Oboe BBoard: The Value of Barret.
Friday January 04 2008
On the oboe Bboard they’re discussing the relevance of Barret to today’s music, and it simply boggles my mind. I know I’m coming off as very opinionated on the thread, and even perhaps somewhat arrogant, I can’t help but chirp in my opinion. I’ve spent too much time with too many excellent teachers on Barret learning too many valuable lessons to let this topic go by me.
Some opinions include that it’s not applicable to “what needs to be learned today”. Why learn anything from Barret when we can study from Beethoven!
My personal feeling is that you don’t even need a single book to teach a good lesson. A good lesson teaches you something musically that you can take away from and apply it to whatever you might be playing at the time, being Mozart or Poulenc. It just so happens that Barret gives us a book with orderly systematic etudes, which teach one concept after another and builds upon the previous etudes. However, many have learned from other books, and the traditions of Barret is passed on less and less. Sellner, Barret, Ferling, and Gillet were the only things taught at the Curtis Institute of Music from Tabuteau and de Lancie (I’m not sure what Woodhams teaches, but I’m sure he does a good deal with these methods). Mr. Weber said he never once looked at a solo piece, excerpt or anything else during his 4 years with de Lancie, because he learned everything he needed to know from the etudes, and learned how to apply the concepts to the music on his orchestral parts. (I forwarded the website address to him, and he got very cynical about it too, sending me an email to post under his name which I did on the thread.)
Yes, all of these concepts could be taught without a method book, but the book puts it in an order, and helps us compartamentalize the information. It gives of very simple examples to practice the concepts and skills, and then gives us harder examples to work up our chops.
It’s too bad that Barret isn’t still taught very much because it’s such an important part of our American Oboe heritage tracing back to Tabuteau. Mr. Stolper, a 1st generation Tabuteau wrote in numbers representing Tabuteau’s number system into my book which he copied out of his own Barret book from which Tabuteau himself had written. Mr. Mack also wrote some notes in my book that Tabuteau had written in his book. These notes I will cherish and pass onto my student, who has just started the first Progressive Melody.
I view the whole situation like this: you can go to the hobby store and buy one of those model airplane kits which has the balsa wood precut to size and shape, which each side marked a color-coded number to paint (also included) and you slap together the wood with some glue and paint it up and you got a plane! Or— you can go to the hardwood store, buy your own wood, a saw, sandpaper, pencil and ruler, your own shades of paint, and design your own airplane (I’d make a U2 stealth bomber). Which one would you value more? Which process would help you to build a model car of a Ferrari? Enough said.
Ren
Jan 20, 2008
We use Barret and Ferling books at my university, too! The etudes are very useful and applicable and all that…however, I think it would be useful to *add* some studies involving techniques that are common in music from the past, oh, hundred years.
But yeah. Barret is proof of “no pain, no gain.”
*sigh*
Mary Noday
Jan 26, 2008
As a performer and teacher for over 4 decades, I certainly use the Barret for every student. I still practice both the Progressive melodies and Grand Studies.I have not found another book that makes easy the study of phrasing in the way that the Barret does. No matter how many time I teach it, it is always fresh and interesting to me and I learn new things about it from each student’s study.I start students on the Giampieri Metudo Progresso because it is a systematic way of teaching technique and use the Barret when they gain some command of the oboe.
I learned how to teach the Barret from attending the Mack Camps. Mr. Mack
knew the Barret from memory(I think)!
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youweengland
Aug 11, 2008
global letter keyboard black we sun busy all
Online College
Jul 16, 2009
When I was a teenager, my mom and dad gave me a plaque bearing those words. The plaque hung on my bedroom wall, and I had occasion to ponder the words often as I struggled, like everyone does, with the transformation from adolescence to young adulthood. Somewhere along the way, I lost the plaque. I’ve always tried, however, to live by the words.
Online universities
Aug 24, 2009
Cooper you play very well. You play technically perfect and have a great sound. You play in tune, and have everything there, but I feel like you haven’t found your oboe voice yet.Online universities
Fire science technology
Sep 14, 2009
A good lesson teaches you something musically that you can take away from and apply it to whatever you might be playing at the time,being Mozart or Poulenc.It just so happens that Barret gives us a book with orderly systematic etudes, which teach one concept after another and builds upon the previous etudes..
Jan 4, 2008
Every teacher I’ve ever had used Barret, and I’m using it right now in fact. I don’t think the melodies are hackneyed (well, at least not all of them) and those Grand Etudes in the back are HARD! Plus, if you put in all the ornamentation you will really know your trills by the time you get through the book. Those articulation exercises in the front can be really tough too if you try to play them exactly as written and with perfect consistency. Nothing good comes easy!
Team Barret!