Preparing for a masterclass

A good lesson yesterday.  I bought a new reed which usually makes my tone go all over the place - but it wasn't as bad as it sometimes is.  We spent most of the lesson working on Chansonette by Harty.  I am going to a Double Reed day in London in 10 days or so and I've, foolishly maybe, applied to play in one of the masterclasses.  It will be good for me, I'm sure.  I haven't had confirmation so don't know whether I will be able to play or who will take it.  If I play I will play Chansonette.  As the name suggests it is very lyrical and melodic.  The notes are reasonably straight forward - a couple of little twiddles over the break that still sound a bit stilted, a couple of rapid runs up the scale.  There is a lot to work on with phrasing, subtle rubato and use of vibrato.   I think for the next couple of week's practice I'd like to take a couple of technical difficulties from the piece to use as exercises as well as working on the overall phrasing and interpretation of the piece.

The first is around tone in my top A and B - these are quite awkward notes on the oboe.  They use the side octave key and have a tendency to sound quite thin compared to notes in the lower register.  It would be good to make these ring out a bit more with a fuller tone, I'd also like to be a bit more secure in the intonation.  So I think long notes on the A, going down the chromatic scale going back to the A each time  (A, G#, A, G, A, F# etc) very slowly with my tuner focusing on tone and tuning.

Secondly I need to work on vibrato.  There are a couple of phrases that really need vibrato to come out on the long notes so I'd like to pull these out as specific vibrato exercises, trying different numbers of pulses, keeping vibrato going as notes change etc.

The other thing I would like to do is see if I can have a session with a pianist.  I've never played this with an accompanist and I don't know if I want the first time to be in front of people.  I'll try and sort that out tonight.

I am hoping that performance nerves won't affect me too much this time, it isn't really a performance anyway more a work in progress.  I feel quite confident on the notes and I have two good reeds.  I don't know how many people will be there but they will all be players of similar standard so should be supportive.  I'm hoping it will be very useful!