 The Oboe BBoard
|
Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2012-05-31 20:14
Out on Nimbus in 2001. This is some purely amazing and beautiful oboe work.
I honestly think I'll learn 100 useful things from listening to this.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2012-06-11 23:28
If I remember correctly, there were a few years in between the original recording date(s) and the release date, as Ray was not sure if it was really good enough! Without a doubt, he wsa his own toughest critic! Fortu-nately, he approved it, so now we can all hear it. There is one, particular quality in his playing, that really shows up here in I think, is it a Vivaldi piece, "Il Pastor Fido", so-si-so-re----, so--, fa, si or la, me, etc.? It's been a long time since I've seen the music, but i know I'm close! Needless to say, he made a strong point about rythym in his teaching. I could go on (forever!), but it's nice to see someone else mention his name for a change. Regards.
R. Still former student
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2012-06-12 01:28
Don, I wish I could have studied with him.
Listening to his playing, its many great qualities, the thing that hits me between the eyes is it points right to what I am doing wrong.
And I take it as a really kind sort of lesson.
The main lesson is to listen very carefully, connect the notes exactly as you wish, and do have a specific opinion about that performance.
Connect the notes carefully and precisely, inflate the line (phrase), use vibrato for expression and closure of phrases, execute perfect rhythm and leave no faulty starts of notes in the piece.
I do that and it takes me 2 or three takes in my studio. Ray Still did it on demand and in single takes back in the day.
I really respect his performances.
-Craig
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2012-06-12 02:44
The beginning of your fourth paragraph is key! He insisted that you listen very carefully and not let your eyes close which somehow also tends to allow the ears to close somewhat. He wanted you to think of listening to your sound bouncing off the walls and coming back to you. He had a very good recorder (Berlant, then Nagra) and a Neumann U-47 mic (early, non-mylar capsule, then AKG 414's) and he recorded himself a lot. I'm just guessing that maybe he once played back a 15 ips recording at 7.5 and discovered this tendency to rush the first 16th of a figure with two 16th's slurred and then two tongued. His vocalisation of this, was pudup--, puh, puh, instead of doing pee--, up,puh,puh, with a slight accentuation and elongation of the first 16th of the four. Many very fine players on many instruments make this slight rythmic error, even Rampal. But, not Heifitz! I think you may find in this recording, ample evidence of this concept and why then, his rythym is so solid.
Am I even spelling "rythym" correctly? Regards.
R. Still former student
Post Edited (2012-06-12 02:58)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2012-06-12 03:43
Nice! Thank you. When any comments or advice are so totally locked into the zone, it make me shed a tear of joy! Oh, I just love this kind of oboe talk.
I mean it. I seriously crave it, to this day, and I've been playing a long time.
It is the real McCoy. Thanks.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: huboboe
Date: 2012-06-12 16:53
Your comment on the short 16th at the beginning of a slurred group interested me because I've seldom heard the problem mentioned, though my teachers drilled it into me and I have passed it along to my students.
I had always treated it as a an isolated thing to be avoided until I read David McGill's excellent book, "Sound in Motion."
He pointed out that it is a note grouping problem: If you treat all four 16th in the beat as a group you will likely rush the first one. If you group the notes correctly, the first 16th is the arrival note from the previous beat. The next three 16ths are pickups to the first 16th on the following beat: Dum - dadadaDum - dadadaDum. (Think Beethoven...).
Thought of that way, the first 16th will become the important note of the group and will retain it's full value. Its also better (correct) musical phrasing.
If you haven't met McGill's book yet, I highly recommend it. I played for lotta, lotta years before I read it and it still had a lot in it that I had not considered.
Robert Hubbard
WestwindDoubleReed.com
1-888-579-6020
bob@westwinddoublereed.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2012-06-14 23:27
to: huboboe
Finally, someone who knew what I was talking about! I went back to my original samples on youtube: Rampal in Poulenc: Sonata, Natalie Sima XXXXX, in Mozart: D major Flute concerto, and Nicholas Daniels, Mozart oboe concerto. I may have been wrong on Rampal as I didn't hear it this time, but maybe once. In the Mozart it happens a couple of times and then becomes very apparent when she had some finger coordination problems. As for the Mozart oboe concerto, the problem will be fairly apparent, fairly quickly. In comparison the Izotov Mozart concerto is exemplary, even if i spelled it wrong! Regards.
R. Still former student
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2012-06-15 03:00
After starting to recover from being hit by a tree while walking the 1/4 block from the bus stop to the office I work out of two days a week, I think I've come up with some interesting points in Ray Still's teaching. Just before I started studying with him, I got his original recording of the Mozart Quartet. I, then tried imitating his fairly rapid vibrato (at that time) with both the throat and then the diaphragm or whatever it is that moves around "in there". While I could match the rate with the throat it just didn't sound right. I couldn't match the rate with the "d" thing, but it didn't feel too bad, so for once in my life, I decided to wait untill I could study with him. When I talked to him early on, he made it clear that he didn't "teach" vibrato as such, simply he set up the "conditions" for the vibrato to occur, naturally. Much later, he told me that I had asked him, if he didn't use very much vibrato in his playing. I was really taken aback by this, as I couldn't believe I would say such a thing like that to him, even though I was only 16 at the time! Of course, he was absolutely right, as he was on almost any oboe subject. Part of his ability in that area came from his having had vocal coaching. I, myself, took a semester of voice to try to better understand what he was talking about. Let me end with something funny: after we had finished a Civic orch. oboe, sectional rehearsal he brought out some video tapes of Laurel and Hardy, including the classic one where they're trying move a heavy dresser and they just can't manage it. Then, Oli get the bright idea of taking the stuffed-full drawers out of the dresser to significantly reduce the weight of it. So, they take the drawers out, put them on top, and then lift it up and take it away! Nobody laughed harder at that scene than Ray, himself. Regards.
R. Still former student
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Wes
Date: 2012-06-16 03:00
He was a great artist and one can't forget the sound he recorded in the Strauss concerto. He demonstrated reed profiling with a machine, by the way, as I recall, in the 70s.
Once I heard him say, in reference to Tabuteau's number system, "I don't play by numbers".
At the las Vegas convention in a master class, he heard a former student of his play with strings. When it was over, he said, in effect "You need to take some more lessons".
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2012-06-16 14:31
Rarely, if ever, did he mince words and his standards, both for his students and himself were incredibly high. Regards.
R. Still former student
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Loree BF51
Date: 2012-07-02 22:01
Interestingly, this recording has been offered on "you-buy" for several weeks, so I finally did! There are one or two of the the six Partitas (Barenreiter #47?) of Telemann and these are nice sets of smaller pieces. H. Gomberg recorded the e-minor on U.S. Decca and a baroque oboe CD that I got recently has the g-major on it it. I'll do some more research on these. Regards.
R. Still former student
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
