Upcoming stuff.
Wednesday February 06 2008
It’s just one thing after another. And I barely have any solid practice time.
It’s hard to practice consistently and disciplined when you belong to several different performance groups and you have to juggle 3 chamber music groups, Wind Ensemble, Symphony, and reedmaking every day. By the time I get done with my big ensemble rehearsal, my mouth is always so fatigued that I don’t want to practice any more so I come home, eat dinner, make a couple of reeds, and by which time it’s 9:30 or 10:00. Tonight I left early, 8:30 to get some solid practice time in and I went 1.5 hours straight. Felt good to get some solid work in.
February 26th our studio will have a masterclass with Martin Hebert, the principal oboist of the Oregon Symphony. He’s a very nice guy, and has a great sound, very Mackish. I’m looking forward to playing for him again, but my teacher gave me a pretty steep assignment to prepare; Bach Cantata 56, Tchaik 4, Brahms Violin Concerto, and La Scala Di Seta.
First of all La Scala Di Seta scares me. It’s the single biggest reason why I tell myself “You can never be a pro oboist.” I haven’t learned to double tongue (although I did work on it for 2 months straight with no success), and my single tongue on best days is 16th notes at about 126. Yeah. I know. It’s slow. Last week our wind section repertoire class read Don Juan and I hated all of those flute players who triple tongue the opening repeated eighth notes. Even my stand partner can double tongue. I just sat there looking awkward. But La Scala Di Seta is rough and no matter how much I practice it, it always hits a ceiling. Currently, my teacher has me practicing it with a metronome so that the downbeat begins with the 2 eighth-note pick ups, rather than on the high B eighth-note. I practice it this way, but it’s still not getting beyond 120 at the moment. I’d take Tombeau any day over La Scala.
What is it about Brahms Violin Concerto 2nd movement that scares the pee out of me? Oh— it must be those perfect intervals. Brahms Violin Concerto always requires the most stable reed that shows up once every 2 or so years, and anything less always sounds so awkward. I’m working on it with a tuner. I think I just need to set the tuner on an F and play the first several bars to the F. I always feel so naked.
Anyways, I’ve been playing the Dring Trio, the Reinecke Trio, and Telemann Tafelmusic d minor quartet. I’m also playing in some student composer’s Sinfonietta which is harder than stuffing. 1/4, 3/8, 6/8, 5/8, 1/8, you name an awkward time signature, he’ll throw a bar of it in there. At least he doesn’t take after Grainger and write 1.25/4 bars and crap like that.
Yes, Strauss is long gone and buried, but there’s been plenty of other “exciting” stuff to fill the void.
patty
Feb 7, 2008
I’m with you on La Scala, Cooper. I’m so thankful that opera companies don’t do the opera ... I fear I’d be a goner. I’m blessed with an extremely fast tongue, but age does take its toll and I can tell its slower now. A friend of mine swears double tonguing is possible, but I can’t get it to work no matter what! I DO actually do this kind of up & down thing with my tongue sometimes; I’d have to be there in person to explain it I suppose. It’s come in handy for Rossini operas.
Somehow I was able to pull of Don Juan when we did it a few years back. Not sure how.
Now the Brahms .. I love playing that! Sing it! Put words to it, maybe? Sometimes that helps me make something that isn’t working for me work. Maybe that sounds dumb, but it really does work.
“This is perfect
Just for the oboe
We can sing it
better than the others.
Flutes can’t compare
Sound isn’t there
We make it
So lovely
They know we’re better.”
...
Okay ... maybe not that ... but something ...? 
(Usually I actually put in words that are a bit more worshipful. Really.)
Suvayd
Feb 11, 2008
LOVE that little ditty on the Brahms! Do you have more???
Jeremy
Feb 13, 2008
James Ryon, oboe professor at Louisiana State, was recently interviewed in an IDRS podcast and spoke a great deal about double-tonguing on the oboe. Worth checking out.
Personally, I feel that physical size is a big factor. If you have a mouth cavity and vocal tract double-tonguing is much harder for you, since you can’t get the “K” forward enough in your mouth to actually make a clean interruption in the air-flow.
Jeremy
Feb 13, 2008
LARGE mouth cavity and vocal tract, I mean!
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Jan 24, 2010
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Feb 7, 2008
Sounds like a lot of fun, though demanding. Do you have the Ferrillo orchestral excerpts book? All the passages you mentioned are in there, and I find Ferrillo’s recommendations to be very useful, even if I don’t always adopt all of them. I took a peek at La Scala…he says 126 is a reasonable expectation for an audtition, and says if you can’t “reliably” tongue at 120 you should consider double tongueing. So it sounds like you’re just about there. I don’t double tongue well either..does double tongueing la scala sound good?
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