Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2007-03-24 20:38
Just to add to what others have said, what I have experienced is that you sometimes go two steps forward and one step back.
You get to a point where, say, you are able to sound all the tones reliably and play whatever your musicianship will otherwise allow, and then you realize that, while your notes are reliable, they aren't pretty.
So you adjust your embouchure, which negatively impacts your articulation. And then, just about the time that you've leapt that hurdle, you begin to understand what they really mean when they say, "On the air, not with the air," and you're back a step.
So after you fix your breathing, you decide to join a band, or start a trio, or something, and you realize that, for however fluent and elegant your tone production might have become, it's not in tune with anyone else. So you reassess your reeds, and your breathing, and your embouchure once again.
And six months later, the tuneful and tasetful tonemaker you now are decides to play with the community musical theatre, and you find out that "ppp" is the normative dynamic for the oboe, except on solo lines, and thus you have to figure out how to play altissimo syncopated sixteenth notes in six flats while making the least possible sound, and you feel like a rube again.
I expect that one's development reaches stasis at some point. Doesn't it? I know I'm not there yet. Or . . . perish the thought -- does this learning process just keep going on and on and on?
I'm reminded of the story about Pablo Casals, who was still putting in hours of daily practice on the 'cello into his mid-90s. Someone asked him why, at that stage of his life and career, he was working so hard at it, and he supposedly replied, "Because I'm starting to see some improvement."
Excelsior!
Susan
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