 The Fingering Forum
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Author: sÖmeone
Date: 2002-11-01 05:48
Well actually i'm a high school student in a chinese independent school. I'm Malaysian. If anyone knows their geography well, there's east and west Malaysia, i live in the east, where the music scence isn't so good. So its really very hard for me to look for anyone to teach me on playing the oboe or sell me any good oboe reeds. My senior (the ex-oboist of my band) uses Rico medium soft reeds that requires crafting. He isn't much of a very good oboe player so what can learn from him is very very limited. I was playing the clarinet for the past 3 years and because the oboe players in the band are selected from the younger portion of the clarinet section, i was selected.
I currently use La Voz medium soft reeds which require no additional crafting. It is quite good because i can play a very steady and good tone with it. The oboe i use is a Yamaha YOB...(i forgot the model number), i think it is an outdated model(though the oboe is only 4 years old in the band) because Yamaha is not making any of the same model anymore. As i've said without any other players to teach me i'm not able to make any reeds on my own.
Well suprisingly, i found that playing the clarinet before did not affect my current oboe playing, except for the embouchure, which is quite hard to adjust from clarinet to oboe.
According to Torus Tubarius, i'm currently trying to get all the factors which produces a good oboe tone into practise, which is really quite difficult, especially air support. The reed as i've mentioned isn't much of a choice because i can't get any decent ones in a short time or learn how to use good ones which requires a lot of skill to make.
And the marching matters again....a tutor from west malaysia told me that his band's(which is no.1 in malaysia)
oboist actually plays the oboe when she marches (a plastic model of course, no one would sacrifice the wood one i think...). I think that is impossible, but according to the tutor again (speaking of my tutor he is a professional trombonist in west malaysia), taking my time to play the clarinet again will kinda ;destroy' my embouchure, which will requires a lot of time to get back into again.
I am currently struggling to get some good oboe books from one my band's conductor, a pro. saxophone player. Since i mostly play concert band pieces, will playing orchestra excerpts help me improve? Any sugeestions for daily practises? Scales?
Marching again.....Well if i don't play the clarinet during marching season, any suggestions for what i should play?
And one more question for you guys (Laura and a Torus), are you guys professional oboe players?
Thanks for everything!!!
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Author: PolarX
Date: 2002-11-01 06:00
www.forrestsmusic.com
get the duste or forrests soft-medium softs. Even if u are happy with the reed you have now, you should try as many as you can to see which ones you like more. When i first began my overall tone quality improved so much with just a different reed...
And tell the senior that rico oboe reeds just play suck
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Author: Torus Tubarius
Date: 2002-11-01 22:43
Air support is your friend; it will do wonders for your playing.
Heh, heck no I'm not a professional player, just a devoted student right now. But hey you never know. As far as practicing goes, I would always start each session with a few long tones just to warm up and reaffirm the concepts of air support and emboucure that are so critical to oboe playing. Then I usually play all 12 major scales and their 12 relative harmonic minor scales from as low as I can go to as high as I can go at a moderate tempo. Then you can start practicing whatever your teacher wants you to play. Orchestral excerpts sure couldn't hurt, but you really need to get a method book and start working through the etudes. You will eventually also want to start learning solo pieces, sonatas, concertos and the like. And this is where having a teacher who plays oboe would really come in handy...
The oboe you have isn't a YOB-811 is it? I played on one of those for years. Not a bad horn.
About the marching thing again... yeah I really wouldn't march oboe unless you do get a crappy plastic one to use or something. It's just pointless to march with one; there are never any parts, you'll never hear it, and if you do, you'll wish you didn't. It is possible to play both a single reed and a double reed instrument at the same time, but if you do you should spend at least twice as much time playing the double reed as you do the single reed so as not to lose your emboucure. T
This is a lot of trouble though, so another suggestion might be to play in the pit; play the cymbals are something. Or you could do what I did in high school, and march sousaphone! I know it sounds crazy, an oboist playing a tuba, but it makes good sense when you think about it. The tuba emboucure is so dissimilar from the oboe's that it will never affect it. There's no way your mouth can get confused between flapping your lips in a huge steel cupped mouthpiece, and gently supporting a delicate piece of cane, just don't try and do them one right after then other. Or I should say, don't go from sousaphone to oboe, going from oboe to sousaphone shouldn't matter that much. Plus, sousaphone is easy to play.
Talking about the reed reminds me of something else I was going to say about marching. Are you prepared to spend that much money replacing all the reeds you're going to destroy in marching band? Single reed instruments have mouthpiece covers, but unless you carry a case with you and constantly take the reed in and out of the oboe, your reeds are going to get bumped, scraped, crushed etc. and therefore destroyed with all the hustling around people in marching bands do.
Just some things to think about.
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Author: Hikaru
Date: 2002-11-02 09:56
Sorry I don't know anything about oboe...just wanted to say that your band tutor is refering to the girl oboe-ist I was talking about in your previous topic. @_o; Nice coincidence anyway. ^_^
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Author: Laura
Date: 2002-11-03 07:12
I'm sure Torus (Aaron) is laughing. No, I'm most definitely not a professional. I love music and I'm learning more all the time, but I'm in college studying Interior Design right now, and will possibly minor in music. I only play flute, piccolo, and oboe. I don't claim to know anything specific to other instruments, and I'm by no means an expert on the three I play, but I love to learn, and I love to play.
I play piccolo in marching band, because flute/piccolo is what I started on. I keep up playing all three instruments. Torus thinks I should give up the flute and piccolo and only play oboe, but that isn't gonna happen. Many oboe players I know of play percussion in marching band if they're in marching band at all. If you don't want to do that, I recommend playing clarinet. But don't not practice oboe, because that's about the worst thing you could do. Work on the correct embouchure when you practice though. Don't get lazy and start pinching, because if you don't practice correctly on oboe, you shouldn't even be practicing in the first place. Develop good habits on oboe, and even if you continue to play clarinet, the habits will stick with you if you continue to practice.
(Sorry if that's just a lot of rambling, it's late and I'm tired. I do hope that it helped though. Good luck)
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Author: former oboist/ mom of future o
Date: 2003-10-14 18:43
I played Oboe from 5th grade through 1st year of college. Started on Oboe at 10 after seeing "peter and the wolf". Studied with West Point Orchestra oboist 1st chair. It's been almost 20 years and now my duaghter is taking up Oboe. Looking for good price for starter reeds. I used to pay $9.00 20 years ago. WOndering if there is a site to order quantity to reduce cost. Also looking for beginner lesson book. I think "bundy" had one. any ideas????
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