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Re: Just picked up the oboe after 30 years

Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2010-07-01 19:54

I was, for a short time, a pro. but left the oboe alone for several years while I redirected my life to engineering. I spent about 10 years playing on average 30 minutes a month. When I was finally able to start playing "for real" (up to 30 minutes a day), it got extremely frustrating that I could do no more than 5 minutes at a time - in pain - and nowhere near the tuning, dynamics or tone control that I used to take for granted.

What Chris P said about soft or easy reeds is very true. The psychological effect of ease of playing is important. Lets see if my trick to get back in shape can apply to you too.

I was fortunate enough to land a job at walking distance from home: 30 minutes in the snow. The sidewalks go by main streets and such so I don't have to worry about embarrassement. I took the absolute worst of my reeds, soaked them well and did buzzing on the way to and on the way back. I did that for about 2 months while limiting my oboe time to 5-15 minutes a day.

This buzzing had 2 purposes: build mouth strength (lips and jaw) and fix my embouchure that had always been too tight. So what I did was simply to blow the $%&@ out of them all the way. They cracked, I kept bolwing them cracked untill no sound would happened. The worst the cane or tying or the more they choked, the better: keep your good reeds for playing.

I started by stressing crescendo from forte to ffff. After a while, I added rhythm and staccato exercises.

I found that concentrating on positioning the reed's very tip and keeping the lips in front of my teeth and dropping my jaw while blowing as violently as I possibly could actually made playing softly much easier when I got back to the oboe. I was astounded with how quickly I was able to increase the time with my instrument - painlessly at that!

Best of luck and keep us posted on your progress.
The oboe is a joy and a pleasure to play, never needs to be a pain!

Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music

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