Finding An Oboe Teacher

by Nov 4, 20110 comments

For the Parents

One day after playing clarinet 2 years in school, I came home and told my parents that I wanted to play the oboe.

Their first reaction was, “The who?”

“The oboe Mom.”

“That’s nice.” She answered, and then said, “What’s that. That big curly thing?”

Unfortunately, this is how most parents are introduced to the oboe. The first thing to remember is not to panic. You should know however that the oboe is probably the most difficult of the woodwind instruments to start.

It’s also one of the more shall we say, unpleasant sounding instruments for the beginner to pick up.

As hard as it is though, if your child has talent and a lot of self-perseverance, it can be a wonderfully expressive instrument.

My best advice is for you to go and speak with your child’s band or orchestra director and see if he or she has any oboe teacher contacts. It is best to start with private lessons as soon as you can to avoid too many bad habits from developing early on.

If you have not had any luck finding an oboe teacher through this method, contact a local music school. If that doesn’t work, try contacting an oboist in the closest professional orchestra closest to were you live.

Many times the oboists in these orchestras either accept private students, or have an older experienced student who would be a perfect match to teach a beginning oboe student.

If you still don’t have any luck, try going over to the reed making forum. Post a request for a teacher there.

The important thing is to not give up and to support your child 100%. It is worth it in the end!

Read MoreĀ 

The Curtis Factor-A Wonderful Story

The Curtis Factor-A Wonderful Story

  Go check out this article on www.visitphilly.com. It is all about the Curtis Institute and I found it very interesting. Have a look. Image via Wikipedia

Balancing an Oboe Reed

Balancing an oboe reed can be difficult, especially if you are not that experienced at it. There are some things that can help however. The first step in balancing a reed is to make sure the crow is up to a "C". If it isn't, clip the reed. I prefer using single edged...

Crowing An Oboe Reed

Well, you might think that all there is to crowing an oboe reed is to put it in your mouth and blow hard. In essence that is correct, but did you know that 99% of the information you need to make a good reed is in the crow? That being said, I can hear you asking,...

Oboe Reed Pictures

  They say that you can't really tell much about a reed by the way it looks. I think that is true, however looks do play a small part in how the reed functions. The most important thing when looking at a reed is symmetry. Both blades must look the same. If your...

Leave a comment.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *