Author: vboboe
Date: 2005-09-07 04:22
... hi there 58vw :-)
Welcome to oboe! It's totally amazing to me that there are so many people on this board who're discovering oboe for the first time and are so willing to start from scratch to master its many challenges ... it must be love :-)
... first thing i'd like to share with you this early on in your playing is that the shy, reticent and sensitive 'reed singer' doesn't usually perform for unskilled beginner embouchures, only gives you cackling crows, quacking ducks and honking geese.
Your first year is well spent if you focus on embouchure development as one of your top priorities (breath management and fingering technique other priorities). Without good embouchure, reed management on oboe is for the birds.
... listen to good oboist recordings to train your brain with the 'reed-singing' sound you're aiming for, but meanwhile be very patient with yourself, practice every single day to build up embouchure until it can kiss reed with finesse
Remember this, always kiss the reed between lips, use no teeth (no drac bite). That takes well developed lip muscles and densely packed lip tissue, built up by regular daily practice over months.
*** thank you, bboard, for the drinking straw exerciser tip given me last year *** I've had good comments about really nice tone in last six months. Extra workout sessions at any time o' day with the straw really speeds up embouchure development a lot.
Put reeds away which you're having difficulty with right now, and use only those you can manage easily enough (soft to medium soft most likely) for as long as you can comfortably play, don't work too hard today, lip fatigue may not recover in time for tomorrow's practice, so stop when comfortably tired for today, try for just a bit longer tomorrow, etc. Give yourself about 6 weeks to refine your sound, and then the reeds will be too soft for you.
So try the more difficult reeds again. They'll probably be easier to play, but geese may be back again on those reeds. Persevere! If they're easy enough to play, put away softer ones, work with the harder ones and give yourself another 6 weeks or so.
Then try next hardness up. If too hard, keep playing on reeds that work OK for you, until you're playing 20-30 mins at a stretch. By the time your embouchure is good for 30-45 minutes, you'll probably need medium reeds by then.
To extend your playing time to an hour daily, it's a good idea to have three mediums to rotate every 20 minutes, this is light to moderate work for medium reeds and extends their collective lives to maybe 3 months. Also, the rotation practice gives your embouchure more exercise while coaxing the next reed to sing beautifully to you.
Happy hours with your oboe playing!
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
