[Gange]

After about twenty odd years of jazz and just learning parts when classical playing has been required I have now started practising. It felt great. I found the Tableaux de Provence in a box and off I went. Amazing how much that was still in muscle memory! I've practised for a couple of weeks and got it up to speed. Then I stepped back a bit and listened to what I was playing... And it was not great. It was sloppy, my fingers were jumping around, my time was all over the place even though I was using a metronome.

I then remembered one of my teachers saying "If you can play it slow, you can play it fast" so the last days I have practised the first movement very slowly with metronome on half beat. Like putting it on 40 bpm for a bar (dotted quarter = 80).
I've also done the same with scales for warmup: Put the metronome on around 40 and started playing quarter notes, then eights, then triplets, then 16th, 16th triplets and last 32ths.
It's difficult but I think this has forced me to play with my ears and I think it sounds a little better already.

Does anybody have good exercises to improve mechanical accuracy?

 

[Eulipion2]

I'm with you. Trying to get my chops back to where I was in college. I always saw myself as a "jazz guy," but I really do enjoy classical playing, and play at least a little nearly every day.

To get my fingers "thinking" again I play through a lot of stuff that I played in college, both repertoire and etudes, and add new pieces from time to time. Ferling's my jam, but I jump around when I start itching for something different. Karg-Elert, Decouais, Kynaston, Larry Teal, Londeix. Play around, have fun, go slow, focus.

 

[Jorns Bergenson]

Hey, Eulipion2! Fun to see we are responding to the same thread after our PM exchange.

I'm in a similar boat as you two but I'm trying to get my classical chops back to where I was when I was 14 or 15 years old A few years back I had a life change that lead me to focus classical playing on the soprano and sopranino. I've been working on some solo pieces like CPE Bach's flaute sonata in A minor and on oboe works by Saint Saens, Poulenc, Mozart and others. I've found the sheet music for them and bought piano accompaniment as well. Life has been crazy for a couple of years so I haven't made as much progress as I'd like.

Eulipion2, thanks for some great suggestions for things to work on.

Got to hit the hay, the alarm goes off at 4:30am.

 

[Gange]

I've found the sheet music for them and bought piano accompaniment as well.

I've also played quite a lot of classical music on the soprano. Mostly oboe and violin works, but for reasons stated above I have avoided the fast parts. It's hard to synchronize toungue and fingers when the fingers are not synchronized internally.

Do you mean piano accompaniment on CD? In that case where have you found that?

 

[Jorns Bergenson]

Do you mean piano accompaniment on CD? In that case where have you found that?

Mp3 downloads primarily from www.piano-accompaniments.com and www.pianoaccompanimentstracks.com.

 

[Gange]

Thanks Jorns, I'll look into that!

 

[Jorns Bergenson]

You bet. And you can download public domain sheet music from https://imslp.org/ for free.
My process was to search imslp.org for oboe and flute works by my favorite composers and then hunt for accompaniment tracks. The tracks were surprisingly affordable.
I found several pieces that will keep me busy for the rest of my life

I've been working on CPE Bach's solo flute sonata in A minor. It's challenging for its octave jumps and range.