The Oboe Path has caused me to take a closer look at many aspects of my playing - mostly because I'm just taking the time to consider! Just having face time has been good of course, but because I'm trying to come up with ideas for my warmup, I have focused on articulations. I mentioned the "peeping" where I start the sound without my tongue at all - this has been a total game changer! I have always done that on the clarinet (super easy and intuitive) but I had always assumed it was IMPOSSIBLE on the oboe. Apparently with the right reed (must respond easily) and removal of tension I can do it just fine on the oboe. So amazing.
But now I'm looking at repeated notes with the tongue. First I was just articulating the scales (repeat tonic 8x, up to +1, back down and repeat tonic 8x = 32 tongues and trad long tone at the end) That was useful and I got much smoother with practice, but then Erin pointed out short tonguing and super long tonguing feels VERY different. Intellectually I thought I could do it, but in practice I was all over the place! So now I'm trying each scale with three different articulations - it is helpful to have to switch since I'm bad at that! Already seeing a difference.
Got a call to sub (last minute) for the local college symphony (EWU) - would just be 2nd oboe no big thing. 2 rehearsals (that day and day of concert, which was 2 days out) and concert. Turns out they were doing some concertos, a student composition (lovely) and Brahms Variations (!!!!!) which is on every 2nd oboe audition! I have played the excerpt but never the actual piece. Low notes (especially repeated) have always been the bane of my playing, and I was so happy that rehearsal went GREAT! I have been working on exactly these things and the Oboe Path made what would have been a anxiety inducing nightmare and actual pleasure! Actually looking forward to the concert tomorrow. Yay.
