It’s tough being an oboe in a clarinet world.
Merrie Melodies:I Haven’t Got a Hat (1935)
(Side note: the first voice for Porky Pig was Joe Dougherty, who stuttered in real life. This cartoon was the first that featured Porky. I wonder what Joe Dougherty thought about doing the character.)
Bored….Might actually give in to practicing oboe…o.O
A famous jazz teacher once told me, “Don’t swing; play like Dexter Gordon.” I’m still trying to figure that one out. Think of the loss if, for example, Johnny Griffin, Tubby Hayes, Sonny Rollins “played like Dexter Gordon” instead of like themselves. My oboe teacher, Bill Criss, didn’t give a lot of compliments but once he said “That was good: sound, intonation, dynamics, but I didn’t feel anything. Play it again and this time I want to feel something.” I like that approach better.
Handels oboe concertos to calm the nation
For New York Polyphony, it’s location, location, location. The four-man vocal ensemble thrives on music from the Renaissance, much of it designed for cavernous, reverberant spaces. Think voices soaring through arched cathedrals. But madrigals by Flemish composer Orlando di Lasso, with their more intimate storytelling vibe, are suited for smaller venues — like, say, the living room of New York Polyphony bass Craig Phillips.
Rehearsing at his home, the singers can hear each other in fine detail and concentrate on pronouncing words the same way at the same time.
“To have four guys who have very different instruments — you know, alto, tenor, baritone and bass — coming together and sounding as uniform as a string quartet, we have to work quite hard on uniformity of vowels,” countertenor Geoffrey Silver says.
You can watch the group sing through Lasso’s “Matona mia cara,” in which a German soldier woos a maiden, above. And to watch New York Polyphony sing more and talk about rehearsing, check out our new series In Practice.
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Oboe issues: help urgently needed?
Hi. I was just playing my oboe (it had been a few hours since I started playing) and now all of a sudden the left hand second finger octave key didn’t work. I tried to go one octave higher but could not. I swabbed the inside of the oboe with the long cloth swab and tried again but it still didn’t work. I didn’t do anything to my instrument at all, all i did was play and suddenly this occurred. Help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
So anyone want to explain the “left hand second finger octave key” to me? Could the person be talking about the half hole? If you think you have the answer you can help the person by going here.
Listening to concerto for oboe and bassoon in G major Thank you VIVALDI !!!
I really need to practice oboe… but I’m trying to write a novel…
Which oboe fingering in the Essential Elements oboe fingering chart is wrong? Hint: It’s one of the first notes you teach your beginning students.
I don’t have the book, so I can’t answer this one. Anyone?
Bloody stupid oboe teacher!!
Sometimes I think there is a beautiful truth behind our dreams. Last night I dreamed that someone shipped me the things to make my Oboe reeds. Ironically that’s the only thing I need to start playing again. I hadn’t even thought about my Oboe in a couple months. It is probably about time to really start playing again. Oh and don’t forget.. Things do turn around :)
Should be a good concert with an entirely howarth xl oboe section.
We fooled ourselves into believing that we did not need the humanities; and, even as the imaginations of our young people were paralysed, including those in the sciences – for they no less than artists need the past to enlarge their idea of human possibility – we did not build institutes of classical studies to rival our IITs and our IIMs. We let foreigners do the hard work of studying our past and humanities.
No, this isn’t from someone in the United States. This is from Aatish Taseer, writing in the Hindustan Times.
I read it here.
Practicing oboe and watching Lord of the Rings. I should do this more often.
