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Re: First Oboe Video

Author: JRC
Date: 2012-06-02 16:07

You are a wise man to be open about your playing skills. In overall, you appears to be a hard worker and trying to get the basic stronger. That is the best practice to improve yourself from ground up. Here are what I saw as the fundamentals that can be improved. I hope you do not take it as trying to make you look bad.

1. Breathing: It was not very clear from the video but you appear to power your "play air" with your chest muscles. If you are doing so, you should try something called diaphragmatic breathing, abdominal breathing, belly breathing, deep breathing or many other names. You can look it up by googling. Basically your lower abdomen should inflate when you inhale and you will need to keep your lower abdomen inflated while playing. That will force your abdomen muscles to power and regulate the air pressure. You will find your sound quality would improve and it is easier to take hold of control of delicate attacks and endings.

2. Breathing: It appears that you are breathing through your nose. It is wonderful that your nasal passage is clear. Mine isn't at least during spring and fall allergy seasons. It is much more efficient and quicker if you do so through your mouth. One problem with this is that your saliva often gets into between the reed and the lips. You will need to find ways to prevent that happening. One way is how Holliger doe it. Watch his video (there are lots of them in YouTube). Some may not like the looks of it. But it appears to work. I try to imitate and seems to work most of the time for me. Of course when you are doing the circular breathing, nose breathing is a must but eventually you will need to open your mouth to take in a large amount of air quickly to relieve the anxiety. Unless of course you are so good at circular breathing that you do not need any relief. That case, I envy you.

3. Reed: You appear to produce slight imperfections sometimes when producing a note and making delicate attacks and endings of notes. Improvement on your belly breathing should improve this but some adjustments to your reed may help also.

4. Articulation: You generally have gentle articulation. Perhaps that is your style. There can be many levels of distinction between "tonguing" and "not tonguing"; from slur to spiccato. Making clear distinction between different levels sometimes make the music alive or make it hohmmmm.

5. Singing: Most oboists try to distinguish themselves through "singing" phrases beautifully. Articulation and dynamics are the two of the most important elements of "singing". Complete control over attacking, ending and producing each note without blemish make the "singing" spit shine. You could sing a simple scale exercise, etude, or especially "expressive studies" more expressively; that is "singing". Find music in the notes and try to "sing" it using dynamics, articulation and precise regulation of notes. You will know when you did it right.

I hope this would help. I apologize if any my comments insult you in any way. On the other hand you posted it and invited comments. I did not read any of the comments by others yet. I wanted to give you my thoughts without being influenced by others.

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First Oboe Video new

DrewSorensenMusic

2012-05-30 18:52