Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2006-03-03 03:47
Interesting that you should bring up the angle of the oboe as an issue.
My new (just had the fourth lesson today) oboe teacher -- who has pretty impressive credentials -- has been ragging on me ever since day one about NOT holding my oboe at the "40 - 45 degree angle" that seems to be prescribed in much of the literature that I have encountered. She wants it down into (as Damon implies) a more relaxed position -- not clarinet-between-the-legs, but elbows and hands where they would naturally fall, head up, and reed coming into the mouth on a "natural" angle.
She also doesn't want the reed resting on the lower lip, but wants the reed "surrounded" by lip enough to stabilize it. The sound made when the oboe rests on the lower lip, she feels, is too dark, or as she calls it, "tubby". She's looking for a balanced, complex tone color -- no screechy edge, and plenty of lower partials, but not an absence of the higher partials.
I felt a certain amount of resistance to what she is telling me to do, because it seems to fly in the face of so much of what I've read, or what I *thought* was right. Her answer, when I raise that objection, is that much of what was written, say, 25 years ago or more, is now outdated information, no longer current thinking. Who knew?
The proof of the pudding, of course, is in the playing. And I have to say, I am quite surprised about this, but I like what I hear. I'm starting to sound -- OMG -- like a good oboist!! It is remarkably easy to get all the high and low notes, to have a consistent scale from top to bottom. Even screechy "C" isn't screechy any more. And as an unexpected bonus, my fingering has simultaneously gotten a whole lot cleaner, too. Things just kinda flow. It's actually a whole lot easier -- and better sounding -- than whatever it was I was doing before.
And next week, I get to try this all in real time, when our Community Band starts again. I'll let you know how it goes.
Susan
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
