Dear Cynical Oboe Student: You think you know everything. Guess what? I WIN!!!!!!!!! Love, [name removed]
If we start valuing music only for its advantageous cognitive side-effects – as a kind of multivitamin for the brain – and not because it cultivates our humanity, we’ll have forfeited its soul.
That is from this article which talks about how music is good for your brain.
About to do a short open air performance on the oboe d’amore. Going to feel weird without a rack of compressors and distortion
I’ve attached the flyer to the Mozart Youth Camerata below.
I can’t encourage students enough to audition for this group! I got my start in youth chamber orchestra. It “grew” me musically in ways nothing else can, including the larger youth orchestra in which I also participated. This MYC is primarily for strings, but but advanced, gifted wind players are wecome to apply as well.
Here’s the flyer (Wish I were smart enough to figure out how to have it appear here, but … well … you’ve probably read this blog enough to know I’m just not that smart!)
Two in a row. Here is what I received:
Hello,
I’m Ana Becerra from Scotland during my search for teacher that would always teach my Daughter (Gloria) and I found your advert..Your advert looks great and it is very okay to me since you specialize in
the area I’m seeking for her.My Daughter would be coming to your City before the end of this month for a period of time and with her friend for 4Months.She is just 18yr Old and also a beginner, I want you to help me teach her during her
stay.So, kindly let me know your charges,in order for me to arrange for her lessons fee before she travel down to your City.I would also like to know if their is any Text Book you will recommend for her as a beginner so that she will be reading privately at home after the lesson during her staying.
I will be looking forward to read from you soonest.
Best Regards,
— and —
Hello,
I’m Helen Kurth from Scotland during my search for teacher that would always teach my Daughter (Gloria) and I found your advert..Your advert looks great and it is very okay to me since you specialize in the area I’m seeking for her.My Daughter would be coming to your City before the end of this month for a period of time and with her friend for 4Months.She is just 18yr Old and also a beginner, I want you to help me teach her during her stay.So, kindly let me know your charges,in order for me to arrange for her lessons fee before she travel down to your City.
I would also like to know if their is any Text Book you will recommend for her as a beginner so that she will be reading privately at home after the lesson during her staying.
I will be looking forward to read from you soonest.
Best Regards,
This is just a reminder to music teachers (and others) out there. These emails are scams. I would love to say no one has fallen for them, but they have. These scammers offer to send a very large check for these lessons. The check is far too large, so they ask that you send them some of the money back. Your check will be cashed. Their check will be found to be no good.
Note that these emails are incredibly vague. Usually an instrument isn’t even mentioned. Nor is your city. They go to anyone and everyone.
It’s such a shame that some fall for it, but as you all know, musicians are often searching for work, and a new student usually sounds like a good thing.
Some people respond to these, knowing they are jokes. They’ll say they charge some ridiculous fee. It’s fun to get back at these scammers, but it also lets them know that you have a legitimate email address. Don’t respond … or bounce the message back.
Which instrument is best the oboe, clarinet , or trumpet? What music do they play?
When I tested for band my teacher said that I would play the trumpet,clarinet, or oboe. Which one do I choose and why? I want to know a little bit of detail too.
This whole “tested for band” thing is just irksome.
There’s an article about minor thirds and how we are, perhaps, wired to hear them as sad. I’ll play things in major and then in minor and the majority of my students will say the minor sounds sad. But not all of them say that. I find it more beautiful and moving than sad, depending of course upon the music.
But what I was just thinking about was the calling out of our names when I was young. Back then parents might yell a name out the window or door to call a child home (people don’t do that all that much these days). Seems to me that was a downward moving minor third.
Which, now that I’m putting it all together, tells me that the parents really were hoping we wouldn’t return. Right?
Or maybe there were just sad, missing us so.
Yep, everyone has been talking about the things. Go figure.
Trumpet player Alison Balsom demonstrates her fine trumpet playing ability and her … well … you decided on the vuvuzela playing:
And here are some musicians from Konzerthaus Berlin to give you a bit of help on the thing:
But most important? There’s a new movie out about the instrument:
More than 600 oboists and bassoonists are wandering the OU School of Music this week as OU hosts the 39th International Double Reed Society Conference.
The conference, which started Tuesday, features oboists and bassoonists, many who are professional musicians in orchestras and universities around the world, in evening concerts through June 26. It includes performances, master classes, lectures and exhibitors throughout each day. The events are open to anyone who registers, according to a release.
OU is Oklahoma University. Which makes me hope they wrote some sort of wonderful song for the event:
OOOOk-lahoma, where the reeds comes sweepin’ down the plain,
And the raucous crow will sure sound low, as bassoons will try to steal the show
OOOOk-lahoma, Ev’ry night my oboe reeds and I,
Sit alone and weep, we all lose sleep as we think about our fate and cry.
We know we belong to the cane (yo-ho)
And the cane we belong to’s a pain!
And when we say
Yeeow! Aye-yip-aye-yo-ee-ay!
We’re only sayin’
You’re doin’ fine, Oklahoma!
Oklahoma O.K.!
(Sorry … best I could do in the time allotted.)
One of these years I’ll get to one of these conventions. Maybe.
I really want an oboe. I played in junior high and then gave it up because it wasn’t “cool.” Now that I’m in my 40s I want to play again. They are expensive! If anyone has one lying around in their attic, let me know.
Sarah Huebsch, oboe and English horn
I believe that the oboe is made for three purposes: sex, death, and shepherds.
In Three Cornered Hat by Manuel de Falla in the second movement, it starts out with this big, rambunctious horn solo. As usual, in the English horn part, there are a few interesting things going on, but no one knows who you are until after that horn solo. Nothing is going on except for you.
I know a lot of players, including myself, will make a different reed for this solo than any other English horn part. It requires you to play really loud in a really low register on this instrument that doesn’t project that well.
Found here.
Going to shop for an oboe tonight. Its my life long dream to play oboe.
Every music teacher has students who quit. After all, every student quits eventually, right?
Students quit when our schedules just can’t work any longer. This happened when I stopped teaching on Fridays, and it happened for a time when I attempted to give up Saturday morning teaching too. (That’s been added back on to the calendar.)
At times I actually try to get a student to quit; I feel as if the student has gotten everything from me that I can offer, and I feel as if he or she might learn more from someone new. So far I’ve never managed to convince one to move on, though.
Sometimes it’s because they just can’t keep up with oboe and all their other activities. I understand. Really. My own kids never managed to keep up with music lessons due to their very busy schedules. This usually happens sometime in high school. If I start a student in elementary school I find it less common for them to quit, but if they start when they are older they more frequently can’t deal with things. The younger ones develop a schedule and practice routine and seem to know how to keep it up even as they get busier.
Sometimes students decide they don’t care to play the oboe. I understand that too. Oboe is one hard instrument to play. Some never really “get” the embouchure, the back pressure, the fingerings … and while some students gets better at some things, the reeds get more and more difficult to deal with as they improve. We just get pickier and pickier about reeds! Eventually some students don’t want to deal with the whole reed issue any longer.
Sometimes it’s because they are going to college. In that case I find it rather bittersweet. I’ve usually had those students a good long time, and I’ve grown fond of them, but I know it’s time for them to move on.
Recently I had a student quit because I “wasn’t a good match”. Ouch. That one hurt, not because I don’t think it’s a valid reason, but because I actually thought there was a connection made and I could really have helped her. I even gave her an extra long lesson, thinking things were going so well. It took me a while to get over that.
I had one student quit because the family didn’t approve of my “show up on time” policy. If they were fifteen or twenty minutes late I was expected to teach fifteen or twenty minutes past the time the lesson was to be over. I wasn’t about to go there. The dad was angry. Oh well.
And some students just stop showing up. They just disappear from the face of the earth, and I can email as much as I want — I won’t hear back. I find that very puzzling, and it makes me sort of sad and sort of angry and mostly frustrated.
But the worst? I had the worst about 20 years ago. And only that one time. The mother called and sent me a letter (with a check because they were skipping their last lesson) saying I was the worst teacher they had ever experienced. Boy did that hurt. I still puzzle over that one. What could I have done differently? (The student was a challenge and clearly never practiced.) Was I too demanding? Was I mean? I sure hope not, but of course I wonder if I came across that way. I tore the check up. I’m hoping that made me slightly better than the “worst teacher ever”. But I kind of doubt it. I occasionally wonder about the student. I don’t even remember the name any longer, but I wonder what became of the person.
But students quit. Student move on. Students grow up. I wonder about a number of them. Do they still play at all? Do they attend concerts? Do they love music? Very few still keep in touch with me. I’m sure I was just a blip in their lives. But each one became one of my “oboe children” and, aside from the few that gave me major grief, I enjoyed them tremendously.
And sure, this isn’t about oboe lessons, but I love The Roches and here they are singing “Quitting Time”:
Just various things that made me smile or scratch my head (or sometimes both) that I ran into recently:
- How do you fix an oboe?
- i am going to be playing oboe next year.what brand of instrument should i choose ? what type of reed and strength should i purchase??
- The music ping-ponged between fast and slow music; jaunty syncopations volleyed with enigmatic queries. Especially alluring was the central Allegretto that opened with a muted trumpet-oboe duet perched on two pizzicato (plucked) violas.
- The sound of a symphony orchestra is so powerful, it can move you physically as well as emotionally
- I am interested in learning oboe. I think it’s a brilliant instrument. Is it difficult to get started?
- University of Maryland’s Gamer Symphony Orchestra plays the game tunes you want to hear
I know some may disagree – but sometimes the best way to end a crappy day is an hour of oboe!
