
The TN Tech Oboe Studio
Welcome to our TN Tech oboe page! Our oboe studio is a family, and we work together to help each other succeed. I can't wait to see all of the great things my students will achieve both while they are here at Tech and after they finish their degrees. Keep reading to learn more about our oboe studio!
Dr. Adduci's live recordings and teaching videos are available on the "Recordings" tab!
Join us on Saturday, April 15, 2023 for our third annual TN Tech Double Reed Forum, an all-day double reed experience featuring recitals, workshops, masterclasses, vendors, instrument repair, reed making, and a performance by the TN Tech Double Reed Ensemble! Keep an eye on our registration website, tntech.edu/drforum, for more information. See you there!
Follow the oboe studio on Instagram (@tntech_oboes)
and Facebook (@TNTechOboe)!
Summer 2022 update: the oboe studio continues the long-term research project we began in 2021, looking at the relationship between air pressure and loudness during wind instrument performance. Oboe players are invited to come to campus and participate in our project as a research subject; current Tech music students can work with Dr. Adduci to develop and conduct their own experiment!


Audition requirements for prospective students:
Auditions are in February and March for the following academic year. Get more information and sign up for an audition at tntech.edu/musicscholarships!
In addition to playing scales from memory (all major and minor scales, two octaves to high D), the audition candidate should prepare approximately 10 minutes of music for the audition. Entire pieces are not required - individual movements or excerpts are acceptable. The candidate should prepare a combination of materials that showcase their technical and lyrical abilities. Please contact me if you have any questions about auditions!
Examples of suitable repertoire:
Cimarosa, Concerto for Oboe in C Major
Ferling, 48 Studies for Oboe, Op. 31
Marcello, Concerto for Oboe in C Minor
Mozart, Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370
Nielsen, Two Fantasy Pieces
Saint-Saëns, Sonata for Oboe, Op. 166
Telemann, Sonata for Oboe in G Minor







Lunch in Knoxville with our recent graduates: Spencer, Hunter, Cynthia, Olivia, and Addison

Congratulations, Addison!

I'm so proud of all our students for the way they have excelled and overcome the challenges of remote instruction. This outdoor concert was spectacular!

The oboe class from our first ever TN Tech Double Reed Forum!

Brava, Addison!

We made many adjustments during 2020-2021. Teaching under a tent was new for me!

Congrats, Erika!

Our first ever Zoom masterclass!

2020... the year everything was on Zoom. We perservered, we learned, and we still had fun!

Congratulations, Hunter!
At TN Tech your study of the oboe takes many forms:
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Our weekly applied lesson.
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Our weekly reed making workshop (times vary depending on the semester).
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Your live solo performances. All oboe majors will give two recitals during their degree, one during junior year and one during senior year. Additionally, the oboe studio performs a Studio Recital at least one a year, with each oboe student performing a solo piece for the audience.
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Your participation in TNTech's large performing ensembles (Wind Ensemble, Symphony Band, Concert Band, University Orchestra, and the Bryan Symphony Orchestra).
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Your own, self-organized chamber music groups. If you put a group together I am glad to provide coaching whenever possible.
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Of course, the bulk of the work needed to master an instrument like the oboe has to come from you, in the form of daily practice and reed making!
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A lot of your learning will come from talking and working with your fellow students, particularly in working on reeds together. I foster a very positive, encouraging environment in my studio, and I expect that you will all be helping each other out and sharing what you have learned with one another so that we can all progress faster together.
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The Reed Room: Our reed making workshop is upstairs in the music building. All oboe students may have access to this room. The reed room has workspace and all of the various machines (gougers, etc.) and tools you will need. Happy reed making!
Handouts and Other Information:
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The Syllabus. This document is the most-current syllabus for oboe lessons. It contains most of what you need to know to be successful in this class, including practice requirements, scale requirements, suggested repertoire by level of study, information about end-of-term juries and the barrier examination, recommended recordings and books, and more.
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Fall 2021 Ensemble Audition Music for Wind Ensemble, University Orchestra and Bryan Symphony. (Coming in August!)
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Listening Assignment Guidelines for your required listening assignments.
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Oboe Pedagogy Guide. I wrote this guidebook to help band directors guide their oboe students. It covers the four basic areas of pedagogy: posture, breathing, embouchure and articulation, and gives exercises for working on the main problems young players face. These are the same exercises I use for myself and with my college students.
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My doctoral dissertation studied the relationship between air pressure and loudness when playing the oboe, which has implications for our pedagogy as well.
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Adduci's Rules of Oboe Playing: These are a collection of the most important concepts I have learned from my teachers over the years, for oboe technique and general musicianship. There is also a list of suggestions for making your performances of Baroque music sound more stylistically authentic, even on a modern oboe.
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Warm-up exercises: spend 20 minutes on these during your first practice session every day.
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Scales! Mastering your scales is a very important step on your way to professional-level oboe playing. All of our music is based on melodic patterns derived from scales. Having all of the major and minor scales "under your fingers" (that is, memorized, and playable at a fast tempo) will improve your sight-reading, and also make your practice more effective - if you can play many technical passages more automatically without requiring so much woodshedding, you will have more time during practice to work on your phrasing and presentation. Learn your scales!
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Here are all of the freshman-year scale requirements, with the scales written out on the staff and the required fingerings marked in. By the end of your freshman year you should be able to play all major and minor scales, two octaves to high F. In later years we will add patterns and higher notes, but this should be your foundation. You can start by reading your scales from the printed music, but they need to be played from memory at your juries so you should get started memorizing them immediately.
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I view scales as an absolute necessity, and I also feel very strongly that learning scales is the responsibility of the student, not the teacher. I do not spend lesson time listening to your scales unless you are not taking care of business adequately on your own. I expect that every student will spend sufficient practice time on their own to master their scales, so that we can spend your lesson time on the higher orders of musical learning and not on this basic technical requirement. If you need more structure in your scale practice, you might try using my scales checklist to keep track of your progress.
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Reed Making! I am currently revising my reed making handouts, and will post them here when the new versions are finished.
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Flowcharts for gouging and shaping cane. Reeds 'n Stuff tools - Ross tools
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One of the best ways to learn tricky technical passages is to change their rhythm and create an exercise out of the melodic line. This handout explains how to take a sixteenth-note passage and rewrite it as a triplet exercise with the metronome. I have learned some very challenging passages with this technique; I've never found any music that cannot be mastered with the triplet method. Give it a try!
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Finally, here is a sheet of staff paper that you can print out as many times as you need.