My Loree AK full automatic and my Baroque oboe
After having stopped playing my oboe for almost 10 years, I am now playing it again. I’ve been practicing now for almost a year (since August 2010). Technique, endurance, sound are little by little coming back along with reed making skills. Since then, I’ve been sitting in on the oboe masterclasses that are offered to oboe students here at the University of Arizona. This has allowed me to review many oboe related topics I no longer remembered, learn new information, and play a little with others. This past semester, I had the opportunity of playing with the University’s symphony orchestra. It has been wonderful being able to make music again and realize that I’m not that bad after all these years.
I have been planning on telling more about my return to oboe here in my blog and this will happen in future posts. I have also wanted to post some recent recordings of me playing. This is still on my plans and I’ve been preparing myself for it. However, with the end of the semester at the university along with a bad cold, I had to stop the practice for a few days. I am already back though, but one day without practice means two days to catch up; one week with no practice, well, takes a little while to catch up.
I decided to do something different though. I did recorded myself playing (today), but I didn’t play my oboe. I played my Akai EWI USB, a wind controller.
Akai EWI USB
The piece is the Gloria Domine Deus by Vivaldi for voice, oboe, and continuo. I played the voice and oboe parts on the EWI and created a MIDI file for the continuo. The only editing I did was to put the parts together. I think the final product came out really nice.
Press play below and check it out. (For whatever reason, I’m not being able to play this on Google Chrome and on Internet Explorer, but it plays on Firefox. By the way, this is a Flash player.)
I added the player below so that the piece can be played on (hopefully) all browsers. I just wasn’t very happy with the sound quality of this player. It seems like some of the fullness of the sound is lost. That’s why I kept the player above.
Well, this was fun, now back to my work: the dissertation…
PauloMusic's Blog 
Good show!
Putting together MIDI accompaniment and so on is a lot more time consuming that one would think! Do indeed continue to make these recordings…. without neglecting your dissertation!
Cool, the AKAI MIDI controller. You can actually perform with feeling with it. But I’d REALLY like to hear your baroque oboe!
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Thanks for the comment, Robin!
You are right, preparing the MIDI accompaniment is time consuming. It’s funny you mentioned that you’d like to hear my Baroque oboe. I prepared this accompaniment to record with the Baroque oboe. Because I am just back to practice after not playing for more than a week, my embouchure is not yet ready for prime time, but the recording will happen. I’m also checking my recording devices. I don’t have anything fancy, so I’ll probably have to make it work with the webcam mic or the headset mic.
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