Author: JRC
Date: 2011-02-24 15:41
Reading some of your posts, you seem to have difficulty maintaining rich tone. It seems to me that you might need to learn proper breathing for oboe sound production. Pickup any book about oboe playing technique, Sprenkle, Rothwell, Goossens..., they all have breathing section and they all recommend using diaphragm muscle instead of rib cage muscle for breathing. You can read up on it. You can also find such breathing technique described in books on Yoga, Chi, boxing and many other.
All those books articulate the benefits, affects, effects, techniques ... much better than I could ever do. I will skip the babbling about something I am not expert in. So Google it and read all about it.
Simple indication is that your stomach especially around belly button area should be bulged out and very tight while making sound on your oboe. You should loosen the belt and allow your stomach free to expand. I try to wear loosely fitting pants and use suspenders (or braces for you Brits) to hold my pants instead of belt when I play oboe. Changes in the quality and control of oboe sound are immediate. Your quiver in the tone should disappear as long as you have your diaphragm hold the air pressure. After you do this for year or two, diaphragm breathing should become natural to you and quivering sound will no longer be a problem. I happen to think it is probably the most important elements in playing oboe, probably next important thing to having sense of music... reedbabbles, oboebabbles, teacherbabbles, instrumentbabbles come next, but not as critical. (thanks Oboe Craig)
As you all well know, oboe players have unique breathing problem unlike other wind players. We are troubled with left over air in the lung than having short of air. Most here should know about standard breathing techniques; full in, full out, partial (1/4, 1/2, 3/4) in, partial out, and full in & out. We need more practice in breathing out (especially the partials) than breathing in because it is not really natural. Phrasing and breathing go hand and hand. Plan breathing and mark them on the music, and practice. The idea is to maintain good oxygen level in your blood stream as normal as possible while playing. I happen to think this is one of the most important elements of endurance.
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