A Week in the Life of an Oboe Major

Sep 8

By Ben Price

Congratulations! You’ve made it to music school after a lot of hard work and support from your network. But guess what? The work is only just beginning. I won’t sugarcoat this – music school is not easy, especially when it comes to time management. But with a few tricks up your sleeve, it can become an amazing time of your life. Here are some things I wish I’d known before I started music school.

What do you actually do at a conservatory? For me, that answer was never very well defined until I was actually living the experience. As an oboe player, I assumed that I’d be practicing and making reeds a lot, and while those are certainly important aspects of the experience, there’s much more than that. You’ll also be taking classes both musical and non-musical, having weekly lessons and studio classes, chamber music coachings, and large ensemble rehearsals. All of these "rigid" activities will dictate most of your schedule, and so the “flexible” activities of practicing, reed-making, and maintaining healthy outside interests will have to fit around what is already scheduled.

All of these things form the backbone of your conservatory experience. What follows is a sample ‘week in the life’ at a conservatory (from the eyes of an oboe player). Before I dive into a typical week, I must disclaim that there is no typical week in a conservatory. What the weeks look like will vary wildly depending mostly on the large ensemble schedules. I will outline the rigid activities in what looks like a ‘medium’ week (with some suggestions on how to work in the flexible ones), where rehearsals are not as intense as they would be the week before an opera production opens.

Something I always try to keep in mind at the start of the week are what my practice goals are with the instrument that week. For this week, let’s say I’m working on the Martinů oboe concerto. These would be my priorities in a week: increase physical comfort in execution, distill presentation of form, and increase tempo slowly. Whenever I’m practicing during the week, I’m probably working on one of these three things.

Monday: private lesson (1 hour), studio class (2 hours), one class [liberal arts] (1.5 hours), chamber coaching (1.5 hours).

At Curtis, Mondays are typically less congested by classes and orchestra, so it’s a very popular day for lessons and studio class. Depending on when your lesson falls, you can get some good practicing done either before or after the big event. You could also rehearse with your chamber group right before your coaching, so you feel super comfortable and excited to learn more about the piece. Your liberal arts class is a great place to explore non-musical curiosities and take your mind off all the pieces you’re playing this week for a spell (they do say distance makes the heart grow fonder)!

Private lesson with Prof. Katherine Needleman – working on increasing sound production and Concerto dynamics vs. Chamber Music dynamics. (1 hour)
Studio class with Katherine – working on section playing in Debussy’s La Mer and the Nutcracker. Matching articulations, dynamics, sound, color, and general style. (2 hours)
Liberal Arts class on Earthworks – discussing artworks by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert Smithson, and Richard Serra. (1.5 hours)
Chamber coaching on C.M. Loeffler’s Deux Rhapsodies – when to “wax rhapsodic” and when to really charge forward, and how to improve communication between musicians while playing. (1.5 hours)

Tuesday: three classes [musical studies] (3.5 hours), orchestra rehearsal (2.5 hours).

Tuesdays and Fridays hold most of the required musical studies classes at Curtis. At other conservatories, the days may be different, but the structure of the scheduling is similar. Practicing is best done before your first class, or right before orchestra rehearsal (which is almost always in the afternoon at Curtis).

Musical studies classes: solfège, Core Studies, music history.
Solfège: working on identifying major and minor 7ths, soprano clef reading exercises, and building all 7th chords.
Core Studies: Analyzing a Bach prelude and fugue – talking about the fugal process, and the use of chromatics.
Music history: an overview of the Singspiel throughout the 18th century. (3.5 hours)
Orchestra rehearsal on Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony – making transitions between statements seamless and balancing to the soprano soloist.

Wednesday: supplementary piano lesson (.5 hours), one class [musical studies] (1 hour), chamber rehearsal (1.5 hours), orchestra rehearsal (2.5 hours).

The rest of the musical studies requirements usually fall on Wednesday, which is freer than Tuesday. Usually there’s some excellent practice/reed making real estate in the early afternoon before orchestra.

Supplementary piano lesson – scales and arpeggios, plus a Schubert impromptu. (.5 hours)
Keyboard studies class – Figured bass realization up to and including the figures 6/5, 4/3, and 4/2. Score reading from Morris/Ferguson Exercises (Treble clef + alto clef + bass clef).
Chamber rehearsal on Loeffler Rhapsodies – drilling tricky sections and discussing thematic symmetry. (1.5 hours).

Thursday: one class [liberal arts] (1.5 hours), orchestra rehearsal (2.5 hours).

Thursday is a great day to make some good reeds and practice for the week upcoming. It’s also a great day to do something fun that takes up more time than a walk to the riverfront or reading in the park!

Liberal Arts class on Earthworks – discussions of artworks by Robert Morris (1.5 hours).
Orchestra rehearsal on Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony – keeping the long third movement lines continuous but not trite.
Reedmaking – tie three blanks and scrape bark off, let them sit for later.

Friday: three classes [musical studies] (3.5 hours), orchestra rehearsal (2.5 hours), chamber coaching (1.5 hours), student recital (2 hours).

Friday is Tuesday Part Two, except it’s much better because it’s Friday and not Tuesday! The student recital in the evening is a great way to watch your friends and colleagues perform.

Musical Studies classes (solfège, core studies, and music history) are continuing their work from Tuesday.
Chamber coaching on Loeffler’s Rhapsodies – full run of piece and discussing how to stay sharp in a performance.
Orchestra rehearsal – open reading of Mahler’s 4th Symphony for the entire Curtis community.
Student recital – watch dear friends play the Beethoven String Quartet in F major, Op. 135.

Saturday: free!

Go to Philadelphia Orchestra concert in the evening. Saturdays are great for regrouping a bit (think laundry and room cleaning), as well as practicing and making reeds. Museums are also a great weekend idea!

Sunday: free!

A popular day for rehearsals with your pianist for your lesson, or with your chamber group(s). Also great for going out to dinner/dessert!

As you can now see, there’s a lot more than just playing your instrument that goes into conservatory life. I admit it’s very easy to be overwhelmed by the demands on your time, but that’s why I’ve prepared a few tips and tricks to save you some of the headache I first experienced!

Practice time does not have to be with your instrument.
This is especially true of wind and brass players, who have physical limitations on their amount of playing time in a day, but mental practice is enormously helpful. At least 50% of my practicing now is mental*. This way, when I sit down to play my actual instrument, I don’t waste time trying to find out what I want to do; I already have a clear mental image, and therefore, a clear goal. This can also apply to learning orchestra music. Good sight-reading, triage, and prioritization are your best friends.
Sleeping enough is a must.
I know it feels like a good idea to practice until 2am every night, but I can assure you that is not going to help you in the long run. Your body needs to rest, so that your brain can process all of the information you absorb during the day. Having good sleep habits will give you more energy and excitement to do all the amazing things you do when you’re awake! I achieve this in two ways – going to bed at a reasonable hour (11:30pm or earlier) when I can, or napping a bit during the day. A 20 to 30-minute power nap can go a long way in terms of your energy level.
Go outside!
It’s literally a breath of fresh air. And I promise you’ll be more motivated afterwards! Depending on the amount of time I have, I like to walk through Rittenhouse Square (Curtis’s neighborhood), or walk across the Schuylkill River to University City, where there are no shortage of good haunts for pastries and sitting.
Do not be afraid to do laundry during the week.
This applies more to on-campus students and those with shared laundry facilities, but a mid-week laundry load will make your life much easier sometimes. Nothing is stopping you from putting your laundry in the washer, going to a 50 minute class, then switching it over and practicing until it’s done.
Have an awkward amount of time between two scheduled activities? Use it!
There’s a lot of downtime between the end of a practice session and your lesson, or between rehearsals, or between classes. I know it’s tempting just to scroll during those times, but I highly recommend using them to answer emails, texts, or take care of day-to-day things that will naturally come up. It’s much easier to do those as they come rather than do a whole bunch of them at once.
Lastly, protect time for yourself!
The so-called “grindset” may seem glamorous, but spoiler alert: it isn’t. It’s incredibly important to carve out time for relaxation and leisure. It makes the hours you spend working on music more rewarding, I promise! Even if relaxation just looks like watching a TV show while you eat dinner, it still counts.

I hope this has been a helpful introduction to what conservatory life can actually look like. It’s demanding, but with these tricks up your sleeve, you’re much more likely to have a great time and learn as much as you can.

*A footnote about mental practice – it sounds complicated but it’s actually very simple! The better you know a piece, the easier it is. But if you don’t know a piece super well, looking at the complete score is super helpful. I recommend playing through the piece on the piano if your keyboard skills will allow, instead of listening to a recording, because recordings are often a misleading presentation of the actual piece. Once you have an idea of the piece in your head, mentally practicing involves finding the places that are MUSICALLY confusing to you and sorting them out. This saves so much time because it forces you to have a coherent musical idea BEFORE you sit down to execute it physically. Stay tuned for a forthcoming piece about practicing!

Ben Price (they/them/theirs) is currently Principal Oboe of Symphony in C, and a fourth-year student at the Curtis Institute, where they hold the Anderson and Daria Pew Fellowship. Learn more at benpriceoboe.com.

Adrian Wong