It was at this point I realized I had bitten off a little more than I could chew. This is a great metaphor because my jaw genuinely hurts now after learning this piece.

I won’t lie: my performance here isn’t excellent. It is, however, the best I could do, so I’m still going to try to be proud of it. The patterns I talked about in a previous post make a lot of sense when you’re playing a scale, but they aren’t helpful when you’re playing an actual piece of music (especially one with eighth notes in it).

Despite its challenges, I’m really happy I chose to learn this instrument as part of my inquiry this semester. It is the only instrument that I haven’t immediately been able to figure out after picking it up, and I genuinely enjoyed the challenge. I went from having no knowledge of double reeds to being able to play three scales and everything in the first Standard of Excellence method book. That’s an achievement! I feel confident that I will now be able to help out any beginner oboe students that I may have in my future.

Farewell oboe, it’s been fun. For your final listening pleasure: Minuet.