Julia Fabian – Adopt a Student

Participant Statement and Reflection

I taught an oboe lesson to my friend Alyssa Downing. Alyssa is a senior music education major. She is a

vocalist (soprano) in Dr. Madison’s studio. She does not play any instrument.

Overall, I feel that this process went smoothly. When I created my lesson plan, I knew exactly what I

wanted to do and felt confident that it would be possible for my student. For the most part, I believe that my

objectives were met. If anything, the objectives of playing with good tone and articulation were not quite met.

However, considering Alyssa has never played a double reed instrument and has struggled on other wind

instruments (I gave her one flute lesson last semester for my flute pedagogy class), I think she did surprisingly well.

She came in saying “Wait, that’s not an oboe, that’s a bassoon!” and left being able to play Hot Cross Buns.

I feel that my planning was effective. We mostly stuck to the lesson plan I wrote, but we did have to take

some extra time on some things, such as crowing on the reed and hand placement. Going into teaching this lesson,

I honestly did not feel very prepared. Oboe is proving itself to be very complicated, so I was worried about

teaching something I struggle to understand. However, it worked out! When Alyssa struggled to originally get a

sound crowing on the reed, I recommended she soak it more, and as soon as she did, she could do it easily. When

she had trouble holding the instrument properly, I modeled the way her hand and fingers need to stay gently

curved and away from the rest of the side keys. Additionally, I was able to compare how you may not put a finger

on every key to flute. Overall, I think that I was able to address her unique needs, considering her lack of

experience.

Although I did not feel prepared going into teaching this lesson, I surprised myself by being able to explain

and demonstrate things well. Alyssa was quick to understand the placement of the reed in the mouth because of

my instruction. I was also able to give her a good explanation as to how the reed works and how you get it to

vibrate. I explained that you really had to create a good, firm seal around the reed and give a lot of (A LOT) fast

(faster than you think) air.

While I was able to problem-solve some of the issues Alyssa had, I struggled with some things. A few

times she struggled to get the correct pitch out (she was getting notes out that were too high). I was not quite

sure what to tell her. Having more or less reed in her mouth did not help and I was not sure how to explain trying

to change her air direction without her changing her air speed and not getting any sound at all. I kind of just told
Julia Fabian – Adopt a Student

her to play around with her embouchure and just try something different and eventually it worked, but I do not

actually know what solved the problem.