Hey Reader,

This past weekend was my spring semester Studio Recital. About a third of my students were able to play, which is lower than typical. It turned out that there was a middle school adjudication event at the same time and a handful of students were participating in that. The result was that the recital was largely full of quite advanced students (mostly high school age), so the playing level was high.

One of the themes that emerged in the two weeks leading to the recital was the question of “Is that intonation/legato/high-note-response/insert-other-problem-here issue a reed issue, an oboe issue, or a you issue?”

I find myself answering this question a lot because I’m a teacher, but I also observe that oboists generally ask this question a lot because of the nature of how sensitive our instruments and reeds are! So often the answer is yes, sort of, and not really, in that order. To help illustrate this and help you know how to answer the question for yourself, I’m going to present some student case studies as well as my personal experience.

Case 1: Is it the reed?

A high school student who has been playing since middle school made their fall semester goal “to play high D and above comfortably”. We spent a lot of time working on air support, embouchure construction, and getting their fingers around the weird fingerings for high D, Eb, and E and they have been generally able to play those notes without hesitation or sounding pinched since about November.

At their lesson last week they could not get the high D to come out in an etude despite having learned the etude in the fall, everything else going right in their playing, just having gotten the oboe back from its annual adjustment, and knowing that high D was working earlier in the week on a different reed with no problem. At that moment both of us knew that the student can play the note, their fingers are in the correct position, they’re supporting every other note with appropriate air and embouchure position.

The important thing to note is that the student was playing on a new reed that hadn’t been broken in yet. I’ve found that some reeds take playing 3rd octave notes really well and others need a little scraping to help facilitate those notes. In this case, since we knew that it was a new reed and we had a lot of material to cover, we made the decision to not stress about it and let the reed continue to break in without scraping. We may decide to adjust the reed at their lesson this week.

Case #2: Is it the oboe?

I’ve been personally dealing with what I know to be an out of adjustment oboe. I finally sat down with David Greenwald’s The Adjustment of the Oboe and English horn to fully adjust my oboe a couple of weeks ago. After adjusting my oboe I noticed the interval from low F to C is no longer hard to slur through AND that the low G flatness that I had been fighting since mid-February is much improved.

It didn’t even occur to me that it could be a leaky pad causing the low G to be consistently flatter than before - I just thought to myself “well, the oboe is 6 years old so maybe it’s time to shop for a new oboe”. (Saying that may seem extreme, but gradual changes in intonation are one of the reasons that we sometimes shop for a new oboe.) I am delighted that my oboe feels so nice again and that I did it myself!

Another interesting case is with one of my adult students. They have been struggling with the intonation of some notes on their instrument for a while, but in the last month their A naturals (both in the staff and above) have been 40 cents flat. They just performed the first movement of the Saint-Saens Sonata at the recital on Saturday, and it has many sustained high A moments that they were having to use mouth pressure to bring up in pitch.

I play-tested their oboe at their lesson last week and found that the top joint felt really leaky. So with a few minor adjustments to the top joint, I was able to bring the tuning A back in tune and suddenly the high A was easily played in tune as well! It hadn’t occurred to me until I adjusted my own oboe that perhaps an adjustment issue was causing the note to be flat.

Case #3: Is it me??

I think most of us immediately jump to the conclusion that any issue we have in our playing is ultimately our fault. I’m here to share with you that most of the time it’s really not your fault. Our instruments are so sensitive that a millimeter turn of a screw in the wrong direction can wildly shift how well the instrument plays, and its intonation. And that doesn’t even mention all the weirdness of our reeds (which I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about…)

All that said, there ARE some circumstances in which the player is doing something weird or incorrect or just not giving the reed/oboe combo the air that it needs. One of my advanced students is working through some challenges. They purchased a new-to-them instrument in December and since transitioning to that oboe they have tried a number of different reed brands to try to find the one that will match their playing and the oboe’s needs. (This is a really common shift for oboists to need! Not all reed styles match all players or all oboes.)

While we still aren’t satisfied with the reed/oboe combo yet, a common theme has emerged over the last month: second octave notes are consistently flat - almost a full half step flat - unless the air support is sufficient. When I play-test the oboe the second octave plays in tune just fine, so I don’t think it’s an oboe issue. It could be a reed issue, but when prompted to use more air the pitch comes right up to where it should be. This leads me to believe that it’s an issue with how the student is using their air and embouchure in the second octave.

It could also be a habit from their old reed brand. We switched brands because they were playing impossibly sharp on the new oboe with the old brand of reeds. It’s entirely possible that they started under-supporting the second octave notes as a way to play less sharp all the time, and unfortunately now that they have an upgraded oboe they need to use more air to support the second octave notes.

The takeaways:

To answer each of the questions presented, the step of eliminating the other variables from consideration was important.

“Is it the reed?” was answered by the age of the reed (new) and if other reeds could perform the high D successfully (yes).

“Is it the oboe?” was answered by having me play-test the oboe and make some adjustments based on what I observed/felt as I played.

“Is it me?” was answered by me play-testing the oboe, then the student being able to play second octave notes in tune simply by increasing the amount of air they used when hitting those notes.

I encourage you to lean on your personal network of oboist friends when you’re having these issues in your playing. When in doubt, it’s usually NOT you, it’s most often the oboe or the reed or sometimes both!

Until next week,

Alli

Hey, Reader, Do you have any burning questions about playing oboe? Reply to this email and ask, and you might see the answer in the next newsletter!

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