Tricks to Smooth out the Half Hole (Technique Tuesday)

Hello oboephiles and welcome to another Technique Tuesday. Today we're going to be addressing this comment, which I think is a really important aspect of oboe technique and is especially hard for adult beginners and we'll talk about why in just a minute. But before we do any of that and learn some half-hole drills and ways to practice this, hit that like button below! It's free to do, it helps out the channel a lot, and you know, if you don't do it I'll still teach you how to play the oboe, but if you want to be kind to the channel and help me along this oboe These are five tips that I think can help get you along on this half-hole technique hurdle that a lot of beginners, adult, and children like. The first tip actually has to do with why it's more difficult for adult learners to figure out how to navigate the half-hole, and this is I think right hand dominance. They're not as right hand dominant because they haven't built those habits in over the course of their life, so just be mindful that what we're doing here is going to have to do with your ambidexterity. So anything you can do to exercise your left hand would be a really good idea, and that's the first tip. Here's a really cool thing I like to do to try left hand dexterity. Take any ball and just throw it up and down with your left hand. This is a good like juggling technique my cousin showed me, and it's really easy to do with your left hand if you're sorry this is to do with your dominant hand, but it's not as comfortable with your left hand, and then actually you can actually do different things when this becomes easy with your left hand. So you might try left hand touch thumb to first finger and then catch, or throw up touch thumb the first finger touch thumb to middle finger and then catch, and if you can work on little tricks like this it can be really useful for working on just getting comfortable doing stuff with your left hand. Now these are macro motions. Tip number two has to do with the micro motions or actually do this on the oboe. Now that we've gotten used to macro motions with your left hand on the oboe you can actually feel when the hole is opening. Now there are a lot of oboe pedagogy materials out there that say you must roll to open the half hole, and I find that this actually is misleading. Now it's true that you don't want to lift up the half hole, this little hop thing that I see sometimes, but rolling to an excessive degree requires you to move the angles of all your fingers, and that's not what we're going for. So if it helps you to think of this motion as a slide, fine. If it helps you to think of it as a roll, also fine. The key is you need to gently press the first finger key at all times, this B key at all times. Now on the micro level you might start by just seeing how gently you can press it without closing it. And now it's closed. And just see how gently you can actually press the key. If you can close the key without force, you are on your way. I know a lot of people will press this key closed because they're trying not to drop the instrument. Even if you drop the instrument we can fix it, but I guarantee you you're probably not going to drop it. I guarantee you probably not. I guarantee you you're not going to drop it. You're not going to let it fall. You're too smart as a human to let it fall. So plus you've got it with the right hand anyway. So just practicing, you know, how gently you can close that key for your micro motion, and opening the key while fingering the rest of the keys in a smooth way that doesn't let it come up. So finding that ease of playing is crucial there. All right, tip number three, we're actually going to play finally. So I have this drill at opalfiles.com which you can download for free, and if some people have offered to pay, you can always sell me something if you decide it's worth something to you. But for now it's just free on opalfiles.com. Go to the description below, and we're just going to go from every note that we can think of to D natural. So we'll start with D natural just to kind of get that tone in there. I'm just kidding, it's not like that. We're just going to start D natural and go to C, and back to D natural, and D natural, and back to D natural. Going down the G scale just because it's most comfortable for most beginners. I'm going to put the metronome on 60, and we'll do it in half notes. One, two, three, four. Besides this exercise revealing all of the issues that you might have with the half hole, it's really good for showing you if you're early with the half hole or late with the half hole. So I'm going to play it two ways. One, well we'll do it three ways. So one where I'm early, one where I'm late, and one where it's in coordination. And we'll go from C to D. Did you hear it change like the pitch of the C first? Let's watch it. I'll do it again in slow motion. You know when you're hearing that, that means your half hole is opening early. So don't do that. Here's what it sounds like when the half hole is late. Again, helping you self-diagnose there, and of course the coordinated version. Last tip, tip number five. I think that's five, right? To use delicate fingers. And I've talked about this in other videos before, but it's worth practicing here. When you get ready to put your keys down, I want you to lift your fingers gently, place them on the keys, and then press them all at the same time. You have to be really conscientious, almost like a tai chi master here. So this time let's go from A to D just to mix it up. You've been watching my fingers. I've been doing it the whole time. I don't know if you noticed. You can go back and rewind it and see if you notice it, but you can lift your fingers gently and get ready for the press to really smooth it out. All right, let me know in the comments below what's working for you, what's not working so well for you. Don't forget to check out old files.com for reads, free pdfs to work on stuff. And the last bonus tip of course is just to have fun and play beautifully.