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Re: Altissimo E advice for student

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2019-08-19 12:06

Andrez444 wrote:

> I teach a competent student who only recently has started to
> have issues with his top E, both in scale passages and wider
> intervals.
>

Is it only E, or have other surrounding notes become a problem as well? What exactly is the problem - squeaking, not speaking? Is it equally severe in legato as it is in staccato?

If the instrument is mechanically OK and he has no problem when you turn the mouthpiece around, then he's changing something somewhere when he is on his own. He needs to pay attention, and you need to watch, very carefully to try to detect any change in embouchure or instrument position that he is making in anticipation of a note he has become anxious about. Repeating the exercise of blowing while you finger is a good way to model what it feels like to get the note(s) that have become anxiety producers to play more easily.

Raising his tongue slightly (to think of "eee" more than "ah") to adjust "voicing" may help, and I find for myself that keeping the instrument angle small (reed close to my chin) helps a lot, but that depends on the way his reed is set up for the rest of the range. If he plays with the instrument farther away from him normally, changing the angle for the altissimo notes shouldn't be necessary.

Mostly, watch for something he's *doing* as he approaches the problem note(s) that he isn't doing when you finger and he blows.

Karl

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