2 comments about The Oboe (Yale Musical Instrument Series).

1. Burgess and Haynes are both quality oboists and teachers and scholars of the oboe. This work is truly a contribution to the furtherance of the history and interest in this instrument, which has charmed many, but yet remains not as popular as most other winds, likely for its difficulty in mastering.

   The book is divided into almost two sections. The first 124 pages deal with the pre-history of the instrument's roots up until the modern era beginning in 1828. After a fascinating discussion of just where the oboe started, the authors surmise that since many wind instruments all claim the aulos and tibia are archetypes, thus doubtful that this was truly ancestor. However, in the Arabic cultures the early shawnlike "zurna" are definitely related, then giving way to the popular hautboys, which gave way to their widespread use in baroque music.

   This especially takes off in the era of the seventeenth century with various types and names and styles, regionally located according to materials and composers and performers and craftsmen and trade of ideas/commerce. Then in 1680 outbreaks the French hautboy, which begins to dominate and leads in turn to the now standardized Conservatooire oboe during the Industrial Age.

   There is much to be gained from this history tracing, including the match between hautboy maker/composer/musician. Standing out especially and his ties to the modern oboe is Treibert and his Systeme 6 which then was disseminated throughout the world by Gillet's students, especially here in North America. When former Treibert foreman Francois Loree started his own oboe shop enhanced by Gillet's endorsement, this standardized oboe started to dominate, evolving to the now commonplace material of grenadilla.

   Along the way the compositions and musicians are featured. Then beginning in chapter 8 which for me is the highlight of the book, the technical capabilities are stretched since WWII. Here is highlighted the giants of the oboe compositions and their performers. Also so poignant is their technical discussion of embouchure, air stream problems, reeds, and "vibrato or not."

   The last chapter closes with the two topic discussion of avant-garde techniques and compositions highlighting such as multiphonics, microtonoality, pitch slides, etc., and secondly, return to period instruments of the baroque era especially.

   Included are fine detailed notes, a significant bibliography, a compiled discography which is meant to be only representative of the book's discussion, and an adequate index.

   This is a fine scholarly work which will certainly disappoint if any reader seeks a beginning intro to the instrument, i.e. should I play oboe, how to start, etc. This is more academic as to the instrument's history, current status, etc. All oboe enthusiasts will continually turn to this fine, thorough and well researched and written resource.




2. The collaborative work of Geoffrey Burgess and Bruce Haynes, The Oboe adds yet another fine title to Yale's outstanding 'Musical Instrument' series. Following the history of the oboe and providing an in-depth discussion of how and why the oboe evolved, the music written for it, and prominent players, The Oboe is admittedly is a specialty title, but any academic or classical music collection or library reference collection strong in classical history will find this an essential buy, packed from cover to cover with rare insights and information. The Oboe is most especially recommended to students of woodwind instruments in general, and this particular, core component of both orchestral and jazz music in particular.

1 comments about The Art of Oboe Playing - Including Problems and Techniques of Oboe Reedmaking.

1. I thought it was very interesting. I love the oboe, and it was very helpful to me.

2 comments about Gekeler Method Oboe 1.

1. I found this method book to be quite efficient in increasing my ability to play the oboe at the beginning to intermediate level. It has great exercises to help oboists improve their intonation and of course, the more you practice, the more stamina you'll acquire. Great book



2. This is an excellent beginning method book for students just taking up the oboe. It is especially good for students who have already had some experience with other instruments, since it progresses relatively quickly. Nevertheless, Gekeler does provide some introductory practice in musical notation, time signatures, and rhythms for students who have not studied music extensively before. There are exercises and short pieces in 4/4, 3/4 , cut time, 6/8 and 3/8, with whole notes through sixteenth notes, dotted eighth-sixteenth combinations, and syncopation. Key signatures are covered through 4 sharps and 4 flats. Basic fingerings are taught for notes from low B below the staff to high D above the staff. The alternate forked F fingering is also taught almost from the beginning, as well as an alternate fingering for D#. Dynamics and intonational cues appear throughout the text, but grace notes, trills, turns, and other fancy stuff are not introduced. Duets appear frequently amongst the study pieces; many are written such that the lower part requires slightly more advanced technique than the upper. In addition to technical exercises and etudes, there are short melodies by composers such as Hohman, Dancla, Czerny, and Schubert. Even on pages that are primarily devoted to introducing some new rhythmic pattern, there are always a few passages that the musically experienced beginner will find worthy of practice. Overall the book provides a varied and challenging introduction to the instrument. Methodical use of the book, together with daily practice, will enable rapid skill development.

No comments about 48 Famous Studies For Oboe Or Saxophone And 3 Duo Concertants For 2 Oboes Or 2 Saxophones (1st Oboe Part).

1 comments about Guide To Teaching Woodwinds.

1. I was able to use this for my woodwind studies, and at a fraction of the cost!

3 comments about Oboe Solos: (EFS 99) (Everybody's Favorite Series).

1. This book is great! It's a wonderful combination of great artist songs. Anyone who has played the oboe for at least 3 years could pick up this book and love it in a second! I sure did.



2. I recommend this book to every one of my students, from beginners to undergrads in college. The selection of pieces is extensive, and includes many standards in the oboe repertoire, including the Handel sonatas, the Schumann romances and the Mozart Oboe Quartet (entitled Sonata for Oboe and Piano in this book). The oboe parts are paired with piano scores; buying these pieces separately would cost a lot, so this is an incredible steal. There are also many pieces that are wedding-appropriate, for those oboists that are looking for a collection of pieces to play at such an event. A great resource and investment for all oboists!



3. These are comments, rather than a review. I have no fluency with the oboe, but bought this booklet for wife, who is an oboe student. I looked around for a booklet containing oboe music, and plenty of it. This seems to be the booklet that contains the largest collection of good oboe music at the most reasonable price. Some sheet music has only a few pages and costs the earth.

2 comments about Oboe Method Complete.

1. If there is a required text for the oboist, the Barret Method is it. The etude studies are a standard part of the repertoire for students of all levels, and have been reproduced in other method books as well. I do not know of an oboist who has not worked from this book. Every student has their own favorite exercise and etude, and all learn to live with the yellow volume. While it can seem oppressive at times, the preparation it provides is second to none. It is a must-have for an obosits at any level.



2. This is a great book for teaching musicians phrasing. We're using it in our flute masterclasses.

2 comments about Ethan, Suspended.

1. The world needs more books like Ethan Suspended, where today's real kids wrestle with today's real problems. After a series of unfortunate events in his suburban middle school, Ethan is left hanging, high and dry, in his grandparents' neighborhood of Washington, D. C. Like an immigrant from another planet, he has to adapt to survive. Some kids might try to blend in. Ethan knows that's not an option. Instead he becomes a standout as the first ever jazz oboist at Parker Middle School. Ehrenberg unflinchingly lays bare the challenges that middle school kids face every day. Ethan, Sherita, Daron, Felix, Diego - each is a real ordinary kid who might be just like the kid sitting next to you on the bus. Each has a story worth telling. This story will give kids plenty to talk about as they compare the people and problems in the book to people and problems they encounter every day. Readers who like Ethan Suspended might also enjoy Danger, Long Division where another real kid growing up in the shadow of our nation's capital struggles with school problems and absent parents. Also, coming soon, Finch Goes Wild tells the adventures of another middle school musician just across the river from Ethan's neighborhood.



2. This debut YA novel takes the classic fish-out-water setup and applies it to a good Jewish kid from suburban Philadelphia. After getting into some minor trouble with friends, Ethan Oppenheimer is suspended from school. His timing is bad though -- his parents are in the midst of a separation, his mother can't cope with anything, and so she dumps him with his grandparents in Washington, D.C. The real kicker is that it's not just for the holiday break... Unbeknownst to him, Ethan is supposed to finish the school year at a public high school in D.C. where he'd be the only white kid!
   
   This setup (more or less the opposite of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air") allows the story to explore plenty of social and political issues from the perspective of a middle-class white kid (ie. pretty much the target audience for most YA fiction). Ethan is confronted for the first time with issues of race (both the experience of being a minority, and the tensions between his black and Latino classmates), class (the relative poverty of his classmates, and the spendthriftiness of his grandparents), friendship (none of his friends from back home try to reach him, and figuring out how to make friends in DC is tough) and family (his sense of isolation from his sister who's in college, his dad who never calls, and his mother who calls seemingly against her will). These issues arise organically out of the story and never feel contrived, which is quite an accomplishment.
   
   The book has a few minor flaws, for example one reason for Ethan's feeling of isolation is lack of internet access, however that could have been easily resolved by a trip to any public library, something Ethan would definitely had known. A subplot involving Washington's history during the civil rights era and Ethan's family doesn't lead to much of anything. And I felt that Ethan's experience as being the only white kid in a D.C. public school was probably much easier than it would be in reality. But these are relatively minor quibbles about a book that would be excellent for a teen or middle-school book/discussion group.
   
   In general, the book feels wholly authentic, probably because the author taught in a junior high school in Washington, D.C. and has parents not unlike Ethan's grandparents! It's also to be commended for avoiding the kind of neat, tidy ending common to YA novels. Readers will face a little ambiguity at the end and not everything is spelled out, which might be frustrating to some, but feels true to life. Some answers can be found in "Ethan's" MySpace page where he blogs about what happens after the book ends...

5 comments about Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music.

1. As a former music performance major, I strongly recommend this book to all performing musicians. I wish this book had been published before entering the musical world on a far more serious level. These days if you are not a Joshua Bell or Rostropovich than you will not make it in the professional performing world.
   This book is a serious eye-opener to the suspicions and thoughts I had only mused upon.



2. This book is important beyond its obvious criticisms. For one thing, it is a rather rich chronicle of a particular time and place in the New York performing arts world. It is also a cautionary tale about the choices you make as a performing artist, and so it is important for younger artists to read. If you have an intuitive sense that you have something more to say, as a musician, than to be a minor cog in the large wheel of the music business, then realize it early and find a path for yourself that doesn't constrict you.
   
   On a larger scale, to read the statistics and view the panorama of the American classical music world over many decades is an instruction all to itself. It's not been parsed this way by any other writer, and this particular author has an insight into it that has a depth that is missed by journalists who are not invested in the mission of the music itself.
   
   There's no spin in this story, and that is invaluable.
   
   Judging the writer's personal life and the choices to "out" people by name? That's an individual thing, but it's fascinating all the same. She doesn't out anyone without also outing herself. Take it or leave it.
   
   
   



3. Like many of the other reviewers I found this book to be disjointed and not a work of insight to classical music. This is a autobiography of a non-famous person, which also is the best review and description I can give of this work. If you like hearing the intimate details of someone you don't really know that well or care about, this would be appropriate. However, if you were looking for more information about the saucy world behind classical music, you would be gravely disappointed.



4. I am a flutist pursuing a performance career. I have had a couple of teachers who made choices in their lives similar to the sleeping around that Blair Tyndall did as a freelance oboist in NYC. These teachers did not have decent morals in the way the interacted with their students and had a negative effect on me; I left their studios very little respect for them as both musicians and as people.
   In addition, I have had the good fortune of having great teachers who are amazing human beings as well. These people developed their careers through intelligent, hard work, winning auditions, legitimate networking (not the sleeping around Blair claims she did to win gigs and eventually lose them)and guiding fine students along the way. I have tremendous respect for them and they have set a fine example as to how to create a fulfilling life for oneself.
   In music school, I knew a colleague who was going down essentially the same path as Blair. This colleague eventually dropped out of school and disappeared. She had talent, but because of her lack of control over her personal life, drug problems, immaturity, and lack of responsibility she did not make use of her talent.
   These examples demonstrate that Mozart in the Jungle serves as a recipe as to how not to pursue a career in classical music. Although, some of the anecdotes about the lack of finances for the arts are definitely worth noting. How shameful Blair does not have the creativity or insight to devise some possible solutions to the problems classical music is facing in North America.
   Blair, it is time for you to realize that you had a huge role to play in the hardships you suffered in your life. Did you honestly think you could sleep with colleagues, jilt them, and never face any consequences? Bashing an industry in which you never truly wanted to have a career will not do you or anyone any good. Nor will exposing all of your personal dramas and sexual encounters.
   No Vivaldi in the Garage by Sheldon Morgenstern is a much better book for learning about one's experience in classical music and to learn about how create new opportunities for the genre in our world.



5. Like some others who have offered reviews, I was also a musician in New York during some of the time Blair Tindall writes about in her book. I was a student at Juilliard from 1975 to 1979 and stayed in New York until 1980, when I left to work in Caracas, like many other young American conservatory graduates.
   
   It's fascinating to read a memoir which repeatedly mentions people I knew or at least met, and describes a world I recall vividly. The book is right on the mark, and what makes this such an amazing read is its honesty. You simply will not find a memoir that is LESS self-serving than this one, and that alone is reason enough to read it. If you are not of the classical music and musical theater world, this book will be amusing and eye-opening; for the rest of us, from this world, the experience will be that plus tired familiarity with the horrible situation that confronts those of us that try to make a living this way.
   
   I have also experienced much of what she did -- at the Beacon and Bretton Hall, not the Allendale; drinking, coke, dope, and black beauties in the stairways of Juilliard rather than the Manhattan school; showing up at the Juilliard prom ripped on amphetamines and wearing a gorilla suit; streaking around the Beacon Hotel at 2am on a cold February morning; parties that lasted days, not hours, and my Juilliard confreres approaching me in wonder (some knew I was part of this circle of demented composers and pianists) asking "is that party STILL going?". But classical musicians, as Ms. Tindall points out, are no different than bankers, stockbrokers, housewives, clerks, etc etc. We all did crazy and stupid things. Some of us did go to Plato's Retreat (pre-AIDS, of course). That was life in New York around 1980.
   
   And Blair, if you're reading this ... sorry I didn't meet you or work with you. I met Lionel down in Caracas, as I used to play chamber music with Peter, his lover. Great book! I hope you write more, maybe on the L.A. scene.

5 comments about Marcel Tabuteau: How Do You Expect to Play the Oboe If You Can't Peel a Mushroom?.

1. My copy of Laila Storch's book just arrived in the US Post, and what a surprise! First off all, the Amazon.com box was a heck of a lot heavier than I thought it would be. I was expecting this book to be a fairly slim volume of reminiscences and maybe some explication of Tabuteau's teaching and theories.
   
   But it is SO much more! It is an absolutely vital, comprehensive memoir by Ms. Storch, who herself has clearly had a really interesting life so far, as well as just about every possible thing one could hope to know about Marcel Tabuteau.
   
   As a book publisher myself since 1985 -- and a proud alumnus of Indiana University, whose Press published this book -- I've got to beam about production values: This is a 600+ page book, gorgeously bound in "British racing green" linen covers, a smart-looking jacket with a great photo of the master himself, golden binder's bands top and bottom at the glued AND sewn (!) binding, printed on a super premium matte / semi-gloss finish, heavy pure white paper. It's just a beautiful production job, really what books should look like, and I am so proud to be a publisher right now, holding and beholding this thing.
   
   There are some absolutely terrific archival photos, too. My favorite, having leafed through the book in 10 minutes or so, is on page 166, "The Philadelphia Orchestra Ensemble, 1923," which includes Tabuteau, famous bassoonist Ferdinand Del Negro and super-famous flautist William Kincaid, all in their handsome youth.
   
   But wait, there's more: A bonus audio CD is blister-packed at the back of the book, containing what could be Tabuteau's last recordings, made in his home in Nice, with excerpts PLAYED FROM MEMORY (no sheet music in the apartment). Not bad for a near-77-year old, even if he did do this all of his life.
   
   It's an honor to own this book, Ms. Storch. Thank you so much for sharing it with us!



2. The world of the oboist is very small. Yet, almost anything happening in the world can affect an oboist. The historical perspectives offered in this book connect politics, war, drought, and serendipitous opportunity to the small world of oboe playing. Laila Storch gives a perspective of how one musician's determination to excel transforms not just a generation of oboists, but a generation of musicians on the American musical stage. Her insights to Tabuteau's personality, approach to life, and desire to strive for an ideal in everything from making reeds to cooking a meal make for an enjoyable read.



3. This is a magisterial biography of one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. It is meticulously researched, beautifully written and brings to life a remarkable man for those who never had the opportunity to work with him. For those of us who were fortunate enough to have done so, it is a wonderful and lively memory bank, bringing together the reminiscences of a large number of people who studied with him or were colleagues. I recommend it most highly to anyone interested in Tabuteau, and anyone interested in how one person can affect the style of playing of an entire nation.



4. The book offers a much needed portrait of one of the most influential woodwind players in 20th century America. All students or teachers of music should have this in their library. The historical references and personal insights are fascinating and inspiring. Ms. Storch was lucky to have had such a great teacher, and M. Tabuteau was even more lucky to have had such a dedicated, respectful student who writes well.



5. Marcel Tabuteau is a name any wind player of my age (60+) has been familiar with for many years. As a teenager, I purchased the "First Chair" album with Tabuteau and other pricipal players of the Philadelphia Symphony soloing. This is a very well written and thorough book on his life that any musician, and certainly any wind player, should read.