Video transcript
@The Arts Unit Art Bites – Oboe – 03. Preparing for our part in an ensemble

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JONATHAN RYAN: Hello, my name is Jonno Ryan. I'm an freelance oboist and tutor at The Arts Unit in Sydney, New South Wales. Very happy today to be talking to you all about some aspects of the instrument, the temperamental nature of our instrument, and effective practise techniques in preparing our parts for ensemble playing.

So first of all, we have the oboe, which, as we know, isn't the most reliable of instruments. It's just a piece of wood with some keys on it. And the weather's changing all the time, the humidity is changing all the time, so we have some aspects of the instrument that we want to try and work around.

Unstable Notes:

Another tendency that we find on the oboe are some unstable notes, particularly those in the second octave-- so around about the A flat and A natural. So if we play these with not quite enough airspeed and not enough air support, they sort of weaken. So if we were just playing-- if I play a chromatic scale from E flat--

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--they're a bit weaker than the other notes. So what we want to do, is really keep a healthy amount of air support, and we want to increase that airspeed a little bit, especially on A flat and A.

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If we worked solely on these higher notes and keeping them stable, it's really important that we have a pitch in our head first. If we just go willy nilly and we just try and roughly play these higher notes, the likelihood is that there'll be a little bit rocky. So if we really hear the pitch in our head first and be really precise, we've got a much better chance of hitting those notes. So--

[playing notes]

And one last aspect to these higher notes, we want to keep them nice and resonant. So a little way to practise these, is we think of our harmonics. So a very standard harmonic we have is the A harmonic, the second octave. And so if you play low D and then you add the second octave key, you get a more broader A. So what we want to try and do is match both the harmonic version of the A and the non-harmonic version of the A.

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And we play our normal A--

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And we want to try and match the two of them. So--

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We try A flat, which would be the low D flat in the same octave key.

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Matching this as best we can, B flat now, E flat low, and then B flat.

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And then we can create more resonance, rather than our tendency of tighter and more narrow.

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More in this direction, we want to think more wider and broader like those harmonics. So--

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Preparing for our Part in an Ensemble:

Just a note on our part preparation and how really important that is in our ensemble playing. So we're really fortunate in this era, because we have so many resources readily available to us. So very frequently we find a recording of the piece we're playing on YouTube. I think it's really important to try and find a recording of the piece, and this is really before we start practicing the piece, just so we can really put into context what we're playing. And just try and find, if you can, a number of performances, and just get an idea of where our part slots in.

There might sometimes be something that's exposed, that's not really marked in the music. Just because it doesn't say solely or solo, it doesn't mean there isn't an exposed chord or something like that. So yeah, try listening to the work first on YouTube if at all possible. Getting access to a score can be really useful just to see what you're playing with other instruments. And then just reading the part along with the recording, and maybe just putting a little asterisk or circling bits that you think, hmm, so that will require a little bit more practise.

What we often do in our learning of pieces, we may not have much time once we get the instrument out of its case and we have time to play. What we often do is we just start practicing from the beginning of the piece. And that's all very well and good, however, you might find that the really exposed bits might be halfway through the piece towards the end of the piece, and what we really want to do is try and find these tricky intervals, tricky chords and moments of fast semiquavers, et cetera. And we really want to get to them as quickly as possible once we're in the planning process, and get practicing them really with a metronome, precisely and slowly.

'Armenian Dances' Alfred Reed Part 1 Excerpt:

So one particular tricky example, assuming we haven't played Alfred Reed's 'Armenian Dances, Number 1,' and we've gone through the part, we've listened to the part, and we find that, goodness me, bar 345, this is a particularly fast allegro vivo con fuoco section right up well beyond 140, 155-ish. And then we think, wow, there are lots of things to work on in this passage. One in the first bar already at 345, we have a coordination of A sharp to B--

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--and in the next bar, B to C sharp.

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So we want to practise this really slowly--

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--and then the next section.

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In bar 352 in the next passage, we have quite a lot of accidentals. So we know that in context when this is really fast, this might throw us somewhat. So we need to do this really slowly. So we have--

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--and we find that we will need both left E flat, the last E flat of the first beat, and a forked F fingering on the next note. These are all things that I strongly encourage you to write into the part. It's all very well when we're practicing it very slowly, that we know, oh yeah, that's forked F and this is left E flat. But when we're seeing it at that very fast tempo over 150, these are things that we might forget.

So then we have more accidentals in the next bar. So we have E to F sharp, which might throw us, and particularly this G to G sharp A.

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Not only should we be practicing these things slowly, but we should be practicing these with a very healthy air support. One tendency that we have often is we find a difficult passage and we think, uh-oh, this is going to be tricky, and then we sort of back away and our air backs away as well. And we want to try and work against this as much as we can, so we want to actually increase the air also in our practise. Just because we find it straightforward in our practise at, let's say very roughly, crotchet equals 72, we can put the metronome on, if we were doing it that slowly. And then we have to eventually get it to double that tempo. We want to keep a healthy air support.

If I kind of demonstrate what might happen if we were playing this in a band situation, in an ensemble situation, we might be playing around this in longer notes and we might be comfortable, then suddenly we have to get the speed up. We want to keep driving away. If I play this at 3-5-7 with not so much air support, we might get something like this, not very controlled, and maybe the dynamics not really maintained. We might get something like this.

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Et cetera. What we want to do is really increase the air and we get more connection between the notes. So--

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Et cetera. If you give much more air support, you give yourself a much better chance of getting through the passage.

Now, let's go back to how we're practicing this section. So we do have a very fast section with some difficulties, but what we want to do is slow it right down, and again, with lots of air. So we've also got a pattern here. We have--

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--and it's repeated a number of times. One good aspect to this, is that a very effective way of practicing very fast passages is to practise them both forwards and backwards. And very fortunately for us here that Alfred Reed has given us that kind of gift. So we've got both the pattern forwards and backwards.

So another way we can practise this, as well as slowly, is we practise it in rhythms. So with four note patterns, there are a number of rhythms we can do. What we do is lengthen in the first example I'll give you. We lengthen the first and third notes, the even notes, and then we switch that emphasis in length of notes. So I'll demonstrate. We have this rhythm.

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And just repeat it a number of times.

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And then we will switch that to two and four.

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Now we lengthen just the first note--

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--and now the second note--

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--now the third note--

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--and finally, the fourth note of the pattern.

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So we practise this methodically and just very slowly to begin with, and we just try and increase this gradually.

Another tricky aspect of this is we have a trill in bar 362 going into 363. Not only do we have a trill, but it's tied to a staccato quaver. Now, when we're doing this fast, we might over hold the tie and the trill might be too long. But first things first, practise it just without the trill. So again, slowly--

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Et cetera. And then with the trill, and think perhaps cutting off the quaver a little shorter.

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Et cetera. And we have a trill also in bar 367. So just practise each of these trills first with no trill, and then bring the trills back into it. So these are the things to just circle in your part first, because when we have it at that really fast tempo, these are the things we might miss.

So let's assume we've spent our time with the metronome, we've practised really slowly, and we want to get it ready for the rehearsal and be really ahead of the curve. So I'll just give this a whirl. So lots of air support. I'll stop after 347 and then keep going.

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Our Role as Obosits in a Larger Ensemble:

Just briefly on our role as oboists in the larger ensemble. It's really imperative in our rehearsals with the ensemble that we're listening at all times unless, of course, we have our own solo with no one playing, and that happens very rarely. So really keep our ears open and we want to not think too softly. Especially if we have the sort of important passages marked at the piano level pianissimo, we want to keep it healthy with our air support, lots of airflow. And probably adding one dynamic level or so above, because we're probably only two or three, and we might have 10 to 12 of other instruments.

So just trying to keep a nice, generous air support and dynamic, but also making sure that we blend with what's around us. So we're listening particularly, I guess, most accessible to us are our bassoons that might be next to us, or worst case scenario, directly behind us. So we really match what they're doing and fitting into their sound.

So just to recap what we've discussed today. We have some temperamental aspects to our instrument, and we just want to try when we're going into an ensemble rehearsal that we kind of press these aside and work on reducing these. So we want to work on these unstable notes with the tuner and we just want to get lots of air support, and thinking about matching our high notes with our lower notes and creating those harmonics. And then we really want to prepare our part as well as possible, listening to some recordings and finding a score if we can before we get the instrument out. And practise really slowly with lots of air support.

I hope this has given you something to think about, and happy practicing.