Editor's note: John deLancie, director of the Curtis Institute, and for many years previously, first oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, delivered the following address to the IDRS convention in August. He has kindly agreed to have it reprinted here.
I have been asked to make a few comments on the early training of oboists -- more specifically as to what I feel should be stressed in their training and what I feel are weaknesses in the early training of young students as they work their way toward a professional career.
Counting on the obvious good spirits that abound on such an occasion as this convention, and the fact that I am already here-- before my comments on the subject I was asked to discuss--I am going to risk a few words on another subject which is, in my opinion, very important.
It is simply this, fifty years ago we oboe players were as scarce as hen's teeth--today there are many, many more oboe players than we know what to do with! If I may dwell a moment on the historical aspect of this . . . During the 30's, popularly referred to as the "Great Depression," even though the majority of musicians were out of work, due to the birth of sound movies as well as the drastic economic crisis, oboe players, bassoon players managed to survive. Job security was the greatest concern of every man and woman, particularly those with family responsibilities. Insecurity about the future was an ever present phantom to battle with. When parents were faced with children who refused to be discouraged in pursuing studies of a musical instrument the answer frequently was, "Well, if you have to play something, for God's sake don't make it the violin or piano. Pick something where you might make a living."
To support this parental advice, a minimum amount of research always turned up the fact that there were no oboes or bassoons in the Junior High School, High School or College Bands or Orchestras and the word had gotten around that adequate performers on these instruments could make a living. This conviction carried over to post World War II parents and continued to be a great influence for many years.
Now the pendulum has swung the other way. I need not dwell on the statistics. You are all aware of scenes of 30 to 40 people showing up for even 2nd oboe auditions with organizations that cannot even offer a living wage. This over-abundance has two negative effects. The first is the obvious one I have just referred to--the glutting of the market with a product--and its easily predictable results. The second is, in my opinion, considerably more subtle but no less dangerous in its effect on our art. I can best describe this as "a general lowering of expectations. "
Let me explain. The fact that there are easily ten times as many oboe players today as there were 45 or 50 years ago, would lead one to suppose -- relying on the laws of probabilities--that there would now be ten times as many outstanding players. (I use the word OUTSTANDING with special care. I could have said WONDERFUL, or GREAT or BRILLIANT. However, I feel sure there is no area of musical performance that has such extremes of opinion as to the definition of GREAT or TERRIBLE as the field of oboe performance.) It is, in my opinion, a puzzle that in this huge growth the law of averages or percentages does not seem to have applied in producing a comparable increase in outstanding performers. I feel this theory is demonstrable in other instruments as well.
My impression is that our top levels have not been pushed up, but our bottom levels have been raised. Please don't misunderstand me. I don't think it is bad that our floor of achievement has been substantially raised, but I do believe that this trend toward quantity can develop into a quantity over quality situation which will eventually lower the ceiling of artistic achievement. Our entire society has become accustomed to an overabundance in every area. Mass production leads to a lowering of standards. This can and does happen in music. Inferior products and workmanship flood our markets and we eventually have what I earlier referred to as "a general lowering of expectations" on the part of the public -- a euphemism for mediocrity!
I am not trying to imply that we are in any way responsible for this trend, but simply that it is a fact of life at this time. I think this is evident in all the arts -- painting, the theater, literature. Technique and skills are looked down on, ridiculed and, in some cases, even purposely ignored. Anyone is an actor simply by so declaring himself one. Anyone is a painter by the same process. We musicians are somewhat more fortunate in that you cannot become an oboe player by simply so stating. You must, to a degree, prove yourself publicly--but, I repeat, "to a degree." This general lowering of expectations eventually leads the public, and by that I mean not only the listeners, but conductors and critics, to accept levels of performance that will not force up our ceilings -of achievement.
I believe serious thought should be given to "culling the herd," so to speak but by methods that will raise our ceilings of achievement. At the stage where a student indicates a desire to think of oboe playing as a profession, it is really dishonest to lead this student on with the idea that he or she will achieve a reasonably successful career when, indeed, we have serious doubts. I am just as aware as anyone in this room of the economics of such a subject. There are no rich oboe players and in the young years of any professional, teaching is frequently the difference between making ends meet or not. Neither am I suggesting that one refuse to teach a pupil who has not evidenced serious intentions of making it his or her livelihood. However, the quantity of pupils available today is such that selectivity can be practiced by the professional teacher with very little loss of income. I have raised this issue because I think this convention is a responsible forum where such a subject can be offered as "food for thought." I am only suggesting that for everyone concerned, the future of our art will be improved by a judicious reduction in our numbers, which can and should be achieved through quality control.
Now, if I may address myself to the question of training young students. I think there are two specific areas that should be examined. First, I have frequently found in my experience a serious, and sometimes fatal, lack of the fundamentals. By this I mean scales; long tones; broken thirds; arpeggios, etc. If a student expects to acquire a really first-class technique, these are things that must be done at the outset of his or her training, since most of the music the oboe player will perform in his or her career is based on these fundamentals. For reasons that go beyond our discussion of today, I think it can be proven that if these techniques are not acquired at the beginning, it is practically impossible to acquire them later on. It goes without saying that working in these particular areas is not the most fascinating type of work. To be honest, for most young students this is drudgery and if we teachers lean too heavily on the beginning students, we find many of them drop out because it's not any "FUN." The ultimate destiny of any particular student lies, for a large part, in the hands of the teacher. The habits, patterns, concepts, and all these imply, are formed very early on. All of you who have done any extensive teaching know how difficult it is to break bad habits and how much time is spent doing this. The proper acquisition of fundamentals is not fun. There is no short cut or substitution possible through this period of comparative drudgery.
-- I underline the term "comparative". Whether or not this stage is drudgery depends upon two things: 1.) The student's true interest in really learning to play the oboe, and 2.) The teacher's ability to make this work a fascinating musical experience. How many times have I heard young oboists in auditions at The Curtis Institute play the Mozart Oboe Concerto; the Mozart Quartet; the Haydn Concerto; The Flower Clock; even the Strauss Oboe Concerto, and when asked to play scales or broken thirds, they are unable to do so. Unable to make a decent attack for a long tone, and then a diminuendo having all the grace and subtlety of a guillotine! Students never having heard of the Ferling Studies or the Barret book and being unable to sight-read some of the simple articulation exercises in the Barret book. I am not saying that Barret and Ferling are the only books to begin with, my point is simply that a proper foundation would give any talented student the ability to sight-read these exercises with a reasonable level of accuracy. I repeat, fundamentals -- scales, long tones, broken thirds, etc., etc. are not only absolute requirements for technical proficiency but also play a critical role in the ability to sight-read, one of the points that separates the men from the boys in the professional world. As music is filled with the patterns found in these fundamentals, they become -- with practice -- quite readily recognizable. The ability to recognize and hear patterns a split second in advance is frequently the difference between good and bad sight-reading. I think it is safe to say that, if both the student and the teacher had the patience, 90% of the schooling of a first-class performer could be achieved with scales, arpeggios, long tones, broken thirds, etc. I believe more emphasis on fundamentals on our part would produce benefits in two areas. It would greatly increase the abilities of our young oboe players and at the same time achieve a certain "weeding out" that I spoke of previously as being desirable.
The second point I want to make cannot be properly called a weakness, but I think that many failures can eventually be traced to this cause. I am speaking specifically of the age at which the young student starts to work seriously. They must start their studies as early as possible, granted, of course, that an unusually strong desire is manifested by the child to be involved with the oboe. I say as young as possible, because a very great part of performance technique is physical dexterity--learning to use one's fingers and achieving impeccable coordination between mind and fingers. It is when they are young that this can and MUST reach its highest level. We know that intellect can and will develop throughout life -- given the basic intelligence. But, examples of the contrary, i.e., someone developing extraordinary technical abilities on an instrument as a late starter, are so rare as to not even be considered possible. I am positive some great performers have been lost to the performing arts because they were late starters.
This question of devoting a great amount of time at an early age, and the resistance thereto by the public, is, again, a result of the Great Depression of the 30's, as it relates now to parental decision for choices of careers for their children. The unhappy memory of those days led the Post World War II parents to be over-cautious in preparing their own young ones for their life's work. This is when they set certain conditions for the child to adhere to, in planning his or her future. One is, "finish your schooling; get a degree, because you may need it--then you can go into whatever you wish to do." The second is, when the child is so insistent that some effort has to be made to get specialized training, that they agree to combine this specialized training with a heavy academic schedule in the attempt to achieve both. The first of these conditions makes them enter into highly specialized training much too late in life, for reasons I have already mentioned. The second, or doing both, even if started early, has the double-barreled effect of dissipating the efforts, because it has been proven time and time again that, with the exception of genius, there just isn't time to do both brilliantly and . . . perhaps the most important point, this -- doing both at the same time -- plants the seed of failure in the mind of the young person by saying "you might not make it, let's start preparing now for not making it." To me, a totally unacceptable concept.
Parents want to be sure that their children do not take undue risks and, certainly, work in the arts involves great risks. Young people and their parents, therefore, enter into a tacit alliance to raise the floor, but, at the same time, lower the ceiling of artistic achievement.