 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2006-03-12 17:32
Dynamics are controlled by how much your jaw is open. Basically, the "bite" factor. While you *shouldn't* consciously bite the reed, the size of the opening affects the size of the sound!
Quieter sounds need a smaller opening. Louder sounds need a larger one. The difficulty lies in being able to hold the embouchure at a given opening. To make it as easy as possible, the embouchure must have something to "lean" against. If there is too much, or too little air, the embouchure has to clamp to gain control: not what we want!
Hautbois: It sounds as though you might be working too hard. I know a lot of people who tense, breathe really deeply and FFFFOOOCUS before they play a simple note at mezzo piano. Why? A mezzo-piano doesn't need that much air, and really shouldn't be too hard. A forte requires more air (to go with that larger opening) but doesn't need much more effort. A piano requires less air, and doesn't need much help either. Remember to stay out of your own way! The more you try to "control" the note, the less control you actually have.
You say that the oboe isn't flexible...but that's wrong! If the reed is reasonable, an oboist can have a very flexible tone. We have the added advantage that our entire mouth can control the reed, not just our bottom lip as with our single-reed friends. And for projection - it is achieved when the reed correctly matches what the player can physically do. (Which isn't hard to adjust a reed to do!) Soft reeds really hamper projection, but equally, reeds that are too hard tend to be "loud" but don't actually project that well. It's important to have reeds that VIBRATE. That will give you projection, because you don't have to force the tone just to get decent volume..it's just there.
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HautboisJJ |
2006-03-12 14:13 |
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Re: The anatomy of piano and forte. new |
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d-oboe |
2006-03-12 17:32 |
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The Clarinet Pages
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