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!

the joy of scales

I didn't get round to talking about scales and technical exercises last week so here goes.

I used to hate playing scales/ arpeggios when I was a child. I don't think I really saw the point and I just found them incredibly dull.  I have since seen the light. I know LOVE practising scales and find them a really useful tool for improving all aspects of my playing and developing a sense of key.  Aside from that I find them quite engrossing and really good way into the practising mentality.  It is almost like meditation, they fall under the fingers so easily that I don't really have to think about what note comes next, or the rhythm, I can focus full attention on the sound and the smoothness of the line.

I always start my practice with scales, before my grade 8 I had a routine which took me through all the scales I needed for the exam every 2 days, with all scales in all articulations every 6 dyas.  I feel slightly lost without the confines of an exam syllabus but also it gives a freedom to work different configurations and spend more time on other technical exercises. 

So what does my practice consist of now:

SCALES
Run through one set of scales - either major, harmonic minors or melodic minors.  I am trying to move away from 2 octave scales and play from topic up to either top F#/G, down to bottom B/Bb and then back to tonic.  So far doing this for majors only and will then move on to minors.

One set of arpeggios - major, minor, dom 7ths, dim 7ths. Sometimes will play these as broken arpeggios or broken chords.

Chromatic scale: full range of instrument.

Scale of the day : this week is F major.  I do an exercise based on doing 5 note runs up and down repeated 3 times, then moving up to the next note and repeating.  This helps iron out the tricky bits that it is easy to skate over.

I am also trying to learn all my major scales in thirds, I'm just focussing on the first octave at the moment so spending the week getting F in my head.

TECHNICAL EXERCISES
These use the scale of the week as a basis for focussing specific aspects:

Tone: I do a slow scale thinking about thh tone of each note and trying to make as beautiful as possible before moving on to next note.  Only doing 1 octave of this at the moment as otherwise it takes too long.  I also do octaves at the end on the tonic to try and match the tone and tuning. I also watch very closely in the mirror at my embouchure.  I need to ensure that I keep it secure when I change notes as I have a tendency to have a little "wobble", I am trying to build more stability.

Dynamics: tone exercises are followed by more long notes, this time with dynamics, starting softly building to a crescendo on 9th beat and then decrescendo to ppp by the 16th beat.  The aim is to widen my dynamic range and open up my sound, as well as being able to control smooth changes in volume.

Vibrato: I use the metronome set between 60-72bpm and repeat the scales with 2,3 and 4 pulses on each note.  

Articulation: scales with repeated notes to get my articulation going, this is something I really need to work on.  I also sometimes repeat the first scale exercise with tongued notes or mixed articulation.

That seems to have taken longer to type than it does to do!  It usually takes me about 20 minutes to get through that lot.  Though I think I could easily spend about an hour if I had the time....

STUDIES AND PIECES
Luft study is coming on, focussed a lot more on where to breath, practising the sections between breaths and then linking them together in twos. I spent too much time on the Telemann which is GORGEOUS and also trying to sort out the basics of the Richardson piece (notes, rhythm, articulation).

Total time 75 mins,I would have played longer but my embouchure was not having it.

Orchestra rehearsal tonight and tomorrow afternoon for Mahler concert tomorrow evening.

Need to relax more...

Thursday's Practice Time: 75 minutes

Scales and technical exercises:  Ran through harmonic minors , minor arpeggios.  Scale for this week is E major.  I’ll talk more about this section tomorrow.

Study:  A new study so initially sight read through to get a feel for it and see where the difficulties lie.  Like the other Luft studies, stamina and working out where on earth to take a breath are the biggest issues.  I tend to collapse in a heap somewhere in the middle, usually due to not managing to breath out enough stale air.  There are some awkward fingering corners but there have been worse and it all seems managable.  I focussed today on sorting out the trills in the first few lines – making sure I knew which fingers should be trilling and practising them slowly.  There's also interesting section of semi quavers with accented but untongued notes at the start of each group of 4.  These require a push from the abs/ diaphragm to stress them.  Watching in the mirror I seemed to be making a lot of physical effort without hearing much difference in the sound which suggested that something was going a bit wrong.  A bit more experimentation suggested that although I was pushing with my abs something else was happening with my shoulders and throat which was resisting that push so it made no difference except to upset my embouchure.  Focus of rest of study practice was doing this section slowly and being very conscious about pushing from the right place and relaxing my arms and shoulders.  There was some improvement by end of the pratice but this needs more investigation as there is definitely something amiss here.  I suspect this same resistance problem is limiting my dynamics at the top end and also preventing me fully exhaling my stale air before taking a breath.

Richardson: This is a new piece so my main focus, again, was on working through the whole piece to identify the problem areas.  First impression is that I like it (always goos).  There are some awkward sections from a fingering point of view, I need to think about how to play it musically – where are the phrases as they are generally uneven and not always initially obvious.  However teh  first hurdle for me is a rhythmic one.  It switches between 9/8 and 6/8 sections, I think I need to become more familiar with the individual sections before working out how to transition between them properly,   so I’ll focus on sorting out the 9/8 bits initially

Reizenstein: Did some work on the initial section, will focus more on this tomorrow

Binge: Had a play through this, I need to remember to build my phrases more rather than rounding off every 2 bars.  This is also a good piece for practising vibrato.  Vibrato does seem to be a bit of a mystery although some work has been done to identify exactly which muscles produce it and how it is controlled. Diaphragmatic “bumps” are meant to help you discover it and allow it to emerge in practice you don’t really use this muscle to produce it eventually.  I can feel a more natural vibrato emerging but I think I am trying to fight  it either by tensing up to stop it – probably linked to the issue above, or by trying to control it too much and imposing another vibrato on top of it using my diaphragm.  I think it is one of those things that you need to not think about too much.   Need to relax more and let it happen.

Orchestra: Ran through tricky bits in the Mahler to finish off, though in reality I think the trickiest bit of all will be counting the rests and making sure I come in at the right time.  There are lots of changes of tempo and time signature while counting large numbers of bars.  I am playing this with another local orchestra.  They needed a third oboist for the piece, my teacher is their principal oboist and asked me if I could do it.  Full day rehearsal for this on Sunday so will write more after that.

Overall felt like a good practice with a number of issues identified to work on over the next week.

First practice of the year

Good 45 minute practice today following nearly 2 weeks holiday.  My stamina and tone was better than expected and a number of things seem to have fallen into  place during the break.

I spent quite a bit of time on Luft Study no 6 - the hardest thing about these studies is stamina, and finding somewhere to breathe, and making it sound like music instead of an endurance test.  But it the notes feel a bit more secure now, and my brain seems to have sorted out the tricky section going up in thirds while I've been away.  Need a bit more work on making the final 2 notes sound a bit nicer, and less flat.

Rest of practice was playing through pieces for lesson on Wednesday and also had play through some sections of the oboe 3 part for Mahler Symphony no 3.  Again my brain seems to have sorted out some of the fiddly bits and I could manage to get through the section in 6 flats without tying my brain in knots.

I also did some vibrato practice.  This needs to be my main goal for this term.  I would really like to develop a vibrato which feels more natural and is more integrated into my tone.  It has definitely improved over the last couple of months - just need to keep going