Recently, a student of mine told me that her oboe was being repaired and would not be back in time for her lesson. She asked if I still wanted her to come in for a lesson. I jumped on the opportunity to to do some intensive embouchure work with her and told her to come and bring her reed. The whole thirty-minute lesson was done with just her reed! This student had been playing less than six months and it was great to put all that extra attention on her embouchure work that early on, but I am sure these oboe reed exercises could benefit oboists of any level. Maybe you just want to give them a try yourself!
Basics
First, we carefully reviewed the basics because she had so recently started lessons with me (only a couple of weeks at this point). I had her stand against a wall to reinforce posture and practice breathing deeply enough. Then, still against the wall, we carefully reviewed embouchure and the angle at which the reed should be in her mouth. I had her put all this together- standing against the wall, placing the reed properly in her embouchure, and crowing the reed with a proper breath (and relaxation in her throat and jaw!). If you are planning on a lesson similar to this one, you might want to skip this initial warm-up for a more advanced student. You can be the judge of whether or not he needs review on any of these techniques.
Crowing Pitch of the Oboe Reed
I explained next that the reed crows at a certain pitch and where good reeds usually crow when played properly. I pulled out the tuner and demonstrated a C on my reed. She tended to crow closer to a B than a C but I was fine with that and worked from there.
The first exercise in this section was simply to be able to hold a crow at the same pitch for a good length of time. We did four beats at 60 bpm, my go-to exercise tempo! Once she had this level of control, I demonstrated changing the pitch with only my embouchure (without my hand holding or possibly pushing the reed). I raise the pitch by moving my lips to more of a “we” shape and lower the pitch by forming more of a “you” shape. We do this with our reeds trying to bend the pitch in a controlled manner as far up and down as we can go. This particular student had trouble extending her embouchure out to enough of a “you” shape and could not go as low as she could go high at first. Really make sure your student is really exaggerating the movements at this point to get a feel for it.
Once she was gaining control of the pitch in this way, we practiced crowing a C and then crowing a B without sliding in between but hitting the exact note we wanted to. As I said before she had difficulty getting to a C consistently which I believe was greatly due to the nature of her reed, so if she could do a B to Bb or a very sharp B to (maybe a slightly flat) B, I was still happy with the results and her increase in control since the start of the lesson. Then we did the same thing in the other direction- C to C#. We continued playing from here crowing the three notes in different combinations, but mostly C to B to C# to C again.
The last portion of this section was trying to play a little song on her reed like Yankee Doodle!
Having this embouchure flexibility and an understanding of how to manipulate the pitch of just the oboe reed taught her how to do the very same thing with her oboe. Now she has a thorough understanding of how her embouchure must subtly shift as she moves up and down a scale. She can also be better prepared for a large leap in either direction that must be accompanied by the embouchure “leaping” to that note. For a great video and explanation of this type of reed exercise that is very similar and inspired some of this lesson, see this explanation and video by Music Bayside that breaks down her technique for improving the oboe embouchure.
Articulations
This was also a great time to do some articulation work! This works very similarly to practicing articulation with the oboe, but without the oboe, we had reduced distractions and worries and we could concentrate on fewer ideas at once. I had her stay on the same crow pitch the whole time, whatever was most comfortable to her and we reviewed the basics of articulation.
Still at 60 bpm like I usually am, we started with legato tonguing moving from whole notes to half notes to quarter notes to eighth notes. I had her do at least one measure of each note length, stopping and breathing or readjusting as necessary. For the legato notes, we focused on having a very swift tongue motion that touched the reed as lightly as possible. I also wanted her tongue to move more up and down as opposed to back and forth. And one of the biggest aspects of legato tonguing that I find to be tricky for students is to keep their air consistent the whole time. I tell them to play as though they are holding one long note. Their air is an unmovable column and their articulations (and fingerings in a case other than this one!) are just sprinkled on top. This imagery tends to be very effective.
Finally, we also did staccato practice which is fundamentally different in that the air is interrupted between staccato notes to create space between them. This is usually much easier for my students since that is their tendency all the time! You can play around with this and write out different combinations of legato or staccato notes for them to play and try to make a clear distinction between the two types.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed this reed-only lesson so much that I am considering doing more extended reed work like this with other students in the future. While you may not want to teach a whole lesson this way, these types of exercises are great for targeting specific problem areas like low notes not sounding- time to practice your “you” to get a lower crow! If articulating and changing notes is too much to think about at once, eliminate the oboe for a time to get a better feel for tonguing. So much of the oboe comes from that little reed at the top. We must know how to master it!
What are some other exercises you like to strengthen your embouchure? Have you tried these? They might be harder than you think!
(Need a good reed for a lesson like this?)