Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2008-06-18 01:14
Second lesson (pretty short, well, maybe not):
The left-hand position that he taught was a little different than others, I think. He had you curve the thumb slightly, instead of locking it. Then, instead of sliding all the way onto the first octave key, you just nudged the end of the key to activate it. I felt that this position was not so tiring due to the non-locking of the thumb joint and considerably less motion of the thumb itself. The covering of the half-hole key, the B key was done by sliding, rather than rotating the left-hand index finger. To make this motion easy, he showed us how to draw the index finger along the back of the ear or the side of the nose which picks up enough "lubricant" to make the slide, very smooth. I can't remember if he said this or I figured it out myself, i.e., to keep the fingers very close to the keys, so it takes less time to activate them, also I think, producing less keywork noise.
The right-hand position was pretty straight-forward. The same lubricating technique was used on the C-key, Db-key, and Eb-key when having to play a passage like the one in El Amor Brujo of Defalla with the fast sequences (3?) of these very notes. One thing thing he did on his Loree AK oboe was to have a screw adjustment put in on the Eb activated pad, so that when you had to play a lot of fork-F's, you could adjust the screw for the best intonation. In this same vane (vein?) the F-G trill is done with all three fingers on the right-hand, because only then, is the upper note in-tune! Too bad that same approach doesn't also work for the middle register B-C# trill! One last word of caution: very unfortunately, a very famous pianist was so pleased with Ray's playing in, I believe it was the Brahms Bb-minor concerto, that he shook Ray's hand so hard, that it caused him a great deal of pain which took a long time to recover from. If you find someone doing that to you, put your left-hand on the two hands quickly to stop the movement and just say something like, "I'm sorry, but my hand is a little sore today.", thus avoiding a possibly painful and lingering problem. Let's end on a positive note (pun intended) instead. Although Mr. Still was a very demanding teacher, he did accept young students. To be introduced to these great concepts at a young age was just tremendous! Thank you, Mr. Still!
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