Exercise books for:

KONIKOS Verlag has published a whole series of exercise books for oboe, saxophone and bassoon in recent years. Further booklets are in the works and will follow in the coming months/years. What are they intended to offer? They are intended to help learn technical components on:

- learning the oboe
- learning the saxophone
- the bassoon.

Why new exercise books?

You can't reinvent everything, but you can improve and optimise some things.

Many exercises for wind instruments have been around for many years and go back to famous musicians/composers such as J.J. Quantz, W.A. Mozart and L. Mozart. In other words, many things are not new. But working habits and approaches change and adapt, new teaching methods are developed. But what remains are the "prerequisites of craftsmanship" and thus the technical foundations that make our musicality and desire to express ourselves musically possible in the first place.

In the meantime, the booklets are shipped worldwide to the specialised trade or to private individuals via the shop.

There are also several partners abroad listed here.

For every musician, whether professional, student or amateur, the question inevitably arises at some point "How/what is the best way to practise"? This question, as simple as it may seem, is difficult to answer; after all, every person learns according to different patterns and principles: what works for one person does not seem to be transferable to another. This means that each person must find the methodology (from Greek methodikḗ (téchnē) = art of proceeding according to plan) and didactics (from Ancient Greek διδάσκειν didáskein'lehren = "art" and the "science" of teaching and learning) that are suitable for him or her.

Learning methods and didactics should be based on the findings of learning psychology or educational psychology in order to be as successful as possible.(1) This means that effective learning requires a longer-term systematic structure. For this purpose, precise learning goals must be set and aimed at, and the learning results must be checked by corresponding learning controls.(2&3)

This short introduction alone vividly describes the complexity of learning or practising in the psychological sense of learning, and yet only deals with a fraction of the subject matter.

In the exercise books, I have tried to deal with the content of practising in the area of technique in the form of scale studies. The aim is to systematically build up a solid technique as mentioned above. Looking back on my own studies, I unfortunately have to conclude that my personal approach to practising could have been much more effective and purposeful. Three central motivations ultimately led me to write the exercise books:

1. how can I personally keep fit as an orchestral musician as effectively as possible?
2. what should a student at least be able to do technically during his or her studies?
3. how can I, as a layman, prepare myself better technically for individual pieces (e.g. by studying a particular key intensively)?

For more information have a look at: concept.

You can order the books at the shop.