I think I have about 10 hours a week I could devote to learning. Is that enough? Would one need to devote 20+ hours a week to be any good?
I wish “How hard is it to learn to play the oboe?” was a pit rant.
It’s a beautiful sounding instrument - I had no idea it could evoke pit-worthy anger; but hey, if a mod wants to move it I wouldn’t object.
Reminds me of one of my favorite music jokes:
What’s the difference between an onion and an oboe?
Nobody cries when you chop up an oboe.
My apologies; what I meant was that a rant in the Pit entitled “How hard is it to learn to play the oboe?” would no doubt be amusing.
This is based on long-ago memories; I’m sure there are others whose experience is a bit more contemporary!
I started on alto sax back in 4th grade many, many moons ago. In 7th grade, I picked up the oboe and played it for four years before giving up school band/orchestra altogether (hey, I discovered the guitar, and that was it!).
As a double-reed instrument, I would say it’s more difficult to play than a sax or clarinet. The biggest thing is getting a smooth sound out of it without squeaking. In terms of fingering, it’s a little more difficult than the sax but probably a bit less so than the clarinet (in that you don’t have to cover any holes).
Not to be gross about it, but the biggest problem I had with the oboe is that spit is constantly collecting inside of it. I was forever swabbing the damn thing out with a turkey feather!
I played oboe for about 2 years, and DChord’s post is pretty much as I remember it.
I didn’t have any trouble with the double reed tho; I remember hooting just fine from day 1. The secret to avoiding the squeak is to practice a lot and get your embouchure perfect early on in your playing. At first, playing for longer than a minute or two will irritate your lips (especially the upper); know that over time you will become fairly inured to this. I recall sitting while doing homework and just buzzing the reed.
I took up saxophone like 10 years later and found that sax is easier to finger than oboe, but just barely. Both are way easier than clarinet, tho.
I can highly recommend the John Williams Superman theme as a terrific fun song to play on oboe. The parts aren’t hard at all and they are recognizable in the music once you know what to listen for and when.
And yeah, because of the double reed and the necessity of keeping your lips lubricated, oboes seem to collect a lot of spit.
My best friend played oboe in school band. All I remember was that the entire time he was blowing into it, his face was beet-red. No idea why, but I just assumed that it was difficult to play.
“Who was that oboe I saw you with last night?”
“That was no oboe, that was my fife!”
It’s incredibly easy to learn oboe. It probably only takes about 40 hours to be one of the best oboists in the world.
Although you do have to put in those 40 hours every week for 5 to 10 years.
At the end of the first guitar lesson I had my teacher told me, “You’re probably almost as good a player as Eric Clapton was after his first lesson. Try not to let the gap get wider.”
Oboes take less air to play than any other instrument. So, when taking a breath, beginners need to learn to exhale fully before inhaling again.* If your friend wasn’t doing that, he may have been holding onto his stale air for too long. That might explain why his face was so red. It’s not unheard of for beginning oboists to breathe improperly. Sometimes fainting is the result.
*Advanced players generally use a circular breathing technique instead.
Can you already play the clarinet? I don’t play either, but I’ve heard most people learn the clarinet first, then graduate to oboe or bassoon. Both are regarded as really difficult.
I’m an expert, because I played alto and tenor sax in high school for 2 1/2 years! The bandmaster (a sax player) also had an oboe and bassoon and would encourage us to try them – nobody in the band played them as regular instruments.
(I joined the band because at my military boarding school, they had more fun and had privileges, ate first, due to always winning the monthly inter-company competition. Evidently grades mattered more than sports! I’m a musician but didn’t play any marching band instruments, but figured I could learn, and so sax it was, at the recommendation of the bandmaster.)
I was a good enough natural (unschooled) musician to have a pretty good idea of how mediocre I sounded on sax. I never did get a tone I liked, and couldn’t bend notes (only later learning that this takes a more curved mouthpiece, which I wouldn’t have been able to handle anyway.)
Bassoon and oboe weren’t particularly difficult, no doubt with beginner reeds. The pitch is a lot more stable. I doubt I got a good tone, but didn’t have anyone to compare it with. The fingering was trickier, but in the long run, fingering is the easy bit, which just takes time and not a lot of insight or taste or sense of quality of music.
Why the oboe, though? The easiest instruments for an adult to learn and get good enough on that people aren’t annoyed are guitar and ukulele. (Don’t laugh at a uke! They’re very interesting and useful instruments, and happen to be in vogue right now. They’ll still be great when that fad passes.)
Regardless, it’s tough to learn to play an instrument as an adult, mainly for 3 reasons, in increasing order of importance:
- you have far less time than a child. However, 10 hr/wk is an excellent commitment.
- you don’t have the brain of a child anymore, and you learn differently
- you have the refined discrimination and sensibilities of an adult.
The last item is by far the most significant. Where a child can do something simple and get a real kick out of it, an adult, after a life of listening to music made by experts, has much higher thrill thresholds. If you can get over this, and learn to enjoy and appreciate simple improvements, and cultivate a child-like attitude (with an adult’s discipline!), you’ll have slain the biggest dragon.
They say it takes 10K hours of doing something to be expert level, so don’t expect expert level from yourself, at least not for 1000 weeks. You don’t have to be expert level to enjoy playing. I’ve played piano for 10K hours, and probably guitar for nearly that, and I’m still not what I’d call an expert. But I can play in bands and with good musicians and in front of people and not be too embarrassed!
One bit of advice: figure out a way to play with others, once you get a year under your belt. Also, seriously consider lessons. Very seriously! I did without lessons, but trust me, it’s the slow way, and I’ve spent plenty of time unlearning bad habits, and can’t learn certain new things as quickly because I can’t sight read.
Good luck and enjoy!
I remember oboe reeds being too expensive for me to continue playing when I was in high school. It can be cheaper if you learn to make your own.
I’ve been wanting to learn to play an instrument for a long time. At first I wanted to learn to play the oboe because I like the sound and the fact that if I wanted to play with others, oboe players are more of a needed item in amateur orchestras than many other instruments. Then I found out that the oboe, or any double reed instrument, has an added benefit for me outside of all these things in that it helps strengthen certain muscles which helps treat certain kinds of sleep apnea - so playing the oboe kills 2 birds with one stone for me. I may just try learning the clarinet instead though given the difficulties in learning to play the oboe.
I already can do circular breathing fortunately - I learned it when I began playing the didgeridoo. I’m glad nobody was watching me in the early stages - it probably looked pretty amusing.
No kidding! Well, then, great! There’s certainly no great excess of oboe players!
You should have seen me the first and only time I played bagpipes. Then again, maybe not.