Doublereed Archive - Posting 000020.txt from 2003/05

From: David Lurie <david.lurie@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [DR-L] opening throat upper register oboe
Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 11:41:35 -0400

At 05:18 AM 5/2/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi -
>
>The question was asked: what muscles are involved in the opening or
>closing of the throat?
>
>I think the tongue has the most to do with it. We are used to focusing on
>the tip of the tongue, but it extends and shapes the air column for quite
>a distance back down into the throat.
>
>The "closed" throat positions described in oboedom usually seem to
>correspond to vowels that have a highly placed back tongue, e.g. "ee" or
>short "i" (as in fit) or "eh" or even "uh" (though by the time you get to
>"uh" the jaw has dropped/extended to where it weakens the embouchure
>support, undermining the boost one gets from the narrowed air column).

Well, I think that pronouncing - or really attempting to pronounce - vowels
during the playing of the instrument has not much to do with how open or
not the throat is. The vowel pronunciation takes place mostly in the most
anterior part of the mouth during playing, and does not affect much one way
or other how the throat is expanded or contracted. This latter has more to
do with the amount of air pressure generated from below.

>I'm going to offer counter-argument to David Lurie's contention that the
>open throat is necessary for a good, vibrant tone quality. But before I
>do, I want to say that I DO think cultivating a relaxed ("ah" or "oh")
>open throat is a good thing. While I've been faulted for a lot in my oboe
>playing, I've rarely gotten criticism for my tone. Come to think of it,
>one would probably not criticize Marc Lifschey's tone, but he made at
>least some use of what he described as an "ih" or "eh" or "hhh" to boost
>the top range, according to his student Bill Banovitz who I once studied with.

I hesitate to discuss tone quality here, because that subject is so fraught
with subjectivity, and judgements of "good' or bad" that lead nowhere.

>It is not clear whether or not the mouth cavity's resonant properties
>affect the tone or help a note to sound more readily. Years ago, I wasn't
>able to dig up anything conclusive in research papers. I know when I asked
>the the head professor of the Phonetics/Phonology research lab at U.C.
>Berkeley, he answered that he thought the contribution would be quite
>minimal. I disagreed at the time, but in every experiment I came up with,
>it seemed that some other aspect of the vowel was affecting the tone. In
>particular, jaw placement on different vowels has a big effect on
>embouchure pressure, which has a direct effect on tone production and tone
>qualities. In one experiment, I found that using vowels that dropped or
>extended the jaw but closed the throat (e.g. "oo" as in food) did better
>at aiding low-note production than open-throat vowels with a more closed
>jaw. (These were not "formal" experiments, but rather investigative one's
>in which I was my own subject.)
>
>I've also tried playing around with Tuva-like effects, playing a long, low
>B-flat and making different vowel shapes, but could barely make them out
>on tape, even though they seemed audible in my head when I was playing.
>Skulls, I guess, are not generally noted for their ability to transmit
>sound like some fine resonating gourd, except to the ears directly attached.
>
>Still, someone who was more skilled at this would probably be better able
>to affect more tone color change than I managed. I think, though, that
>maybe the flute, of all the winds, is most sensitive to such manipulations
>(because there the mouth is open, as it is in Tuvan singing).
>
>There is no real reason why one can't use the tongue/throat as a source of
>support/vibrato, as it definitely possible to squeeze the air column this
>way and thus provide extra support. It's just that this muscle is much
>weaker than the abdominals, and is prone to muscle strains (speaking from
>bad personal experience). That's why I would never recommend using it
>unless the abdominals are your primary and dynamic source of support, and
>you are being very selective in the tongue/throat usage.

I do not understand at all how the tongue can be used "....as a source of
support/vibrato...". I think rather that the tongue can much more easily
be used to constrict the air passage if necessary, although even that might
be quite difficult. In any case however, IMO, anything that interferes
with the clear open passage of air starting at the diaphragm and going all
the way up into the reed can only impact the production of a resonant
vibrant tone in a negative way.

>A common beginner problem: mistakenly thinking that a fixed, tense
>abdominal squeezing can be used for all playing situations. However, when
>the high, loud notes go flat, as they will in a fixed-support situation
>relative to middle register notes, these players have to resort to some
>other source of support, e.g. tongue/throat, clenching cheeks, shoulders,
>anything to prop up the pitch. Better and simpler to use a dynamically
>changing amount of abdominal pressure depending upon the need.

That sounds about right, although I don't understand why the pressure
should be changed. The only way to ensure that those neagtive things you
mention do not happen, especially sagging pitch in the high notes, is to
have a reed with sufficient resistance so that all that other stuff you
mention can not even occur. Those things all happen because of insufficient
resistance in the reed. It may be that the student has to blow a little
harder, but the vastly superior results of doing so make the effort well
worth while.

>And better to simpler use a dynamically changing amount of embouchure
>pressure, too, rather than working out a "vowel system" for different
>ranges of the oboe (as was taught, for example, by Bill Banovitz). At
>least, that is my current state of understanding of the matter.

I believe that the only reason for using differing amounts of embouchure
pressure is to dampen the effects of the vibrating reed. IOW to narrow the
size of the reed opening, and therefore to soften the volume of sound,
everything else remaining the same. This should not affect the pitch or
many other factors involved in the sound production. It will also enable
the player to maintain - or even to increase - the intensity of vibrato, as
well as to stabilize the pitch, particularly in the middle-upper register
which normally tends to be weak.

David Lurie