Author: Dutchy
Date: 2007-10-21 16:37
I've been working my way through some method books, just to make sure I didn't miss anything in my preliminary race through the Hal Leonard series (which apparently I did, technique-wise), and imagine my surprise--and no small measure of dismay--when I got to this, in the Blaine Edlefsen Studies and Melodious Etudes for Oboe Level One, Elementary, on page 24:
Quote:
The line through which the left thumb should move in measures 1, 5, 9, 11, and 13, should be perpendicular to the instrument, i.e. off the key into mid-air, then return.
Measure 1 is eighth notes from high G down to mid-Bb.
Measure 5 is high Ab down to mid-Bb, ditto.
Measure 9 is high C down to mid-Bb, ditto.
Measure 11 is the same as measure 1.
Measure 13 is high F down to mid-Bb, ditto.
So it's an octave key exercise.
I came to the oboe through the recorder, where you routinely hold on with your left thumb, since all it's ever going to do is rock your thumbnail into the octave hole, and it helps to brace the instrument. And so I've been routinely resting my left thumb on the oboe just below the octave key, actually holding onto the oboe, and hopping my thumb up onto the octave key when required.
So now I'm apparently supposed to be constantly hovering it in mid-air ABOVE the octave key while I play? Oy. Not sure I can do that; how do you keep the oboe from flipping out of your grip and onto the floor? What do other people do?
I have been noticing, though, in my new focus on technique, that when I go from upper D to upper E, I frequently get a blip, and I narrowed the cause down to fingering the E with the right hand before the left thumb has a chance to let go of the oboe and hop up on the octave key and get it completely open. So if I focus real hard on moving from D to E, and make sure I get the octave key open before I finger it, then I don't get that blip.
But now I find that apparently I'm not supposed to be holding on with my left thumb in the first place, my thumb is supposed to be available perpendicularly to the octave key at all times?
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