I wish I had an oboe it's such a beautifal instrument

Do you like it enough for it to be worth selling your other instruments for? (might be best to wait until you finish your degree as you're unlikely to wizz to the practical standard required for your degree before your practical marks start to count...)

I stupidly cut my left index finger deeply with a bread knife last night about half an hour before I was supposed to leave for a concert. If it had just been me I would have dropped out but my daughter was playing as well and she didn't want to go without me. I missed out a lot of notes, managed to get to the end of the concert before the blood had seeped right through the plaster but it is still very painful today and I gave up trying to practise after about 10 minutes

I just hope it is better by Wednesday as I haven't had a lesson for two weeks and was looking forward to it

oh dear, that sounds very painful....well done for getting through it last night and hopefully it will be better for Wednesday.

I am getting slightly stressed about my exam on Thursday.

The Albinoni and Dring are OK but the Jacob seems to be getting worse every day..

I keep forgetting to breath and then I end up having to just stop.
When I think about remembering to breath my fingers stop moving.

I think it is worse at the end of practice when I'm tired. Usually the first run through is the best...I am trying to hold onto that thought.

Scales I can play but I seem to have problems decoding the information of which scale to play and which articulation to play. Fortunately OH has been very good in testing me on random scales.

I will be glad when it's out of the way now, I think, I want to play something else!

Good luck for the exam



I know the feeling
My teacher always says to me before performing "de l'air, de l'air, de l'air;" with enough air everything else will look after itself (or so he claims).

Good point. With an oboe, what else could you possibly need?

Wishing you all the in the world...

Not that you need it, you'll do fine!!!!

I had a slightly different but very interesting lesson this morning. My finger is still not better - I think I ought to have gone and had it stitched instead of playing in the concert For reasons which I don't understand, I cut my index finger but it is the little finger notes which are painful to play and which re-open the cut. The piece I had been working on didn't seem to have more than a few bars at a time with no little finger notes so we spent the whole lesson working on tone.

One of the things my teacher helped me discover was that if you fix something some distance away with your eyes your tone becomes much more focussed.

Hope your cut heals up soon. Sounds very painful.

That is an interesting comment about tone - I certainly notice that my tone is significantly better when I am doing scales/ arpeggios than when I am playing pieces.

It maybe the same effect - as I play scales from memory I do tend to focus in the middle distance, whereas when playing from music I am obviously focussing much nearer. I also think my posture tends to be better when I'm not peering at music. Maybe I need to do more memorising, though I am not very good at that......

Thanks for the good luck, Katica - I wasn't going to have a lesson tonight, but organised a final one last night. I was getting paranoid about reeds. I had a good run through with my accompanist on Monday so I think pieces one and two should be Ok, the Jacob still feels a bit ropey - but I know that I CAN play it. I think it is just panic that makes it go wrong.

Other stuff should be OK as long as I take my time and don't panic. I'll let you know how it goes.

I know that I can pass it, and I've passed exams previously that I've much less prepared for. It's just a question of how big an effect the nerves have!

Think confident

Hope it all goes well for you!

Do you actually focus on something then? I hadn't realised, until he pointed it out, that I wasn't focussing on anything, just gazing into the middle distance. Deliberately chosing something to focus on (in this case a box on top of a cupboard) did wonders for my tone

He got me to stay for a bit at the start of his next lesson (with a much younger less advanced pupil) and got her to play a long tone and then the same long tone looking through the window and fixing her gaze on a tree outside and her sound instantly improved. Interestingly when he got her to play another note the same way, her gaze momentarily wandered off the tree (you could see her eyes move) and the sound got worse and then better as she focussed on the tree again.

Good luck for tomorrow

OK here's something I saw in a bassoon masterclass a week ago. The prof got a student to blow at an object across the room (not through the bassoon, just blowing) and then blow at his hand. The speed of the airflow was totally different - much faster when blowing at the distant object. For good tone you need fast air.


I'm quite sure trying to read music, apply articulation, dynamics etc. uses so much brain power it is much more difficult to concentrate on tone, intonation, fingers, etc. than when playing simple scales or short phrases from memory.

I do try to make a point of memorising phrases so I can practice them away from the music, even if I'm ultimately still going to use the music to perform. Partly to give my fingers a better chance at hitting the right keys but also to listen critically and try to play as well as I can.


Good luck.

I have already (on several occasions) and with both my teacher and another one tried what you describe above and then tried to replicate the same idea through the oboe but it has never made much difference. My teacher also regularly tells me to imagine that I am aiming to blow through the oboe to the opposite side of the room but this (for me anyway) increases the volume of the sound at the expense of the tone, which is why I am so surprised that focussing my eyes made such a difference. (I have been experimenting this afternoon at home and the effect has stayed so it wasn't just a "freak" in my lesson this morning).

My teacher quite often has me do something like this: imagine bouncing a funneled sound off a distant wall, play looking at the trees in the patio outside, and so forth.

One day I came to class he was playing out on the veranda to the mountains... I could hear him playing a block up the street before I arrived and he wasn't even playing very loud.

My flatemate's oboe teacher says to imagine playing into a funnel to project the sound and ensure it has a centre.

This is the sort of thing my teacher keeps telling me - projecting your sound is not about playing loudly but about making your presence felt.

I do often focus on something, though not deliberately, I just seem to automatically focus on the corner of the book case! I will try doing it more mindfully though.

My exam is now on Monday - have had a bit of a nightmare today! Details are in another thread though.

Hopefully I will be fully recovered by then.

I have just read the other thread. Poor you

I hope you are better by Monday

Well this morning I played some scales on a reed made by......


Me

It sounds rubbish but it works. Only another 999 to go and I'll know what I'm doing.

...er hi everyone, don't think I have ever posted in the Woodwind threads before

now that I have finished my OU and grade theory exams (for now) I have decided to finally jump in and buy and oboe,

I contacted an experienced oboe player/teacher for advice and had my first lesson this week

really enjoyed it and have learnt where G A B and C are and that reeds need alot of looking after !!


Still love my piano very much and along with the singing lessons feel very lucky to have so much music and great teachers around me

Excellent. I hope you enjoy it. I'm sure you'll find the singing experience will help.

Hey, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!




Good choice, pianophrase! And welcome to this happy little band of oboists!!!

My big of the week was doing the corny thing and actually playing Gabriel's oboe in Mission territory in Bolivia (yesterday morning and the night before). Even more amazing, I was overheard and they actually liked it!!!

Big (apart from decidedly unproductive workshop) was spraining my ankle really badly on the tarmac as I rushed to get on a plane to La Paz. Now in plaster. No oboe tonight.

Good luck for today Flobiano! Hope you are feeling much better.

Thank you! Yes I am feeling better, fortunately.

I've written elsewhere about my exam so won't repeat it here. I came out feeling I had done myself justice - a few minor slips due to nerves but that is to be expected. Only the aural tests that I was really disappointed with - I thought I should have done better based on the work that I had put in! I really thought that I had finally cracked them! Oh well.

What will be, will be - I think somethign will have gone seriously wrong with the marking if I fail, but whether I manage to get more than a pass remains to be seen.

Pushpull - congratulations on your reed making! Making one that works is a great achievement! My teacher mentioned something about doing some reedmaking now my exam is out of the way!

Katica- sorry to hear about your ankle - must be very bad to be put in plaster, and I know how painful it can be! Hope it is feeling better soon.

Pianophrase - Congratulations on your purchase and welcome to the wonderful world of the oboe! Glad things are going well so far - you'll soon be hooked!

Oh no!
But look on it this way - at least once you've got over the initial pain you will be able to play the oboe - it's not like you've broken your arm (or even a finger).

Hope you are beginning to feel better Katica!

How is everyone else doing?

I've had my first post-exam lesson - straight in with lots of technical exercises I need to do to "open up" my tone and play louder.

Also have some new music to play! HURRAH! Starting on Handel Sonata in Bb, Roundelay by Alan Richardson and picking up the second movement of the Saint Saens sonata again after putting it to one side to focus on exams.

I certainly won't be short of things to keep me busy!

Me too!


Same here Although my teacher says it is not just about playing loudly but about imposing my presence. He has recently changed the room he teaches in, going from a very small one to quite a large one. For the past two lessons in the new room he has had me playing in one corner and he goes and stands in the corner diagonally opposite. The idea being that I play to him rather than to my own personal space. So far I have found this very off-putting and have felt very alone

I am feeling a bit dispondent after today's lesson. For the past month he has been taking my technique apart. He said that I'd got to a stage where my playing is clean, correct and competent but to get to the next stage of truly expressive playing I need to eliminate all the small technical faults that I have accumulated. The strange thing is that there is nothing really new in what he is saying but suddenly things that only sort of made sense now make complete sense and I can hear/feel what is wrong but can't seem to get everything he is telling me to do together at the same time.


I don't know the Richardson but I have played and enjoyed both the Handel and the Saint Saens. I am still working on the 1st and 3rd movements of the Vaughan Williams Concerto but we are spending almost all the lesson time on technical exercices at the moment.

I think that fits in rather well with the earlier discussions about playing to an object in the distance. I live in a boring modern bungalow with typically low ceilings and when I go to my teacher's high ceilinged house it's relatively speaking like playing in a warehouse. The sound is so much better I think it encourages me to play out - especially as I have sometimes been instructed to face the bay window and play to the neighbours over the road.

Last year I met up with my old teacher in one of the huge studios in the RNCM (shouldn't have been there but hey . Playing in there was a fabulous experience - you already sound much bigger without really trying.

I live in an old (as in a couple of hundred years old) three story house.The room I usually practise in has a fairly high ceiling and is bigger than the new classroom so I am used to playing in a relatively large space. Perhaps it is because I'm used to a largish space that I don't actually occupy it and have perfected playing in my own little cocoon.

And a question for the other oboists. Do you find it easier to start a note with or without the tongue?
(I will tell you why I want to know when I've had some replies).

With.

With, definitely.

One of the exercises my teacher has set me is to start notes without tongueing but to push as hard as possible with the diaphragm to make them as loud and accented as I can. And then to accelerate the notes until it turns into a kind of vibrato - I don't know if I've explained that very well but apparently it will help open up my sound and improve my support.

Usually with.

But it depends. In a couple of our orchestra pieces I have to start solo with the flutes on a slow pp that needs zero attack and I've decided it's easier with no tongue at all, at least on the first note. But it can be pretty hard to control when the note actually starts just with your breath unless you know your reed extremely well and are completely in charge of how your breath pressure interacts with it. But even the softest tonguing usually sounds even worse and producing an initial pp is extremely difficult (for me).

My teacher a while back gave me a non-tongue exercise, a bit different from flobliano's. I had to do a succession of short notes, something like ha-ha-ha. Also with my back against the wall to ensure best posture for good diaphragm use.

(Zero oboe this week! After foot issue, altitude-related headache and then severe stomach upset put paid to all practice plans in La Paz... might try for 10 mins now before I pack... end-of-term exam on Tues, if I can find transportation... )

*** a few minutes later ***

Wow, even on a specially scraped reed it's hard to blow in this high, dry climate! Head hurts but heart is much happier.

Hope you get back home safely this time
And good luck for your end of term exam. (Do you really have one at the end of every term?)

Thanks everyone for the answers to the tongue question - and you have confirmed what my teacher said.

The reason I asked is because I have always had trouble with my first notes. It doesn't matter whether they are loud or soft, short or long, high or low, they never come out properly. My teacher said that the physical reason for this is that I breath in, pause and then start playing. He put this slight pause down to a lack of confidence and an apprehension about the first note which then of course becomes a vicious circle - I think it's not going to come out so it doesn't...

Anyway, this is one of the things my teacher has decided I need to improve and he had given me precise instructions of how to practise individual notes. While I was doing these exercices at home, I suddenly realised that if I didn't tongue the note everything was so much easier - I could play any dynamic, any range and the note would start at exactly the right time without the little pause. So I turned up at my lesson last week saying that I hadn't exactly solved the problem but it was much better if I didn't tongue. At first he didn't believe me but after getting me to play random notes at random dynamics, he said that I was perfectly correct but that he was amazed because he had never met anyone who found it easier to start without the tongue (except possibly in pp passages like Katica describes) and that usually he gives pupils specific exercices to learn how to start notes without the tongue because it is a useful skill in some circumstances.

As I was leaving he said first the thumb rest, now the tongue, what are you going to come up with next that none of my pupils ever does? So I thought I'd check on here and see if I really was the only one...

I don't know about you, Katica, but being fluent in two languages means that when my teacher says 'just say "tu"', I don't really know what exactly I am supposed to be doing. I know that the tongue is not in exactly the same place for an English "t" and a French "t" (this is one of the things I teach) and from experience that the French "u" is an impossibly difficult sound for a native English speaker to get right (particularly when you are supposed to be thinking a French "ooh" at the same time) but once you start intellectualising it, the whole thing becomes impossibly complex

I think that breathing (even initial breaths before starting to play) should be "timed" every bit as much as the music is. I agree that taking a breath then pausing is indeed "bad form". It does introduce tension and is generally frowned upon in singing for instance.

I have used a "no tongue" attack in exercises as both katica and flobiano have described. I also find it a useful way of figuring out how responsive a particular reed is and I admit to using it for pp entries now and then. My teacher I'm sure would generally frown on the latter as (all things being equal) it ought to be easier to get the reed to speak at the precise moment you want and at the dynamic you want if the air is ready to go and all you have to do is release the tongue. Well that's the theory. I agree doing it in practice (without it being an obvious tongued attack) is difficult.

You have described exactly the problem I have with the first note when playing the flute - & I still haven't found a way of getting over the problem - imagining playing a previous note so it becomes the second sometimes helps; counting in/breathing in time with the music doesn't really help. For me the pause is the problem / creates the problem of starting the 1st note cleanly but the more I try not to do it the worse it becomes.

Theoretically I know all this and can intellectually understand it. But even with a metronome I can manage unconsciously to "time" my in-breath so that I can fit in a short pause before I start playing. I only do this at the beginning of pieces (once I've started it's OK, even after bars' rest) and the only time I don't do it is when my teacher plays alongside me, which is why he says it is probably largely a confidence problem. (It doesn't help if he just takes a breath in and out beside me, I need the security of him playing at the same time).

I think Andy-piano flute has hit the nail on the head:

So, I went to a bassoon masterclass at the RNCM last night (well it's a double reed). It was given by Lorelei Dowling and concentrated on contemporary techniques. I reckon the format of it made it one of the best masterclasses I've ever seen.

There were two students playing pieces newly composed by RNCM composition students using extended techniques, so there was plenty of room for discussion between tutor, players and composers. We also got a demonstration of an exercise to develop circular breathing (squirting water out through a tiny hole in pursed lips, whilst breathing in and out through the nose). I tried this when I got home and found I could do it without difficulty. OK, the hard bit will be to try it next on the oboe (though I won't fill it up with water).

On top of all that we got performances by Lorelei of the Berio Sequenza XII and a piece called Blaues Fragment by Pierluigi Billone. Impressive stuff and great to see performed close up.

* katica going green with envy! *


A variation on this is blowing out through a coffee stirrer into a glass of water. Haven't tried yet but I've been saving up coffee stirrers...

PS Kerioboe... I think your teacher might be right about the French "tu". A Spanish "t" is softer than an English or even a French "t" (articulated a bit further back) and I think it's even better for oboe articulation (less harsh attack) but the French "u" might do better for focusing the sound. In Spanish it's nearer the English "oo". At the risk of intellectualising more, I think a French "tu" seems to be good for the middle to higher notes and a rounder Spanish "tu" for the lower ones. I haven't manage to try much, though, as I still have 'flu.

my teacher suggests more a soft d than a t for tongueing if that's any help.

Katica - hope you feel better soon - flu is miserable, and how is your ankle getting on?

I'm finally feeling better today. I've just tried getting my oboe out but didn't manage more than a few notes, blowing into it make my calf muscles really hurt (and my arm muscles too) Not quite completely over my flu yet. I'm pondering what to do about my lesson on Wed - I'll see if I can manage to play tomorrow but will prewarn her that I haven't been able to do any practice at all. Annoying.

Orchestra on Tuesday - the second of only 3 rehearsals for an afternoon Christmas concert. I will have to go to that even if I can't play, at least I can listen to how it goes and then practice my part at home.

I'm afraid it doesn't really help as to where to put the tongue. From a phonetical point of view the t and d are produced with the tongue in exactly the same place. What differentiates them (when you're talking) is the aspiration at the beginning of the sound (ie just before you relase the tongue). My teacher said I was making too much like a "d" sound and it needed to be more of a "t".

I hope both you and Katica are feeling better soon.

It's quite strange reading this.

Daughter often gets told she has a lazy Sax players tongue. I'm sure some part of it is not knowing generally how to tongue properly on Oboe. Her Recorder Teacher is forever making her switch between sounds so she genrally can do them all but isn't ready to use this knowledge on Oboe.

It's not that she's not ready to use this knowledge on the oboe but that tonguing on the oboe is totally different to tonguing on the recorder and this is the root of my problem. With the recorder (or flute) the tongue doesn't touch the instrument and I went for several years not realising that my tongue was actually supposed to be touching the reed when I was playing the oboe I still have days (usually when I'm tired and not concentrating) when my tongue misses the reed altogether and this is possibly what your daughter is doing on the Sax as the note resulting note sounds tongued but in a not very precise way.

As a slight aside and going back to your daughter's wrist pain when playing the cor. Are you sure she is resting the weight of the instrument on her thumb? Realising that you don't hold an oboe the way you hold a recorder has made all my wrist pain vanish.

I think you could be right about the tonguing and it's a case of knowing wich technique to use when.

I think the Cor problem was due to weight and hand position, she's never had a problem on Oboe or Baritone Sax. It was easily resolved with a Fhred. The problem she had is fairly common in young people.

I had a really good oboe lesson this morning
Last week's one was awful, I was exhausted after two particularly gruelling days at work, my brain was refusing to understand French, I couldn't do anything right and by the end of the lesson I was starting to wonder if I actually knew how to play the instrument. I had been feeling quite demoralised all week...

Anyway this morning I played the whole of the first movement of the Vaughan Williams Concerto and my teacher said that parts of it were "excellent" (An adjective he has never used about my playing before).

The only downside was that I found out he is not going to be at the music school Christmas concert. Normally this wouldn't have bothered me as this particular concert is only orchestras and groups (no solos) but in last week's orchestra rehearsal we were given a piece that the choir are singing and that we are going to accompany. The first few bars are an oboe solo. It is the sort of beginning I hate (a fortissimo dotted crotchet with an appoggiatura) where you have to be "present" right from the start but there was a first oboe and a second oboe on the part so I asked the conductor who the other oboe was going to be (I'm usually the only one). He said my teacher, so I thought that was all right, as I knew he would play loudly and having him beside me would give me the confidence to do the same. However, it turns out the conductor hadn't asked him and he is already playing in a concert somewhere else

I had one this morning which felt much better after the last two weeks "efforts". It's nice when it happens. Plus another moment. I bought a KG reed about a month ago which I thought was superb. I played it all day at an orchestral playday. After that it became impossible. Ridiculously hard, flat, no top notes. BAH. I struggeld with it for a bit before deciding I had better just stick to my older working reeds for now. So after 2 weeks not playing, I decided to give it a go in my warm up this morning. Crikey, it's back to top form I even played it throughout my lesson. Strange things these reeds.

Plus a BIG I have made some reeds which work!!!! The tone isn't brilliant and they're a bit soft but they make a sort of oboey sound. Woohoo (that's not the oboey sound).

for lesson and reed successes pushpull and kerioboe!


Aren't they just!!!

I have now had to endure over two weeks off the oboe! Flu turned into bronchitis so I totally missed end-of-term exams, concert, student recital etc etc.

I am still coughing hard but the oboe is definitely going to be dusted off today. A pianist/harpsichordist friend has promised a jam session tomorrow. Off to unearth Nielsen, Schumann, Telemann, Vivaldi, etc etc

Anyone know of an especially nice piece to play with harpsichord accompaniment?

Any baroque sonata (as opposed to concerto) will be nice with a harpsichord

And Flobiano, belated congratulations on your brilliant grade 7 result . (I have only just read through the exam thread - for some reason I was expecting you to post it on this one).

Thank you! I am very pleased indeed!

Back to normal lessons on Wednesday though - still trying to get back into it after the exam and then having flu for a week or so!

I missed last week's lesson due to the appalling weather so will have been 3 weeks since my last one.

Sounds like everyone else is keeping busy though - how was your piano/ harpsicord session Katica?

In my oboe-playing daughter's class there is also a boy who plays the oboe. He fell out of his bunkbed in his sleep last Thursday night and has done himself some serious damage. My daughter was a bit hazy about what exactly he has done but he is still in hospital after being operated on to "repair" (daughter's word) his jaw, he has lost several teeth and has damaged his palate. He can neither eat nor talk properly The poor boy will be off school until February and doesn't know when/if he will be able to go back to playing the oboe.

It didn't happen

Unfortunately bronchitis has taken a turn for the worse and I ended up in hospital this morning. I'm back home now and off work for three days. The worst is that my trip to NZ to see my sister is looking iffy, especially as I have complications with my ankle too. It's too bad as she's has just been through a real near miss giving birth (she and daughter now on the mend, thank goodness).

At least I don't have a broken jaw. I hope your daughter's classmate has a speedy and uncomplicated recovery and that it doesn't have long-term implications for his oboe playing.

I am so missing mine!

I'm going to treat myself to a few oboe/music related internet purchases as an extra Xmas present to myself to cheer myself up.

Aw katica ...get well soon.