How to increase your stamina on oboe

 When playing the oboe you need a lot of stamina in order to be able to play an entire recital or concert. Some pieces require a lot of stamina and sometimes it can be hard to have enough stamina to get through the whole piece. Therefore, I would like to give my ideas to how to increase your stamina.

Start with lighter reeds

When you want to increase your stamina many immediately starts playing on harder reeds, but this is not good to do for too long. A better way is to play on reeds that are a bit to the lighter side of what you like, and in this way, you are able to play the whole piece and practice long enough to learn the piece. 

 

Increase the strength of the reed

When you have been playing on lighter reeds for some time and you feel that you don’t play down your embouchure completely when you practice, then you can start to increase the strength of your reeds. But it is very important not to increase a lot at a time. You might want to just increase a bit strength and not play on the harder reeds for the entire practice. You can start your practice on the harder reed and when you get tired change to the lighter one.

 

Play long tones

A great way to increase your stamina is to play long tones. Start each day with 10 minutes of long tones and play as loud as you can while still having a nice and round sound. You should definitely avoid forcing the sound. When you play the long tones, it is good to play with a tuner and focus on having the right intonation all the time so the note doesn’t change intonation when you get tired. Play as long notes as possible, but take a breath if you are not able to keep a good sound and intonation.

 

Play through your piece

If you as an example need to play Strauss oboe concerto at a concert, you need to know that you are able to play the whole concerto without running out of stamina. Well in advance of the concert you need to start playing through the whole piece. The first time you might feel that it didn’t go very well, but within a few play throughs you will get better and better. By doing this you give yourself the best possible chance to play well in the concert.