I've just gained 3 oboe pupils from another teacher (who stopped teaching). Not having taught oboe before (even though it's my main instrument), I have come up with a few questions that I hope the other oboists out there might be able to help me with! They are:

1) when do you know when to move a student onto the next strength reed? One student is about grade 4, aged 16, been playing for years, but is still on a soft reed. It sounds pretty rubbish, so I thought I should get her onto a medium soft one, so that the tone quality improves a bit. But she's finding that quite hard work - I'm ending up scraping it, which kind of defeats the object.... How does one know when to give them a harder reed?? Should you force them to battle on with it for a few weeks in the hope they'll 'upgrade' themselves and get used to it? (My instinct says no on that one.) Can't work out an answer for myself...

2) Any tips how to get a grade 1-ish student to do legato tonguing? She can slur okay but her tonguing comes out with massive gaps between each note, because she's stopping the air flow. Am trying to get a happy medium, but she doesn't really get it yet.

Advice appreciated!!

Strength of reeds is always a difficult one, especially when someone has played for a long time on one strength. At grade 4 I would agree with you, soft seems a bit lightweight and I'd be looking for medium soft. I have to say most of my youngest pupils start/play medium soft and go up to medium. I don't generally use anything much harder either for myself or them but, inevitably, it does depend hugely on the make of reed. There's so much variation between makers.

I think the best way forward would to be get her medium soft but scrape down a bit so it's more than soft but not quite medium soft. The next time, take a little less off etc until she adjusts. Also, check she's breathing correctly, using a full diaphragm support. Very often, a pupil plays on a very soft reed because they're not breathing properly and so finds anything harder far too strenuous without the correct support.

As to the problem with tonguing - again this is, it seems to me from a distance, a breathing issue. You can do some quite interesting work with people with balloons, candles (anything in fact which makes breathing more "visible"). I sometimes light a candle and get the pupil to blow a well-supported air stream at same, only interrupting it with the lightest of tongue work - but the flame must flicker as they breath out and when they tongue, more so. That checks the air stream isn't being stopped. Likewise blow up a balloon, non-stop to get the sensation of on-going breathing. If you have a recorder to hand (or if they can get a sound from blowing across a bottle like a flautist would a flute) that's quite a good way to get a continuous sound and interrupt it with a tongue without all the reed problems getting in the way. Try singing the note and using the tongue....... all sorts of things to get her thinking about what she's actually doing.

Again, quite a lot of wind-players who've come into my hands actually stop breathing between notes rather than playing on the breath as your pupil is. It's only by doing loads of breathing exercises, long notes, diaphragm pushing etc I've cured this. Not easy but essential if progress is to be made.

Hope this helps a bit. Best of luck with the new pupils.

My flute pupil (my one and only, at the moment!) does that - so thank you for the tips because I think they will help her, too.

Thanks oboist, that's really helpful!



Her breathing _is_ disastrous, so I agree that that's a lot of the issue. (I'm baffled how anyone can get to grade 4 and still not even be breathing out properly, let alone breathing in!!!) Maybe I'll give up on the reeds until the breathing is sorted. On the other hand, maybe a harder reed will force her to support better? Hmmm.....

I like the candle idea, I'll try that next session! I tried singing the other week, but she didn't seem to be able to apply that to the oboe.

At the moment I feel like these things are going to take a frustratingly long time to sort out! (Just call me impatient...) Luckily, my 3rd pupil is a joy...

Glad some of the ideas were useful. I don't think you're impatient at all but my own experience is that when I pick up someone else's pupils and they haven't been taught to breath properly, it takes a lot longer to sort out than when you start them off and get it right from the outset.

I have never fathomed out how so many woodwind specialists can teach their instruments (or others in the family) and never mention breathing to their pupils . Yes, it's a bit of a "hobby horse" of mine but I remember my own second oboe teacher (who was such a treasure) making a very big thing of it with me after I'd gone to him from a teacher who was quite content to let me get giddy and faint and never mentioned breathing once!

40 years on, several college professors later, I still value him as probably the best teacher I ever had and I can remember fondly almost everything he taught me. Now I pass that on and I hope (on the assumption he's died, which I think he must have done by now) that he's looking down happily on my pupils, content he's left a legacy still being used. Call me sentimental or what?.......

Anyway, best of luck resolving your students' problems.