Methodology on the praxis of orchestral excerpts

featuring the oboe and english horn

Llus Calm Vidal
















1.Introduction


The orchestra audition training is a tough period in the life of any musician who wants to obtain
employment in an orchestra. This year-long process can sometimes reach a dead end if one doesnt
know how to get the best results on ones daily practice. This research is meant to be a helpful tool
for the practice of orchestral excerpts with the oboe and english horn so as to get the best results for
the audition training. The content will include information on the different parameters that make up
orchestral excerpt: rhythm and tempo, intonation, articulation, phrasing and breathing,
recommendations on the analysis of the general scores so as to get a better overview of the excerpts
presented in the research, as well as recordings to understand the evolution of said orchestral
excerpts in order to outline the future direction of the orchestra practice.

2. Research question

How can I optimise my time to get the best result on the practice of my orchestral excerpts? Does
practice and experience inevitably lead to a maximum performance? This is the question any
musician would like to get an answer to. As a musician whose ultimate goal is to win an orchestra
audition, this goes through my mind every day.
What matters is not the quantity but the quality; we, musicians, are used to study countless hours
hoping our playing will improve as more hours are spent practicing, but what matters in the end is
how will one spend the time during which one practices, so as to make the best of it. For the
accomplishment of this goal, different parameters are going to be taken into consideration, starting
with the rhythm and the tempo which it is an essential part, trying to keep them stable all the way
through, unless a change is indicated in the music. Other points to be studied are the intonation,
(which is the musicians sense of pitch, the tuning between intervals), as well as the vibrato which
helps to add expression to the music.
The following points, phrasing and breathing, are closely related.Trying to find the best places to
breathe during the performance of an excerpt will help us not just to get to the end of it without big
problems but it will also help us to get a sense of structure and phrasing.
Trying to fulfill all these parameters, the aim is to design different exercises for each of them so the
player will have an overview of the whole excerpt.


3. Background of the project

Throughout the history of the music, the oboe has been used in countless occasions as a leading
voice for its unique expressive potential. According to Heinz Holliger, The oboe, for me, is the
instrument that is closest to the human voice - it has that same direct, expressive power of
declamation, and the entire spectrum of the oboe's sound resembles that of a soprano. In fact, if you
study Bach closely, you will see that he wrote for soprano and oboe in very similar ways with
regard to range and phrase structure. And the oboe's tone is characteristically a very intense one that
projects easily in the biggest halls, unlike the softer, more elegant tone of the flute. I always try to
play the oboe and project the tone as if I were a singer.

With those words in mind, it is not hard to

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imagine why most of the composers wrote those cantabile solos for the oboe and has been a
constant presence in most of the classical music literature (e.g. Johannes Brahms Violin Concerto in
D Major op.77 or Don Juan op.20 by Richard Strauss) for instance.
Even though orchestral excerpts have been part of the process of the orchestra audition for the last
century, it is hard to find literature written on to get prepared for a successful audition. In other
fields it is easy to find books, courses and an endless array of materials on perfecting oneself; but it
seems that in the music field it is still some kind of mystical or upper level which can not be written
down; and this lack of methods is what makes the process of learning the orchestral excerpts
extremely hard.
Some similar researchs are already available, like the one written by Shen Wang

from the Miami

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University, which has some samples of exercises to practice the rhythm on some excerpts, but the
information is too general and is more like an overview on how you could practice rather than a
routine, also there is a CD with John Mack

, where he gives some tips about how to play the excerpt

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but not focusing on the technical aspect, how to practice it to make it sound properly, but just on
how it should sound.


Peter G. Davis, Heinz Holliger refutes thesis that the oboe is an ill wind, NY Times, April 10,
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1981.

Shen Wang, Basic Preparation for Oboe Auditions by Using Selected Oboe Excerpts, http://
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scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1313&context=oa_dissertations
(2009-12-02)

John Mack, Cleveland principal oboe, Orchestral excerpts for oboe, Summit records
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The research I would like to put forward is intended to show the way to achieve optimal results
practicing excerpts, by using different exercises to get the best result in each of the parameters.
To get the best set of exercises for each excerpt is essential to get the advice of top professional
oboe and english horn players, which are members of professional orchestras and also teach in well-
known music academies, after which one can create a method which will work on the main aspects
of each excerpt.
One of the strengths of this project, besides the fact it could make the audition training a more
effective work -knowing that by following the instructions one will achieve a high result at the end-,
is the fact that this research could be applied to all the other instruments, which makes it the best
ally for all who are fighting to get good results with their excerpts.

4. Theoretical framework

Although musicians are included in the performance arts, is not difficult to make an analogy with
elite athletes, whom train for several years on a daily, highly-intensity training programme, which
enables them to acquire skills are not reachable to the rest of the society. The same happens in the
music field, where, musicians are trained since early age to gain skills not intrinsic to the human
being. At this point is necessary to find out what make a musician to be a successful performer.
The importance is placed on the balance between genes and good practice, as well as the
preparation time required to achieve an exceptional performance. Stable levels of performance can
be improved by deliberate efforts; top performance is gained slowly over the years as a result of
intense practice.
Any kind of practice needs a precondition and the wish of improvement for the musician to notice
improvements and avoid errors. Practice without concentration is even counterproductive to the
improvement of performance. The secret of attaining excellence is to always maintain close
attention to every detail of performance each one done correctly, time and again, until excellence in
every detail becomes a firmly ingrained habit

.
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K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, The Role of Deliberate Practice
in the Acquisition of Expert Performance, Psychological Review, 1993, Vol. 100. No. 3, pg 371.
5. Materials and methods

This paper is divided in different sections to be accomplished, the first section is the selection of the
excerpts under consideration. These orchestral excerpts combine different characteristics, and will
be the ones most demanded during the audition process, some for their expressiveness and others
for their technical difficulty: ten to fifteen for oboe and five to ten for english horn.
The first step of the process will be the analysis of the general score so as to have an overview of
the excerpt and find the best way to present it during an audition. This is accomplished by taking
into consideration the various parameters mentioned before. After this analysis, the conclusions will
be discussed with professional musicians, which will contribute with their own experiences on the
stage.
Once we get a clear general idea of how the excerpt should be presented, the second section of the
project will begin: the creation of a programme to put this idea into practice, creating optimal
exercises to reach all the parameters involved in the performance of the orchestral excerpt, exercises
which eventually be used as part of a daily routine, like an elite athlete has their day-to-day training
to get the best results.
The third section will start after the programme is created, when it is time for the programme to be
tested on fellows in a one month test. The first two weeks will be dedicated to study the
improvement made by the musicians themselves on a list of five oboe orchestral excerpts and one
english horn orchestral excerpt which be selected from the Orchester Probespiel book.

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Afterwards there will be an internal audition during which the excerpts will be played in accordance
to the fellows ideas, and the performance will be evaluated by a professional jury, paying attention
to the parameters to be improved. After this first approach to the excerpt the students will be given
five more oboe orchestral excerpts and one english horn orchestral excerpt with the same difficulty,
but this time a programme made specially for the orchestral excerpts will be given to the fellows
together with the orchestral excerpts to be played.
After a two weeks training with the programme designed for these orchestral excerpts, the same
jury will evaluate the improvement of the fellows and contrast it with the previous results they
obtained.

Orchester Probespiel. Test pieces for orchestral auditions (Oboe - Englisch Horn - Oboe d
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Amore), Editoral Peters
This study should be done with different levels from first years of bachelor until last years of master
programmes to see how different groups react to the same programme.

6. Additional information

During my musical career I have got the pleasure to work with many different conductors such as
Antoni Ros Marb, Josep Caball, Essa Pekka Saraste, Dale Clevenger, Rolf Gupta, Peter Szilvay
among others, working on the major classical repertoire which has allowed me to experience on
first hand the performance of the oboe and english horn major orchestral excerpts. Acquiring a
whole view of the context where the orchestral excerpt is presented. On the same time I have got
the chance to attend to masterclasses with most of the top oboe musicians such as, Christoph
Hartmann, Stefan Schilli, Jerome Guichard, Nancy Ambrose King, Christian Wetzel, Gregor Witt
etc. where I have got the chance to get very useful help on the orchestral excerpt preparation.

This research would be presented in two different parts, the first part it would consist on a book
with the method before explained where oboe players would be able to find all the exercices to
improve their orchestral excerpt practice. The second part would consist on a paper where the
research would be explained, and all the results based on the method could be find.

The research would be structured based on a three years programme where the first semester will be
focus on the attendance of compulsory courses in Methodology, Ethics and Philosophy of Science,
after this courses the research would start with the first step, the analysis of the general score, so as
to have an overview of the excerpt and find the best way to present it during an audition.
On the second year the two semesters would be organised based on the results obtained from the
analysis of the general score, the conclusions of this analysis will be discussed with professional
musicians, which will contribute with their own experiences on the stage and the creation of a
programme to put this idea into practice, creating optimal exercises to reach all the parameters
involved in the performance of the orchestral excerpt. The last year would be used to test the
programme on the fellows.Afterwards the performance will be evaluated by a professional jury,
paying attention to the parameters to be improved. And the final step would be the analysis of all
the data obtained and presented as a part of the results given by the method.