's also the first time i've played scince monday bacause of having 2 teeth out, so it's fustraing not being able to play.

How annoying Lizbun!

What's the new music?