Author: vboboe
Date: 2006-07-16 18:32
... agree that basic beginner plastic oboe is probably a good summer plan.
Also, it could be your own back-up oboe at home if school one has to go in for servicing and repairs during the school year. Band-room accidents can happen in spite of all your best efforts to look after the instrument properly.
It's middle of July already. Oboe embouchure is toast already.
Two ideas for you.
Play your clarinet ** daily ** to exercise your fingers in particular. Finger muscles go off too. Do very steady beat, very clean and accurate scales, and your favorite tunes once slowly, next moderato, next as fast as you can play accurately. Keep challenging yourself to work your fingers around tough finger combinations. All fingers need to work independently and in combinations. Only playing will make fingers work at this.
To salvage & maintain your oboe embouchure do plastic drinking straw exercises. Don't do them right before or after playing clarinet. At least an hour between.
Cut ordinary plastic drinking straw into approximately reed size pieces and put a piece in your pocket, and other pieces beside your favorite chair, computer, bedside and other favorite hang-outs at home.
As often as you can during the day in spare moments, do oboe embouchure reps.
Make the embouchure, hold to a specific count, release, repeat many times. Roll over, roll out, repeat many times. Practice this humming tunes, add your oboe breathing through corners of mouth.
These exercises help develop and keep your oboe embouchure in shape.
Also, once every single day, check to see you can maintain a steady long sound on a real oboe reed. Use up your oldest reeds for this, and keep the youngest ones for startup in September.
Remember to pre-wet reed in clean water, first. Also, remember to blow real reed with nice clean mouth, clean your teeth, no sticky beverage or bits of food still in there.
Remember exactly how you have to shape your mouth to hold that long steady sound, and that's the position you practice forming, many times over, on your drinking straws.
You can use tougher soda straws to increase the exercise load, don't worry about spoiling embouchure by playing weaker old reeds, oboe embouchure needs to be *** adjustable ***
It's middle of July already. Get started today.
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