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Re: Acquiring Good Tone

Author: WoodwindOz
Date: 2011-08-20 15:09

So much of tone is reed-related, but having said that, many professionals can work with 'sub-standard' reeds and still sound good.

For me, the world of creating a 'good' tone (for lack of better description) opened up when I began focusing on the shape and open-ness of the cavity in my mouth. Nothing is going to resonate well if the shape you are creating is flat. The first rule of thumb is not to bite. Andrew offers good advice with reeds - it is not a crime to play on soft or softer reeds. There is a bit of hierachy as far as certain genres of reed players go that the harder the reed, the better player you are, and this just isn't the case as I've found with oboe. There is so much more to the oboe reed than the hardness.

The second thing is to practice yawning with your mouth closed. I always ask my students to think of their most boring class, and they want to yawn but don't want the teacher to see! That feeling of open-ness in your throat and above your tongue is one of the keys to creating more resonance (and in turn more projection) in your sound.

Whether that resonance creates the tone you are after is from then on going to be partly dependent on you reed style, but at least at that point you know the sound you get from that particular reed is a true one.

Rachel

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Acquiring Good Tone new

circlemidnight

2011-08-20 00:51