How weird. My teacher presented me with that one a couple of weeks ago as an exercise. What in, I'm not quite sure.

That's lovely. Certainly something I want to have a go at when I'm good enough.


Now you're talking.


Eh?

Haven't been about the forums for ages - other things have come up.

But, thought should say that after I asked what to do about pain playing oboe about 20 pages ago in this thread, things have improved.

I now use a stretchy sling, and have raised the height of my music stand. This means that it's easier for me to concentrate on relaxing my right arm, which was (of course) really the problem.

The lack of stamina otherwise seems to be improving with practice.

Thanks people.

Oh yes, I keep forgetting! She's so much "older" on the oboe than me!

That's good news! I've been thinking of trying one of those sling things... but my issue is more in the hands so I am very gratefully accepting the generous donation of a special thumbrest from another Forumite first. Good luck with getting your stamina back.

I've been sort of hovering around this thread for a while, observing from afar but I thought I'd finally dip my toes in!

I started playing the oboe in May 2009 after a poor start on the clarinet and doing my g8 flute. I have completely fallen in love with it (although it would appear I'm not the only one!) and sat my g8 last term.

However, now there is the dilemma of what to play! Has anyone got any suggestions for some repertoire-expanding things? I was thinking of taking a look at the Telemann A minor sonata...

Thanks!

welcome pikkoloflautist! And well done on your grade 8! Which pieces did you do?

The Telemann A minor sonata is lovely so would definitely recommend that!

Can we assume that you have looked at the Poulenc, Saint Saens, Marcello and Britten Metamorpheses? I also like the Rubbra sonata which I investigated after hearing Emsoboe playing it at a masterclass last year.

notmusimum - what are Emsoboe's plans for Grade 8? Is she doing it this session, or is she going to wait till Autumn? What pieces has she settled on? Is she still doing the Rubbra?

I think I will probably do the Handel Sonata (a lovely piece if you haven't played that pikkoloflautist), maybe the Saint Saens first movement and I'm not sure about a C piece. Ferling no 36 is a possibility but we've just started working on the Britten Metamorpheses and I quite fancy doing one of those. Will see where I'm up to in September.

You may not say that if you heard her.

At the moment shes battling to get a good sound. Even resorting to using Flute technique books Oboe is at last getting some concentrated effort as she often gets pulled away form it to do something else.




Grage 8 Summer eeek! She is playing the Rubbra, Dittersdorf and Britten at the moment it's tonal work that needs to be done and vibrato development. Stamina is also a problem but that is starting to improve. She can generally play all the notes.

Just hoping that it all starts to come together in the next few weeks. We know she leaves school at the end of month so she's going to practice around revision for the exams she has left. Luckily because of the way school has organised the GCSEs she already has what she needs for a college place and will only have 3 subjects left when she leaves (which is one of thereasons she's not had enough time to devote to Oboe)..

Hello Again - It's with some embarassment that I see I haven't entered anything since before attending the Big Double Reed day at the Guildhall in Oct! That was a fantastic day & after playing in Richard Simpson's master slass I was walking on air - unfortunately, so much so, that I missed the concert by the professional oboists!
Since then I've attended a great weekend course run by Sarah Francis at Jackdaws in Somerset - I learnt a lot, but there's so much more to learn!
Have read all your comments with interest - it's a great place for sharing "tips & wrinkles"

Will anyone else be at the BDRS Convention in Watford tomorow? Right now I'm regretting choosing such a hard piece for the tutorial I rashly opted for. Does anyone else know Hugo Schuncke's Oboe Concerto?
I'm playing the 3rd movement the Bolero.
It's a great piece & I first heard someone else play the Bolero at the Big Double Reed day last Oct.
Hope to meet some of you one day - Happy Playing.

Any of the Telemann sonatas are nice You could also look at his Methodical sonatas, which include fully written out ornamentation for the slow movement, which helps to understand how to later make up your own ornamentation in other pieces. Or, if you want something unaccompanied you could try his Fantasias.

I was feeling impulsive today, and have just booked myself onto the Oboe Extravaganza weekend at Benslow in about 3 weeks time.

Not sure whether this was a good idea.

I've just done my A Level recital, and so now have lots of time to start new repertoire(!!!) I'm starting with the 1st movement of the Mozart (I've already learnt the 2nd) and the Saint-Saens, but I was wondering if any of you have any other suggestions?

Have you tried the Koechlin?

I haven't played it, so I don't know whether it's at the right level, but to me it's fairly similar in feel to the Poulenc and Saint-Saens.

How nice to have some new and returned voices back here!


Welcome pikkoloflautist! Sounds as though you've been going like the clappers! Well done on G8 in less than two years!


Welcome back Hardying! I hadn't heard of SF's course. Is this a regular event? I'm afraid I don't know the Schuncke either but would be interested to hear more... As you can see from my profile info to the left I am too far away to attend the BDRS event but wish you a fun and informative time.


What's emsoboe hoping to study? Good luck with the oboe tone.. sounds like familiar issues to me!


Fun! I opened an adult learner summer course thread to complement kerioboe's one on courses for kids so maybe you can post there and find out if anyone else is going. I'd love to have gone - May-June is my favourite time in the UK but I can't get leave until July-August.


How did the recital go????

Excellent - see you there. I've been on 2 of Andrew Knights's weekends at Benslow before & they've been great learning experiences - he makes you believe you can achieve & has a very facilitative approach! Looking forward to meeting another forum member.

She is off to sixth form in September, music is one of her A level choices. Longer term she hasn't quite decided but at the moment the strongest possibilities are Recorder and Sax. She has 18 months to decide and this might well change in that time. All she knows at the moment is that she wants to study music post A level. There is no plan to give Oboe up the environment she is in there are several similar aged Oboists who are very good and aren't trying to progress other instruments at the same time.

Do pass on our best wishes for her GCSEs!

It went really well thanks I was really happy, because the Britten sounded about the best it has, and there were no massive mistakes, so hopefully I will have got a good mark!! I was really happy with it, and so was my teacher, so hopefully!!

I did the Mozart 2nd movement, Poulenc 1st movement and no.4 of the Bourgeois I've got a copy of the Saint Saens - need to take a more serious look at that! I've played a couple of the Britten pieces, but I have a feeling I really ought to get the book... And what is this Marcello? I've not heard of that...



I do like Telemann but I must admit, I'm not so keen on the unaccompanied pieces. I've got the 12 Fantasias for flute, are they the same? I've been trying to find somewhere that sells the A minor one, even June Emerson has failed me Does anyone know who might stock it?

OboePiano, it sounds like we're in a similar stage of oboing! Well done on your recital I did mine in March, what did you play?

Lovely pieces, I haven't played the Mozart, but I do have music for the Quartet he wrote which is nice. I have the Bourgeois pieces but haven't done much with them. The Poulenc is fab, I've played the first movement but found the second movement a bit much at the time. Will have another look at it I think.

The Marcello Concerto in D minor is highly recommended. It is on the current grade 8 syllabus.

Sorry you have had problems finding the A minor. I have it in Solos for the Oboe player published by Schirmer. I also have a book which I bought from Howarths, published by Amadeus and called "Telemann 4 Oboensonaten". It also has Sonatas in Bb major, E minor and G minor.

June Emerson has it as a separate sonata, though for some reason it doesn't come up on the advanced search if you put in composers name and oboe pieces, when I searched on just Telemann, it's a long list but it's on page 8 if you have 30 pieces per page.

I did the Mozart and Poulenc as well, but i did the 2nd Bourgeois How did you do? In my recital I did the Poulenc, Pan from Britten's Six Metamorphoses, 2 movements from Alan Richardson's French Suite and Comme une serenade by Planel as a light piece to end what did you do?

Thank you! It's a massive bonus that she already has Music, both Englishes, Maths and one Science. It was pretty horrendous when some of them were happening in November (schools policy not pushy parent )

I'm just hoping she has enough time and energy to do the work needed for G8 Oboe.

I love the Poulenc, but that D at the beginnning is so temperamental sometimes! My accompanist decided a while ago that I should sight read the rest of the sonata up to speed... Needless to say it didn't go so well!


*note to self to buy that*


Thank you so much! I've found it now. Oh why is oboe music so expensive? There are so many things I want to buy and then you go to the basket and it's some horrendous amount.


I looked at the 2nd Bourgeois, but it was a bit of a rush job and I thought I'd be able to manage the 4th one better! Managed to scrape a merit, but man do my scales need work... Wow, that's a lot! I did the 1st and 2nd of the Mozart, the Poulenc, and 2 of my G6 pieces (Albinoni and Nielsen) just to fill up the time they went alright though I think, or at least my teacher seemed to think so anyway!

A lot of the standard repertoire comes up on e-bay very cheaply (often as a "bundle"). I bought a lot of things this way - many of them a long time before I was ready to play them (my most recent edition for ?2.50 is the Strauss concerto).

And I agree about the Marcello In fact I like it so much that I haven't yet worked on it - I want to be able to do it fully justice.

Sarah Francis has an annual wind-chamber music course and an oboe weekend at Jackdaws (as Hardying said). The chamber music used to be a week but is now only a long weekend and is sometime in the summer. The oboe weekend is annual but a bit variable in the month in which it is held. (Jackdaws have archives of previous courses so you can get an idea of the sort of things they offer).



I started a thread last year about adult summer courses - if you do a search it ought to turn up (but I can't remember if I put it in woodwind or adult learners).

It's in adult learners.

Was in London for the day, so stopped by Howarth, got my oboe fixed and also picked up some music from the sale.

Has anyone played or heard of 'Recitative for Oboe and Piano' by Harold Noble?

It looks interesting - lots of accidentals and changes of time signature, and molto moderato with lots of long notes. At least it only cost ?1.20.

It vaguely rings a bell. Was it in a box of things that Howarth's were selling cheaply? I bought quite a few things out of a box like that at Christmas and it might have been one I looked at and rejected (not because I didn't think it looked interesting but because I had fixed myself a limit on the number of things I was going to buy).

While we're on the topic of pieces people know (or don't know), has anyone played (or heard) Richardson's Aria and Allegretto? I found this on my shelves (something I bought from ebay ages ago) and decided I'd work on that alongside my exam pieces. I'm not sure my teacher will entirely approve - he is trying to get me to play loudly and forcing encouraging me to play things outside my comfort zone and the Aria is a quiet rather haunting melody but I decided it was what I needed at the moment.

I had my last lesson before my exam this morning. I have been banned from listening to any recordings of the Saint Saens sonata before the exam. He even suggested I didn't listen to any CDs with an oboe on them between now and my exam so that I will stop thinking that I am supposed to be playing like a professional and allow myself to play as me

I had my lesson in the room used for pupils' concerts (unfortunately not where the exams is going to be) and people kept wandering in and out (bringing in chairs, taking harps back to the harp room because they had been used for a concert last night). My teacher said it was good practice at staying concentrated regardless of what is going on around you but in fact I found it easier with lots of things going on around as I didn't have the impression that people were listening to me

He has attempted to forestall a reed crisis by making a few adjustments on three of the reeds I had scraped myself, giving me two new ones of his and two which he had tied on but not scraped. He said there is no reason to be paranoid about reeds

Very Best of Luck with the exam!

And from me too.

I had a lovely lesson today - had a double lesson shared with 2 other pupils (one on oboe and one on Cor) and we did an hour of trio playing. A Hook Sonata was the main thing we worked on but we also sight read the Beethoven Trio. Was really, really lovely!

We are planning to do it again soon - and teacher also mentioned getting us all together to do some reed making!

It's the first time I've done ensemble playing in a small group and I loved it!

Yes - I love chamber music - & much prefer it to orchestras. It's more intimate & you can have more fun & more say in what you play!
Hope you get plenty more opportunities to play in small groups.
I'm lucky as I play the cello too, so have mixed chamber music sessions & sometimes my 2 friends who play violins have to be "oboes" so that we can play trios written for 2 oboes & baassoon, with me on the cello playing the bassoon part!

The trio work sounds really fun, flobiano. Very envious!

kerioboe! Sounds as though things are as ready as they can be and I really hope everything goes swimmingly.

Thanks
Work has suddenly got rather manic. I was supposed to have a half-day meeting on Friday and Monday but both have/will turn into full days meaning I won't have time to practise but nor will I have time to dwell on things either. And Saturday and Sunday I have got all day orchestra rehearsals.

A pleasing bit of news is that this morning the conductor of the music school orchestra sent me a copy of the solo of Gabriel's Oboe for me to look at before next Wednesday's rehearsal as he wants to perform it in June. For the time being I am quite excited about having an orchestra to accompany me (Although of course I may be back on here in a month's time as a nervous wreck at the thought of actually performing as a soloist ).

ooooh lovely!
You'd better start running half marathon's twice a week... the main challenge is going to be stamina, I think.

Having an oboist conductor means I've never been let loose on the principle solo as he does it himself. I get let loose with the prinicpal flautist for the reprise of the melody.

It's lovely doing it with an orchestra.

Still feeling bit high after last night's concert of Russian Music. Happily my pieces went well, but one of the nicest compliments I received was from the mother of a young girl, who told me that after I had finished playing, her daughter turned round to her & said in amazement "Oh, the oboe can sound nice!"
I played Chanson by Gliere & The Schererazade 3rd movement from the Classic Experience Collection. Really enjoyed playing those lushious runs!

Glad to hear it went well and was so enjoyable!

Congratulations to kerioboe too, how exciting. Such a lovely piece of music will be fab to play with orchestra.

Reminds me of when I first started and I told my teacher I would only play in his pupils' concert if he announced that I'd only been learning for six months. He duly obliged but afterwards I felt slightly guilty when one of his other pupil's mother's told me that her son had been learning for over two years and still didn't sound anything like as nice as me and then she started telling him off for not practising enough

I had an all day wind band rehearsal today and picked up my daughter's oboe instead of my own when I left the house I only realised when I got there and it was too far away to go back and get my own so I had to use hers all day. It's a "small hands" model so the keys are not quite in the same place, there is only one trill key, no 3rd octave key and I discovered that the left-hand little finger keys (which she doesn't yet use were completely jammed) so I couldn't use a left Eb (and being a wind-band the pieces all have lots of flats ). Needless to say, I played spectacularly badly

I don't know why I took hers as we don't even keep them beside each other and the case is different (although it is the case that my former oboe used to be in). I think it must be my unconscious taking over as I have been having nightmares about turning up to my oboe exam and finding that all the keys have fallen off, none of the reeds worked... (Although I hadn't envisaged this particular scenario).

Needless to say I will be double checking that I have the right oboe when setting off for my exam

On the other hand, I discovered with my daughter's oboe that part of the thumb problem is the finger-spread. With the keys closer together it is much more comfortable

Just got back from my trip (about 20 hours late)... wondering how kerioboe's Big Day went...

I passed with a "mention tres bien" And my teacher said the set piece was the best I had ever played it.

In the end I got to rehearse in the room in the morning because they had an accompanist problem at the last minute. My teacher was accompanying me and the other oboist anyway but they also asked him the day before to accompany the trumpets so he said he wanted the room to practise in, got hold of the keys and then phoned me to ask if I would like to come and try it out (so of course I leapt at the chance to try the room and squeeze in an extra lesson).

In French music exams, after all the candidates have played the members of the jury ask the candidates to leave the room and deliberate (this lasted 40 minutes!), then they call everyone back in and announce the results and then you can go and ask the members of the jury what they thought of you. I'm not sure that this is the best moment to be given feedback as I found the wait during the deliberation more stressful than the playing and wasn't in a fit state to take in what they were saying However, I had a lesson this morning so my teacher went back over what had been said.

They all said that I was obviously musical . Their main criticisms were things that my teacher has already told me. The Head of the music school thought that I had made a lot of progress in controlling my nerves but that I was still lacking in confidence He said I play far more confidently in the orchestra, even though I am the only oboist (so can't "hide" behind anyone else) than I did in the exam and that I need to learn to play with the same confidence whatever the situation. The outside examiner said that there was a huge difference between the way I presented myself and when I had the instrument in my hands - he didn't say this directly to me but told my teacher who told me - that he when he saw the way I came into the room he was expecting me to play really badly and that I was being forced to take the exam because the music school wanted to put an end to my lessons and he was astounded by my musicality once I actually started playing.

Anyway the upshot of all this in my lesson this morning was that my teacher has decided that his new aim for me is to free my inner musical self, improve my confidence and gain in "stage presence". He started this morning by moving the music stand out of the corner of the room (where I like it) to the middle of the room, where I feel very exposed His slightly longer term aim is for me to play in a concert without the music, not because he believes memorisation necessarily leads to a better performance but to stop me using the music stand as a barrier between me and the audience.

I'm not sure how easy it will be to learn to play more freely (I think it will require a rather large personality change) but I'm glad the exam is over and that I have got a new piece : Bozza's "Conte Pastorale."

That's Great - Well Done & how nice to be told you're musical!

What can I say but Very well done.

That's very interesting. My teacher regularly moves the stand around so I don't get used to one spot. She has also encouraged me to play to the neighbours over the road (without leaving the house you understand).

Very well done indeed! Glad to hear it went so well - a very well deserved result by the sounds of it!

So glad it all went well for you! You really didn't need to put yourself through an exam to be told you are musical though

If I am honest I've indulged in a bit of passive resistance to have the stand where I want it. In previous year I had lessons in a very small room so the problem never arose. This year, I arrive first to warm up and since the cleaners always put the stand against the wall, I get the room ready the way I like it. A couple of times I have had my lesson at a slightly later time and the stand has been where my teacher prefers it (which is how I discovered I didn't like being in the middle of the room). A couple of times he has suggested moving it and I have always said I'm happy with where it is. This morning he didn't give me any choice, picked up the stand and said "I know you don't like it but I'm putting it here."

This evening I had a first rehearsal of "Gabriel's Oboe" and I'm not quite sure what I thought of it. It is certainly an entirely different experience to be playing with a whole orchestra accompanying and I could see what my teacher meant about needing to occupy space.



The whole confidence problem means I do need to be told I'm musical because I always feel something of a fraud but, as you say, I could have done without the stress of the exam.

This oboist is playing grade one pieces today!

WOW - enjoy!

Well done, kerioboe!!!!

Enjoy that Bozza piece! I've got a bit of Bozza on a CD I just bought (Mayer) but it's not the one you're playing. And I got Lajos Lencses playing Piazzolla

Welcome to the oboe thread, MNW! We were wondering when you were going to turn up here! What are the G1 pieces you're playing?

I've just signed up for the Gloucester Adult Learner's Concert on 4th June & will be playing Hamilton Harty's Chansonette & A La Campagne. Really looking forward to my 1st forum event. Will any other oboists be there?

The one I really want to play is "Fantasie Pastorale" but, given that my teacher is expecting me to play it in a concert on 9th June, and that I haven't got a lesson next week (which means I will have had a total of three lessons before performing) I thought I would limit my ambitions

I have got a CD of Lajos Lencses playing both of these and Bozza's Aira on the cor anglais. It was hearing this that made me decide I really wanted a cor anglais.

Can't wait for emsoboe to take Grade 8 and move on to some Cor playing