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Joe Allard

Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2018-07-20 19:28

Matthew Simington asked me to comment on Joe Allard.

I have to say that I’m always reluctant to deal with so-called legendary teachers in anecdote, because I think that what they said was often tailored to the student in front of them, and I appreciate that therefore on other occasions they might have said something different.

Joe Allard is a bit different, though. I know what he said mainly from two sources:

http://joeallard.org/pedagogy.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-0N7XETP5M

Those ideas as they apply to the embouchure can be characterised under the three headings that I gave in the other thread:

Quote:

(1) The position on the reed of the area of contact between lower lip muscles and reed;

(2) The size of that area of contact; and

(3) The pressure exerted on the reed by that contact.

Joe Allard’s teaching allows for considerable variation in (1) and (2), and emphasises minimising (3).

But there is a further wrinkle that I was very happy to learn about. That is, that the geometry of (1) and (2) can distort the reed so that it is ‘bowed’ over the mouthpiece. If it is bowed in this way, the edges of the reed are closer to the mouthpiece than the centre, and that can be counterproductive. So you try to avoid curvature of the lower lip.

It seems to me that Allard’s teaching also supports the idea that playing an instrument is a sort of biofeedback. You first imagine the sound you want, then listen to the result. What you then do alters subtly so that the result is closer to what you imagined.

Because the lower lip in his system isn’t interfered with (by undue squashing, say) it is capable of this sort of learning.

Two anecdotes of my own, to which I’ll add another:

http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/lookup.php/Klarinet/2003/10/000046.txt

http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/lookup.php/Klarinet/2003/10/000123.txt

These anecdotes show that involuntary – indeed unsuspected! – tongue movements are involved in expert playing.

The third is: if I put my forefinger in my mouth in place of the clarinet reed and mouthpiece, and ‘play’, say, the Mozart concerto, I can feel very subtle changes in my lower lip. Those changes aren’t consciously achieved, but are driven by my previous experience.

So a novice player wouldn’t experience them. They too have to go through the learning experience.

I like the way that Joe Allard places great importance on his students ‘learning for themselves’ through exercises.

Tony

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