Author: vboboe
Date: 2008-12-15 07:13
... i started with Gekeler and have all three books, highly recommend, and i'm still finding pieces and exercises (book 2 in particular) i still can't do perfectly well, so hopefully Gekeler will keep you challenged and returning again and again to see how much you've improved in general technique for a few years to come
haven't done 40 Little Pieces, but since you're bored with First Book of Oboe Solos, sounds like you're hungry for a lot more variety
Essential Elements and Standard of Excellence band method Books 1-3 are similar, and easy in comparison, although there are places even there that are still a challenge, but not as many as Gekeler 1, so comparatively Gekeler is tougher -- if you get these, make sure you get the oboe books
not the clarinet or flute book
for sheer joy of playing many little melodies for variety's sake, and learning new ones, the band method books make you work at sight-reading, and do that progressively in easy stages -- hot tip -- do every thing on every page, don't skip anything ... downside, you'll outgrow the books fairly soon, although several pieces make good warmup ditties once you've memorized them
once you've figured out the melodies, Gekeler makes you work at perfecting technique, which is indeed boring if you keep practising a piece over and over again for weeks on end, but if you play Gekeler through again next year, it'll sound a whole lot better because general technique has already improved by then by playing more variety
Rubank Method is tough technique stuff too, the first book is relatively easy as the marches etc. are mostly very rhythmic, but the second book (intermediate) has a lot of technical hills in it, high notes, syncopation, minor keys, many accidentals, drills; book 3 (early advanced) i can play a few things in it, and book 4 (advanced) well, my eyes glaze over ...
if you want lots and lots of melodies for general sight-reading practice, there are all kinds of fake books which have a great deal of work in them, but the book prices are usually steep, and those flimsy metal music stands are no good to hold them either -- make sure you get a C version, a few of them come in Bb (clarinet, trumpet) and Eb (alto sax) versions
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
