Skip to main content

Listen and Learn

I've been enjoying these past few weeks of relative leisure, and I'm finding myself in a new part of my creative cycle. This week I am seeking outside inspiration. I am reading other people's blogs and listening to recordings and watching videos. I'm still doing my own work, of course - plugging away at the early stages of preparing my next sets of music - but I want to hear how other people turn their phrases or what kinds of sound and color choices they are making or what they are thinking about.

I believe, deeply, that listening to music is an important part of growing as a performer. You can learn so much from hearing what others do. I think I am not alone among musicians, however, when I say that by the time I finish my day or my week filled with orchestral rehearsals and performances, my own personal practice time, and my focused attention to the playing of my students, the last thing I want to do is to seek out other oboists or hear one more note of classical music.

In general I don't want to do what everyone else is doing. I do listen to recordings as I prepare music, but not to copy other people's phrasing choices. Most often I listen just to hear the big picture - the harmonies and orchestral colors going on around my solos - but this week I definitely find myself listening to the personalities of the performers and the choices they are making. How are they turning their phrases? What goes into the sounds they are making? I want to non-judgmentally analyze what I hear and try to duplicate their techniques - in private, in my practice room - so that I have access to those different colors and ideas. So that I can develop a wider menu of choices for myself.

I have never been interested in mimicking the interpretations or styles of others, but no one operates in a vacuum. All interpreters are building on the backs of others. If you don't listen to the people who have come before you, aren't you just forever reinventing the wheel? Moreover, if I rely only on my own sense of musical phrasing, without letting any new ideas in, I can only be as good as I am right now. In other words, of course many of my musical ideas come from my teachers, and from the music I've heard throughout my life, and from great performances I have attended or heard. If I stop listening then there is no way for me to develop further. I can only do the things I've already thought of.

So. This week I feel like listening, and learning from others. Players far better than I as well as student performances on YouTube. There is always something to consider - an interesting turn of phrase, or a mannerism that I can remind myself NOT to do. When I practice every day in a vacuum bad habits can creep in, and my project this week of listening as much as possible is helping to keep me honest.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...

Exciting Upcoming Concerts

The South Bend Symphony has a great concert this weekend that I've been really excited about. If you are in town you should definitely try to attend, as it features Prokofiev's thrilling Symphony no. 5 AND our marvelous concertmistress, Zofia Glashauser, playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. However, I will not be there. This Friday and Saturday I am playing Strauss's Ein Heldenleben with the Milwaukee Symphony , and loving every single minute. This orchestra sounds spectacular, and here's why. They rehearse. They have plenty of time to really listen to each other and get things right. This morning, our service was a wind sectional, which blew my mind. Almost 2 full hours with only the winds and brass, just on this one 40-minute piece. The conductor worked with us on every detail. Intonation, articulation, ensemble, balance, style. And still we have another full orchestra rehearsal tomorrow as well as the dress. I haven't sat in a winds-only rehearsal...

Beauty of Sound

In our dress rehearsal Saturday afternoon, the conductor did exactly what I often do to my students - he asked the violins to play more beautifully, and they did.  He didn’t tell them how, or give them a flowery expressive speech, he just asked for more beauty of sound, and they immediately gave it to him.  To a great extent the sound we produce is set, based on our equipment and the shape of our mouths and our bodies - but it can be altered, too.  Adjustments in reeds and instruments can go a long way, but the key change we can make is in our own minds. I don’t know how to explain it physically, but if you determine the sound you want to make you can produce it.  Or at least you can lean in and approach it.  This is something I’ve been paying a lot of attention to lately in my own playing.  As I prepare the Saint-SaĆ«ns Sonata to perform on our Oboe Studio Recital (tonight at 7 - details HERE ), my approach is largely about beauty of sound and vibrato....