Woodwinds: Oboe

Required recordings, fall 2011

by

The fall semester has begun, so it’s time for my students to buy their required recordings for the semester. This semester I wanted to address a few glaring gaps in the library my students have built so far:

  • The oboists don’t have anything Baroque yet.
  • The clarinetists don’t have anything by Weber yet.
  • The bassoonists don’t have the Mozart concerto yet.
  • The saxophonists don’t have the Glazunov concerto yet.

I think I found some great recordings to fill those voids. As a diversity bonus, three of the four are talented women, and one of those is a native Israeli.

Here are the selections:

Ray Still: A Chicago Legend: Baroque Oboe Sonatas

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Bach Sonata in G minor, Handel Sonatas nos. 1 and 2, Telemann Partitas 2, 5, and 6, Vivaldi Sonata no. 6

Read more

Faculty woodwinds recital, Aug. 30, 2011

by

Bret Pimentel, woodwinds
Kumiko Shimizu, piano

Faculty Recital
Delta State University Department of Music
Recital Hall, Bologna Performing Arts Center
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
7:30 PM

Program

Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano
Sy Brandon (b. 1945)
World premiere

  1. Intrada
  2. Nocturne
  3. Valse
  4. Marche
  5. Romanza
  6. Galop

Caprice en forme de valse for alto saxophone
Paul Bonneau (1918 – 1995)

Sonata for oboe and piano
Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)

  1. Elégie
  2. Scherzo
  3. Déploration

Sonata for clarinet and piano
Francis Poulenc

  1. Allegro tristamente
  2. Romanza
  3. Allegro con fuoco

Ode to a Toad
Ray Pizzi (b. 1943)

Read more

Review: Rico reed cases

by

I’ve been trying out the Rico single and double reed cases. These are plastic cases that can optionally accommodate Rico’s “Reed Vitalizer” packets, which, according to Rico, help keep your reeds at your desired humidity level. The single reed case holds eight reeds, baritone saxophone or smaller, and the double reed case holds five double reeds, oboe or bassoon. (I found contrabass clarinet reeds to be just a little too large for the single reed case. The double reed case holds English horn reeds just fine, but doesn’t work for oboe d’amore or contrabassoon.)

Detailed review follows, but here is the quick summary:

Price reasonable initial investment; pricier if you regularly buy additional Vitalizer packs
Looks handsome
Humidity undecided
Design flawed

Price

Current street price on both the single reed case and the double reed case  seems to be about $20. This includes one Reed Vitalizer pack. If you choose to use the Reed Vitalizer packs on an ongoing basis, they go for about $5 apiece, and Rico says you will need a new one every 45-60 days (so, up to around $40/year, not counting tax or shipping).

Read more

Historical woodwind recordings on the National Jukebox

by
Photo, alexruthmann

The United States Library of Congress’s National Jukebox project makes American recordings from the days before microphones available for streaming online. This is a fantastic resource for recordings—classical, jazz, and more—from the turn of the 20th century until the mid-1920’s.

These recordings are not in the public domain, like you might think; Sony, the owner of the recordings, has given the Library of Congress special permission to stream them.

Naturally, I’ve been searching the National Jukebox for woodwind players, and here are a few of my favorite discoveries. Some of the gems include oddities like the Heckelphone and bass saxophone, and there are a few woodwind doublers in there, too. Take note of how woodwind playing, like recording technology, has changed over the past century!

To kick things off, here’s a nice tour of the woodwind section of the Victor Orchestra in 1912:

Read more

Why tune to the oboe?

by
Photo, nobleviola

Why do orchestras tune to the oboe?

Well, because it’s tradition, I suppose. But, realistically, in a professional group the pitch standard is likely determined in advance, and the oboist will use an electronic tuner to be sure they are giving precisely the correct pitch, so it could just as well be anyone.

But the principal oboist is almost always the keeper of the A. It seems like there are a lot of theories floating around as to why, none of which make the slightest bit of sense. I found all of these professed as gospel truth in less than five minutes of Googling:

  • Because the oboe can’t be tuned. Firstly: hogwash. (True, the oboe doesn’t have a built-in tuning slide. But an oboist can “tune” by switching reeds, and can humor individual notes sharper or flatter on the fly, just like any wind player.) Secondly: if we tune to the principal oboe because it can’t be tuned, then what is the second oboist expected to do? Or the harpist? Or the pianist?
  • Because the oboe’s pitch is the most reliable. More reliable than, say, the glockenspiel? Given a high-quality instrument, an excellent reed, a fine oboist, and a 72.0°F room, then yes, the oboe’s pitch ought to be pretty solid. But on a stage full of trained musicians, I can’t see any reason to expect it to be more reliable than anyone else’s.
  • Because the oboe can be heard better through the group, because of its volume or tone or something. If that’s the criteria for selecting a tuning instrument, then I suggest that we consider the trumpet, or perhaps the piccolo. The Wikipedia article on the oboe, incidentally, mentions both stability and “penetrating” tone as reasons for oboe tuning, but cites an online article that no longer exists.
  • Because the oboe warms up to pitch faster than the other winds. This could be true, but how much longer does it really take to warm a flute or clarinet or trombone up to pitch? Hopefully the other musicians aren’t tuning before their instruments are thoroughly warmed.

Read more

A few more woodwind blogs you should be reading

by

A few months ago I posted some of my recommendations for good woodwind-related blogs, and shared a couple of tips on getting the most out of your blog reading. I’ve got a few more favorite blogs I’d like to share today, and another blog-reading tip, too.

This time I came up with a blog each for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone, plus a bonus one. Here they are in no particular order:

Barrick Stees (Barry Blogs)

Barrick Stees is the assistant principal bassoonist in the Cleveland Orchestra, and a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Akron. His blog is fairly new (started earlier this year) but is already full of good stuff. Professor Stees shares some insights on playing excerpts at a level suitable to one of the great American orchestras:

He also keeps a travelogue of his tours with the orchestra, and comments on other items of interest to professional or developing musicians, such as:

Read more

Don’t adjust your best reed

by

Photo, stonelucifer I worked on reeds today (both single and double). My favorite reed tip: don’t adjust your best one. Adjust some others until one of them is the best, and then go back and work on the first one if you like. Adjusting reeds can be a little risky, so gamble on a reed … Read more

Required recordings, spring 2011

by

Once again it’s time for required recordings. This semester, I’m having my each of my students add a good chamber music recording to their library. The students required to buy these recordings are technically enrolled in applied lessons, which means they study solo repertoire, although I do also coach some of them in chamber music. … Read more

Multiple woodwinds commission, fifth movement (oboe)

by

Sy Brandon has shared his work on the fifth movement of Divertissement, the newly-commissioned piece for multiple woodwinds soloist with piano. This movement, “Romanza,” features the oboe, and completes the total count of five woodwind instruments. Dr. Brandon has indicated that there are six movements planned, and I know he has been toying with the … Read more

Introducing the Fingering diagram builder

by

I’m pleased to present something I’ve been working on, on and off, for a while now. I’m pretty excited about it, and I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think.

This project developed from my own need to quickly and easily create fingering diagrams for the woodwind instruments that I play and teach. Frequently I find myself scribbling saxophone altissimo fingerings onto a scrap of paper during a private lesson, cutting-and-pasting at the photocopier to put together simplified charts for a woodwind methods class, or penciling cryptic markings into musical scores to remind myself which pinky finger to use.

And so, I’m pleased to introduce the Fingering diagram builder. I hope you’ll take it for a spin.

Read more