Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2006-03-17 15:54
Hi A_person --
In my experience, there is nothing that can "make up" for not having a teacher. I don't know where you live, or what your situation is (like, do you drive, and do you have the $$ for a teacher if you could get to one), but it would seem to me that even a few lessons at, say, a summer camp or in a city where you could only go every couple of months, would be better than nothing.
I worked on my own (not even a band instructor) for the first year I was playing. Generally, I was OK about fingerings and the like, because I had played clarinet and recorders for years. I used the "Art of Oboe Playing" by Sprenkel and Ledet, and "Essays for Oboists" by Jay Light to get me going.
Both of these are good books, BUT . . . there are all sorts of big things and little things that aren't covered in any book, and as I have discovered, ideas about the best way to accomplish things changes from time to time, and there are major disagreements within the oboe world about what to do/not do in regard to almost anything you could want to know.
Embouchure is probably the most difficult thing to learn by reading. Without my present teacher, I don't think I would ever have stumbled upon the "right" way of doing it. Maybe I'm just dense, but I was not able to grasp, from reading alone, just exactly what to do to make that nice, complex oboe sound we all love. I even went to a couple of seminars, and still wasn't getting it entirely. Everybody has their own way of explaining things, and to one degree or another, they all are "right". But until I got a good player working with me, listening to me, and coaching me on the adjustments I needed to make, I wasn't really getting it. I spent a lot of time doing things not-quite-right, with the result that my sound was "not quite right".
In general, since I have gotten a "real" oboe teacher, I am finding that the instrument is a good deal more difficult to play well than I had previously thought. Maybe once I get my facial muscles and tummy muscles in shape, it won't seem so hard, but right now, it seems really challenging. But I am starting, as I said on another thread, to sound like a *good* oboist, rather than an oboist-wannabe. And the value of being able to say that, to me, is priceless.
Think outside the box!
Susan
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