Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-11-17 15:52
Susan -
On an open-hole instrument like clarinet (which you and I both play), we're taught to lower our fingers slowly to make a seamless connection between legato notes. This is much more difficult on oboe, where all the holes are closed by pads, and even more difficult where the pads are cork and tend to pop down.
Short of getting an oboe with ring keys like the one Leon Goossens played, a solution may be the suggestion from Gonzalo Ruiz that you reverse your conception of finger effort. Use effort to raise your fingers, and relaxation to lower them. Let them fall by gravity alone. This takes time and effort to get used to, but it really helps, particularly in lightening your finger motion.
Many people give a puff of breath on each tongued note. This is the worst thing you can do, since it involves the slow-moving abdominal muscles and limits your tonguing speed, not to mention interrupting the legato. To check whether you're doing this, hold the oboe with only your left hand, put your right hand on your belly and play, tonguing low G-A-B-A-G. If you feel any movement with your right hand, you need to get it stopped.
Play low G with absolutely steady breath, and tongue G-G-G-G-G by brushing across the tip of the reed, producing the lightest possible tonguing and never interrupting the sound -- just putting a tiny "tic" in it. Then do it again on G-A-B-A-G.
Also, work on the Tabuteau method of connecting pickups to important notes. That is, after each important note (on a downbeat or at a change in harmony), begin a new phrase leading up to the next important note. There need not be a crescendo, but there should be a music direction and urgency. For example, extend the earlier exercise to G-A-B-C-D-C-B-A-G. The initial G is an important note. After the G, begin again on the A and drive up to the high D. Then begin again and drive down to the final G.
"Drive" is only an example. You can also glide, float, roll, scoot or dance through a phrase, according to its musical character.
Good luck.
Ken Shaw
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