Author: vboboe
Date: 2006-04-24 00:39
Well, Halo Silver, welcome to the oboe enthusiasts board, hope you'll stay and pipe in regularly
HURDLE 1 is to rid yourself of your previous negative experience feed-back loops. Zero tolerance, scorched earth protocol, exterminate !
Sample 1 <<My teacher said he'd never had a student try so hard and do so poorly>>
Reprogramming thoughts: "I am my own teacher. With my individual way of learning things, what must I learn to do first, and more importantly, how do I want to learn these things?" Think hard, learn smart.
Only YOU know yourself well enough to answer these questions. If you don't know, discover yourself. Analyze your problems & challenges, get organized, define your goals, develop a training plan, delegate specific tasks you need help with to specialised helpers. It's a business plan for Y.O.U. Oboe UnLtd.
Leave the time-line open-ended, and leave the details flexible as new information will continue to come at you, revisions will always be necessary.
Remember to produce AGM reports on your actual progress, and celebrate that progress in affirmative self-talk. Then define & plan next year's objectives, and do your promotional advertising accordingly.
Sample 2 <<My teacher was nice about it, but opined that "You know how some people are born with musical talent? Well, you weren't." >>
Reprogramming thoughts: "I'm in this life to learn new skills and construct a new talent for myself"
This is a personal makeover, a permanent life change, an attitudinal and psychological mind-shift, a mental effort to disconnect associations between unproductive neurons, and mental effort at channeling your positive desires towards your dreams by constructing new associations
You're still young enough at 40-something to achieve this, unless your levels of human growth hormone have already dropped off to minimal levels(common by mid 50's), in which case you may need a dietary makeover. Eat more of everything that's really colourful and fresh, and eat less of anything that's white and preserved and not protein.
NEXT HURDLE
<<I found it very hard to read music and transfer it to my hands--the business with it being read vertically but played horizontally (does that make sense?) still caused me problems. I practised in two sessions each day to the limits of good concentration, usually running 2.5 hours total. One day after about six months my teacher told me she didn't want me as a student any more because I obviously wasn't trying and wasn't practising>>
So, do you have a medically identifiable neuro-muscular condition?
Or do you have a low tolerance for self-acceptance? Either way, put it on your list of things to restructure.
Second Dutchy's excellent idea of learning from a kid's piano book. There are at least two good progressives series available doing it by colour co-ordination with real notes on real music staff. Check out your music store for what's available near you. Rent an electric piano with headphones, can practice anytime wife's in the house, although both wife & dog may want more quality-time attention if you were capable of 2.5 hr sessions twice daily as a kid, you must be phenomenal at 10 hrs daily concentration as adult retired from own business. Design a quality-time schedule for your daily 'work' at practising, and for relaxed socialising ... and domestic chores!
Stick to plonking out simplest music with single notes, not chords or other note combinations, on either hand on piano. You're not learning how to play piano. You don't want luxurious weighted keys. You don't need to learn which finger plays which note in which finger-over-thumb sequence on piano (although tunes play faster if you do). You're learning how to read music. Oboe only reads single notes :-)
When you know tunes on piano, can hum them without piano helping you find the notes, pick up oboe and find the same tune on oboe keys by silent fingering practice. This will fully exercise and challenge your powers of concentration. It's a great way to finger & mind bond by memory with oboe.
Concept to mentally drill into yourself on oboe (NOT true on piano) -- this finger plays B's, that finger plays A's, t'other finger plays G's (etc down the pipe and onto side keys). Then figure out when to add octave keys, use half-hole, etc. Learn notes on oboe by FINGERS systematically and teach brain to see the note on music staff and fingers go there automatically. Takes time. Lots of time. Lots of practice.
Do it by reps. 7 reps first day, 6 reps second day, 5 reps third day, down to 3 reps, and stick to 3 reps daily for as many weeks or months it takes until it's like silk for you. Minimum 2 out of 3 tries must be right on. Go slower until you can make the minimum, then speed up. Celebrate when 3 out of 3 are easy as pie. Then aim for 2 out of 2, next 1 out of 1.
While sitting at piano, exercise your embouchure in preparation for a real reed. Use drinking or soda straws, these range from soft to hard plastic (florist's stem support straws are really tough!), work up. Form oboe embouchure, hum piano tunes through straw. Workout. Pressure behind lips, intense. No puffy cheeks. No air bags around gums. Tight, firm, muscular, refined.
Talk to your dentist about front teeth, see if there are better options available to you. If money's no object for a quality instrument, don't let your teeth be the obstacle that stops you cold. If restructuring your front teeth takes a year or two, that's how long you've got to learn how to read music on rented electric beginners piano.
<<Therefore, it seems probable that my bass teacher was right and I really am lacking any musical ability>>
Zero tolerance. You're here in this life to build musical ability, because you deeply long to do it. Answer that call! Your soul needs this satisfaction. Goto business training plan. Do it.
Cheers to the Silver Hair League
Don't dare dye it some other silly colour!
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