Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-03-26 19:02
I would like to share, especially with Dutchy, my experience as a self-taught late-life oboe beginner. Like you, I had wanted to play the oboe *forever*, but it was always "No, we need you on the clarinet."
So I figured, "Someday." Well, you know, life has this tendency to get away from you. So it wasn't until the Fall of 2003 that I actually got myself an oboe and gave it a try (I graduated from high school in 1962, if anybody wants to do the math). I had played recorder and had continued with the clarinet, and was what you would call an "advanced amateur" on those instruments. So I figured I could teach myself the oboe.
And I did. I used the Rubank methods, and found a variety of good books (like Jay Light's "Essays for Oboists") and websites (Martin Schuring's pages at Arizona State are top-drawer http://www.public.asu.edu/~schuring/main.html). Before too long, I was tootling very contentedly, and even starting to play with others.
But one thing was driving me nuts, and that was reeds. All the "good" reeds I had tried seemed just way, way too hard. And of course, the so-called "student" reeds were blatty, ducky, mushy, flat, and whatever else negative you might want to call that awful sound they make.
The upside of this situation is that I learned how to adjust reeds pretty well. The downside, of course, is that I wrecked a lot of reeds in the process, and still couldn't figure out what was wrong with my playing, that I couldn't use a "medium" pro reed.
So, after a year of being my own teacher, I got up the courage to find someone who knows what they are doing to work with me. I *do* understand the courage that it takes to find a teacher. It was extraordinarily difficult for me to take this step. Playing musical instruments is the most important thing in my life, and I always am afraid that somebody is going to tell me to forget it, sit down, shut up, go home -- that I have no business trying. (This is definitely not a rational fear, but it is real, nonetheless.)
So, I go to the teacher (a very kindly person, thank God) and play a little Telemann for her. And when she gets done cringing, she says, "You play very well, but it would be nice if you could warm up your tone a little." (She is good at understatement.)
Seems that I had a fundamental misunderstanding of how to get the air into the oboe. I didn't realize that you actually have to put the air down into the little reed opening. I was just putting the reed into my mouth and letting the sucker vibrate. Which is why I sounded essentially like a kazoo.
What she taught me to do was to go "ooo" and then roll the lips inward, keeping them round, and tightening on the sides only, and leaving just the tiniest opening right in the center, which is where you put the tip of the oboe reed. Your lips should not be going up in a smile, and your chin and jaw will feel open and down. You play as much on the tip of the reed as possible. (I think of it almost as if I am playing a trumpet with a really small mouthpiece. )
She told me to practice this is a mirror, and record myself on a tape recorder. I did. Talk about scary! It wasn't pretty to look at, nor was it pretty to hear. And it took me the better part of two weeks to get this new way of doing things to the point where I could play anything but "The First Noel". But when it clicked in, it really clicked.
And lo and behold, what do you know. All of a sudden, *all* my too-hard reeds were TOO SOFT!! Which is the point of this whole message: if you have tried a lot of supposedly "good" reeds and they all seem bad, there is probably something you are doing wrong, and it probably has to do with your embouchure.
Today, I am playing very happily on medium-hard pro reeds, and I haven't found *any* that I couldn't use (with, perhaps, a little adjustment). And I am getting very positive reviews on my playing from everyone who hears me. Going to the teacher, as traumatic as that was, was the single best thing I could have done for myself.
Susan
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