Valparaiso, Indiana

Archive for the ‘Oboe Orchestral Literature’ Category

# 1

Tempo markings are most important for the beginner oboist. In the first lessons of  book one a personal goal can be to play the first 10 tunes that you recognize.  There are scales, exercises, and tunes in your book one.  It is important that you play the tunes.  First, read the tunes as you play.  Second, play the tunes by memory.  Third, play the tunes at different speeds (slow, medium and fast) with a steady tempo.

# 2

Another word for tempo is BEAT. It is easy to forget how important it is to play with a steady beat or tempo.  When a beginner oboist is playing a test for their music director, one of the signs of good preparation is whether or not the oboist can keep a steady beat throughout the performance and not stop or slow down  between the first and last note of the musical piece(s) assigned for the test.

# 3

An inexpensive small electronic metronome that sounds, pulse,s and flashes light  to any beat or tempo is most helpful to beginner oboists.Playing to a steady beat is a challenge.  Kindergarten students struggle to march around the room to the beat of the music.  Dancers are experts in keeping the beat.  Young musicians are challenged to play at a steady tempo.

# 4

Remember that the beat of the music has an upbeat and a downbeat.  Some oboists think that music has only a down beat.  Thus, when they play music on the upbeat (syncopation) they often struggle in sight-reading situations.  The beat is always one and two and three and four and.  It is not just one, two, three, four.  Keeping this always in mind will help your awareness of tempo markings for all styles of music, especially in your first year of playing in book one.

# 5

It is important to know the Italian names of the tempo markings for slow, moderate, and fast beats or tempi (plural of tempo).  The metronome markings are beats per minute (M.M. =60)

Adagio, Lento, Largo = Sow or Long tempo (M.M> = 60)

Allegretto, Moderato, Andante = Moderate Tempo (M.M. = 72-96)

Allegro, Allegro Assai, Allegro Spiritoso = Fast Tempo (M.M. = 120-132)

Vivo, Vivace, Presto = Very Fast Tempo = (M.M. =144-168).