Care and Feeding of Your Freshmen Double Reeds Dr
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Care and Feeding of Your Freshmen Double Reeds Dr. Mark Rogers Does this sound like a scenario to cost more than the saxophone The first year comes and goes. that you have witnessed a few times music. When her parents ask If the young oboist or bassoonist in your career? A bright and talented about purchasing a student model is extremely lucky, contact has fifth grader enters your beginning instrument (since the school- been made with a private teacher band program. She/he is a bit of a owned instruments seems to have who is able to provide good reeds loner who doesn’t mind traveling been brought over on (or can tell the apart from the crowd and has taken the Mayflower) they In order for there student where to a look/listen to various instruments assume that since to be two players on purchase them), on YouTube. He has also gone out a student model oboe and two players correct the to the internet and has found a web beginner alto sax- on bassoon survive wrong fingerings site that lists the various instruments ophone can be had in the [high school] in the beginning by their relative ease or difficulty for around $2000 (or program until the band book, and and is intrigued by the statistics far less if you buy one senior year, at least demonstrate a showing that oboe and bassoon are of those saxophone- three or four players characteristic considered to be among the most shaped-objects that on each double reed sound on the challenging instruments in regular can easily be found on instrument should instrument at use in wind bands. She decides the internet), a student be started in every every lesson. to take the plunge and announces line bassoon or oboe sixth grade (If the private to you that playing a double reed should sell for about beginning class. teacher is unable instrument is what she wants to the same. Oops, a to satisfy any one do, so you arrange her schedule so beginner oboe will cost $3000 and a of these three, find another teacher that she starts the sixth grade in the beginner bassoon will cost $4500. The immediately.) beginner class that includes oboes, beginner classes start and the bright Because the pool of double reed bassoons and saxophones. sixth grader can hardly hear himself players at the middle school is A bit of shock settles in when over the roar of the saxophones in rather shallow, the young player she discovers that saxophone reeds the room. In any case, there are so finds herself in the top ensemble, sell for about $25.00 for a box many more of them than there are preparing for concert and sight- of ten, while a student line oboe of him (oh, by the way, he is the reading contest in the spring. Oboes, or bassoon reed bought over the only bassoonist in the room) that the bassoons and low brass are among internet sells for $16.00 apiece (a over-burdened band teacher trusts the instruments whose players take professional reed will cost about that the young man’s above-average the longest time to mature to the $25.00). He goes to the sheet music intelligence will help him to survive point where a characteristic sound store to look at method books only the year with crummy reeds and can be produced. Our middle school to find out that there is a much a fingering chart in the beginning band’s low brass section receives smaller selection of oboe/bassoon band book that likely contains at lots of our attention because they music available and that it seems least a few wrong fingerings. are completely indispensable to a Bandmasters Review • September 2011 19 Texas Bandmasters Association Care and Feeding of Your Freshmen Double Reeds successful trip to UIL in the spring. The oboe and learn the drill. Some double-reed players are thrust bassoon players make fairly unattractive sounds at this into the wind section of the band where they find that stage, but there is practically no music on the grade 2 they have to memorize a show and learn stand tunes or 3 list that has essential solos for these instruments, on an instrument (usually saxophone, but occasionally so the director is always asking them to blend in with one of the mid to low range brass) where they are three the flutes and clarinets (for the oboe) or with the years behind the skill level of the other members of saxophones and bass clarinets (for the bassoon). Over the section. Once summer band is over, school begins these two years, the young oboe/bassoon players learn and the young double-reed player, probably one of the to hide themselves as well as they can. It’s a lot like brighter members of her class, makes the adjustment being a groundhog —if you are noticed, the attention to the new campus, with a different routine for class that you receive is seldom positive, so you learn to changes, A/B lunch, and deals with the shock of going keep you head down and hope for the best. from being top dogs at the middle school to being at the Let’s assume that our bright, socially bottom of the food chain at the high misanthropic double-reed player stays school. Although the young person with the program all the way to the was in the top ensemble at the middle freshman year. What happens now school, only a few freshmen make it is a nightmare of epic proportions. A into the top performing ensemble at decision must be made about what the high school, often due to policy area of the marching band will be that restricts that ensemble to upper their home for the next four years. classmen. In spite of all this, the The color guard unit is a possibility for oboe and bassoon player is assigned only a few of the double-reed players. to the symphonic wind ensemble for If he or she was coordinated or the year. (Sorry, the pool of double a fine dancer, chances are that they reed players has collapsed over the wouldn’t have gone into the world years, so an exception will be made of oboe and bassoon playing anyway. to avoid those empty chairs at UIL in (The author of this article is a bassoon the spring.) Did we mention that all player, and he KNOWS what mis-fits members of the honors wind ensemble we are.) are required, as a condition of being Some double-reed players head in the top ensemble, to audition for for the “pit,” where they can find a district band (TMEA All-State) in home with the percussion players, but early November? So in addition to the some are lost to the percussion section stress of learning a new instrument for forever and others are bored standing marching band (or perhaps spending around for hours on end while the lots of quality time with the color wind players in the band master the guard instructor), our fearless oboe art of marching sideways or backwards or bassoon player is looking at three while playing their instrument as they All-State etudes in key signatures that Bandmasters Review • September 2011 20 Texas Bandmasters Association Care and Feeding of Your Freshmen Double Reeds they have never seen before, with extreme high and The highest priority should be given to securing the low notes that have never appeared in any band music services of a good teacher for oboe and bassoon to work that they have seen (do fingerings exist for notes that with the students outside of regular beginning class time high?), and to add insult to injury, the bassoonists are to work on individual problems and make sure that the looking at something they are seeing for the first instruments and reeds are functioning properly. Most time—tenor clef. of the better private teachers want to How many double-reed players The highest priority work with beginners rather than will survive this shock? Not as many should be given avoiding them; it is far better to as we would like. What do we do to to securing the establish good habits at the beginning fix it? Here are some ideas. services of a good than to try to get rid of bad habits in th th The long-range health and success teacher for oboe the 7 or 8 grade when they are of the band program at the high well established. and bassoon to work school level and beyond should be There is no easy solution to the the main focus of the public school with the students problem of expensive instruments, band program. The high school band outside of regular reeds and sheet music. The laws of is in the public eye to an extent that is beginning class supply and demand have left us with unimaginable for the middle school time to work on an unalterable situation. As long as band, primarily due to appearances individual problems there are far fewer players on oboe at football games and marching in and make sure that and bassoon than on clarinet, flute the occasional parade. If the middle the instruments and saxophone, then instruments, school program thrives while the reeds and sheet music will always be and reeds are high school program struggles, the more expensive due to the smaller situation that creates this imbalance functioning properly. level of buyers for those products.