FBQD

27. June 2012 · 4 comments · Categories: FBQD

Which oboe fingering in the Essential Elements oboe fingering chart is wrong? Hint: It’s one of the first notes you teach your beginning students.

I don’t have the book, so I can’t answer this one. Anyone?

4 Comments

  1. Bret Pimentel
    June 28, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    My teachers’ edition Essential Elements 2000 calls for half-hole on the high C-sharp, though that wouldn’t be one of the first notes I would teach. Everything else basically checks out as far as I can see, though some matters of opinion come into play about use of the E-flat key for forked F (which EE calls for, and doesn’t explain the difference) and about what to press with the right hand for high D (EE calls for nothing).

  2. Patty
    June 28, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    Ah, it’s the E-flat key on F. That’s a big no-no for my kiddos!

  3. David Cushman
    June 29, 2012 at 12:23 am

    Yes indeed, Patty. (I looked at the fingering chart for the book at “Look inside” at Amazon.) It appears to me that, as far as the two lower F’s are concerned, they are assuming that the oboe has no resonance key. (So, el cheapo oboes – but still accurate for many public school bands?) The book also says, “The most common fingering appears first when two fingerings are shown.” So it seems they also think forked F (with E flat for the resonance key) is “most common” for F. Things fall apart a lot more once we hit the third octave. The other commenter points out the book’s dictum for half-hole on D flat. But that’s just the beginning. High D doesn’t include the right-hand C key. E and F omit the E flat key. (In addition to my own training, my source on fingerings is Martin Schuring’s chart.) . . . What a horrible book.

  4. Patty
    June 30, 2012 at 8:08 am

    Even if a student of mine doesn’t have the F resonance key (although they should since I refuse to even begin a student if they don’t have a decent instrument) I won’t allow the E flat key. I do this for a reason: I struggled for YEARS to recover from that fingering! (I didn’t learn left F for eons either and it continues to be a problem for me.)

    I always tell students, and I’ve written about this on the blog, that they shouldn’t trust fingerings in books, and I try to get people who write to me to understand that beginning oboe students really need a private instructor!