Overcoming technical and musical challenges for the oboe using excerpts from orchestral and solo repertoire

This document serves as a guide for college oboists who wish to improve their playing by targeting technical and musical challenges with annotated excerpts from orchestral and solo oboe repertoire.

The contents of this essay are categorized by eighteen different performance challenges such as intonation, little-finger agility, dynamic contrast through the full range of the oboe, half-hole technique, phrasing, and rapid tonguing. Each chapter begins by identifying technical or musical difficulties and provides advice on how to overcome it using excerpts from the oboe repertoire. Each chapter presents two annotated orchestral excerpts and one solo oboe excerpt that targets the technical or musical difficulty. The orchestral excerpts are selected from standard orchestral repertoire from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. The oboe solo excerpts are selected from the repertoire that is widely taught in most universities. In conjunction with professional instruction, this guide may aid in improving an oboe student's performance abilities.

My goal in writing this guide is two-fold: to give aspiring oboists a task-specific tool to use as they struggle with musical and technical impediments, and at the same time, to familiarize them with orchestral and solo oboe repertoire.