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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000005.txt from 2008/01
From: gbur@-----.edu
Subj: Re: [DR-L] musing about breath/bite
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:56:51 -0500
Phil,
Addressing the upper register question . . . although I am primarily a
bassoonist, I've found with my oboe students that if I can get them to
open their oral cavity starting at "a" above the staff and increasing
their air speed, they can utilize a full dynamic range with good pitch
and no "pinching" of timbre.
My .02
Bruce Gbur
Quoting philfrei@-----.com:
> Starting off the New Year with some radical (nutty?) notions.
>
> I was thinking about the whole breath/bite relationship, and how the
> dynamics of the oboe tends to be more limited at the highest and
> lowest
> pitches than in the center of the oboe range.
>
> Suppose one had call to play a very loud note or passage in the top
> octave. It seems to me that one could theoretically play a half step
> (or quarter-step fingerings if one knows them) above the written note
> and use a more relaxed embouchure than normal. This should allow the
> pitches to be much louder than they would otherwise. Of course one
> would have to practice it in order to be able to do something like
> this
> and keep it in pitch and with a decent tone.
>
> But it seems theoretically plausible.
>
> The reverse seems less workable, but maybe it would work for some
> reeds: on really low notes, finger a half-step (or quarterstep) below
> the written note, and use more embouchure than one would normally.
> This
> might allow one to play notes much quieter than one might be able to
> otherwise. Though it seems to me it is generally easier to play very
> flat than very sharp, so this seems less likely to work.
>
> Anyone ever experiment with this?
>
> Less radical, making a reed that crows sharp (allows more open
> embouchure for louder high notes) or flat (more closed embouchure for
> quieter low notes) that allow one to do the given task.
>
> Phil Freihofner
> Albany, CA
>
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>
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>
Bruce Gbur, D.M.A.
Assistant Professor
Double Reeds and Music History
Director of the Collegium Musicum
Music Department
Kansas State University
223 McCain Auditorium
Manhattan, KS 66506
785/532-3821
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~gbur/
"The older I get, the less gladly I suffer fools." Bruce Gbur
"First God invented idiots; that was for practice. Then He invented
School Boards." Mark Twain
"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more
beautifully, more devotedly than before." Leonard Bernstein
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that
we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American
public." Predident Theodore Roosevelt, 1918.
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