OLD LADY PLAYING OBOE ARTCLIP HOW TO

The oboe presents challenges that are quite specific to the instrument. When they watch an oboist's face turning red, most people assume that the instrument either requires huge air pressure on the reed or that it takes enormous amounts of breath. In fact, the oboe doesn't take any more pressure than the other winds and brass, and much less pressure than the high notes of the horn or trumpet. The top pressure on the oboe is 20 oz/sq inch of pressure in the mouth a trumpet can take as much as 50. The crucial difference, however, lies in the amount of air used in playing the oboe. The flow rate of air in the oboe is actually very low-3 to 5 liters per minute the tuba takes (in extreme cases) as much as 500 liters per minute (on extremely low notes played at the ƒƒƒ level, a robust tuba player could use all of his lungs' 6 liters in about one second.) We have empathized with them as they struggled more and more to breathe as the pieces went on and on, finally leaving out whole phrases and grabbing breaths in panic. But does this have to be par? Is it really possible to play the oboe-–that 'ill wind that no one blows well'-without making yourself and your audience miserable? We have all heard recitals by students who have tackled such breathing 'monsters' as the Schumann Romances, the Bach Sonata in G Minor (the long one!). Jacobs and received a great deal of help from him. Much of my knowledge about breathing is derived from him.Īrnold was able to help almost everyone who came to him because he not only understood the physical aspects of breathing and the most efficient use of the breath, but he was also very concerned with the psychology of playing. He was a genius in pointing the way toward the most efficient way of playing any instrument. He even developed a lab in his studio where he could measure and analyze all aspects of breathing. After my first session in his studio, he discovered that my breathing methods were exactly the reverse of what I needed for efficient blowing on the oboe. I had developed my breathing technique on my own, without much thought none of my four oboe teachers had ever given me any advice or instruction on breathing. I regularly checked out all of my theories with the late Mr. I must admit that I had the advantage of spending about 35 years consulting with the great tuba player Arnold Jacobs, who completely turned around my approach to playing the oboe after my first year in the Chicago Symphony. Oboists must learn to make the breath their servant if they want to make the oboe sing.

OLD LADY PLAYING OBOE ARTCLIP HOW TO

Of course, saying the breath is everything is much like saying that in baseball pitching is 90 percent of the game-you still have to have eight other players on your team. By the same reasoning, although you must know how to control the breath, you must also be able to control the other team members: the embouchure, the tongue and the fingers. Yet among all the students who come to me for study, the one common fault is their ignorance about how the breath works best. A great singer of the past, Hans Hotter, idol of Dietrich Fischer Dieskau and coach to Fritz Wunderlich, proclaimed with great conviction: 'The breath is everything-once you learn to control it, you have it all!'

Old lady playing oboe artclip