Author: huboboe
Date: 2011-04-04 17:23
TYO: Robin's advice on recording yourself and Coopers suggestion that you take a few lessons (ideally with the teacher you wish to study with) are both excellent advice. Recording yourself can be brutal, but listen as if you were the teacher and ask yourself what advice you would give to the player you are listening to. Then practice your own advice. Once you learn to listen to yourself you can solve most of your own technical problems.
To amplify on Cooper's comment about lessons with a prospective teacher: There are two simultaneous threads happening in teaching instrumental music. One is the body of academic knowledge; history, theory, ear training, harmony and counterpoint - the book-learning stuff. That is common knowledge and you can learn most of it just as well at your local Jr. college as at Curtis. The Music part, the magical way you turn a string of notes into a musical statement that sends shivers down your spine is not an academic exercise but an apprenticeship trade. The reason you study with a great teacher is to learn by osmosis what he/she knows which is difficult or impossible to quantify in words because musical content is not literature.
Some wonderful musicians are not good teachers because they can not express how they arrive at what they do. You can learn about them from listening to their recordings and not get much more from a one-on-one lesson.
The better teacher can show you (for instance) the 2 or 3 or 5 ways you might play a phrase, make an argument for his(/her) choice and explain how it is usually played in most orchestras. (And, by the way, use THIS fingering at that place...) This is the stuff that can only be taught by personal instruction.
You need to have a teacher appropriate to your level of accomplishment. There is no reason for a beginner to study with Richard Woodhams, but it is good to have your teacher able to challenge you to the next level.
I teach oboe at Stanford, and I audition several prospective applicants for admission each year. I also participated in audition committees in my orchestra (the now defunct San Jose Symphony) for years. The committees you will face for entrance auditions are similarly experienced. I can generally tell in the first few moments what the playing level of an auditionee is. I don't pay attention to nervous errors and the like, but I am very aware of phrasing, of articulation, of musical continuity. Tone quality is not an issue for me at auditions - it might become a topic at lessons.
My best advice to you is to concentrate on a clean technique. Be familiar with all your scales. Never play anything (at an audition or practicing) faster than you can. Buy Stevens Hewitt's book: 'Method for Oboe'. David Weber has it (at webreeds.com). Read his clever, wry and sometimes brutally honest commentary on the 'inner art of playing music'. I recommend this book for all musicians.
And watch the following video with two of the world's best singers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yb6pGEq-GM&feature=player_embedded#at=17
Break a leg!
Robert Hubbard
WestwindDoubleReed.com
1-888-579-6020
bob@westwinddoublereed.com
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