Just curious... how do you experts/beginners out there practise? The followings are my daily exercises:

1. long notes: sustain each note for at least 15 seconds (with a tuner)

2. C-major scale: from the lowest C, two octaves.

3. Am scale (harmonic): from A, one octave

4. appregios: mainly the easy ones; both majors and minors, one octave

5. repeat 2-4 with tonguing

6. Short pieces

Many people say that doing long notes can help develop endurance. What do you think? I`ve been playing oboe for about 7 months now... but still I lack the endurance to finish a piece that lasts for about 90 seconds. My teacher often complains that I overblow too much and my notes tend to go sharp. ... don`t know what I should do to improve myself...

Jimmy

i also do longtones but i do them 30 sec. and most times without tuner!
you have to fill your lungs as much as possible. when you do a longtone then it`s atomatically pitched!
it seems you breath to little!
take time to breath even when there is no pause!
you have to do this until the breathing reflex developed!

Make sure that you are sitting as straight as possible and take in all the air that you can. Plus you might want to tighten your lips to make sure that your air is going into your oboe not out. I practice an two hrs a day. Not continously but two sections of one hr. Good Luck!! Practice hard.

My teacher told me that I should use my diaphragm muscles to get the air out of my stomach, instead of the lungs and supporting it with my mouth muscles. So she told me to breathe in, but don`t let your shoulders go up but let your stomach go out and push with your 6-pack muscles I guess I`ll get the hang of it sooner or later.

You should not just play through the "easy stuff". Play through the hard stuff as slow as you can get through it correctly and in time the hard stuff will come naturally to you. You will find hard scales, intervals, and appregio skill will tranfer to your general music playing.