Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2006-08-04 20:08
I've been working today with the concepts of air speed vis-a-vis air volume, and trying to use reeds that are not particularly light.
The idea of feeling the energy of the air just behind my front teeth seems to have a good effect on the consistency of my sound through the range of the instrument. It makes attacks smooth and consistent, and the sound as I record it seems clean and quite a bit lighter than whatever it was I was doing before.
It still doesn't "feel" right -- it feels stuffy, unfree, restricted. But it sounds great on the recording. The low register feels OK, it's just the high notes, esp. above high (mid) G that feel puny (not vibrant) to me with the hard-blowing reeds. I actually pulled my octave vents and half-hole key, to see if something was stuck in them. That's what it feels like, to me.
Intonation has not been a particular problem for me, at least, not recently. In fact, one of the compliments I got from several people, including my quintet coach, at the workshop a couple of weeks ago was in regard to my "uncanny" sense of intonation. I don't know why he called it "uncanny" -- just that I think he didn't expect the oboe to be in tune, or to have to work at it more. So, at least there's *something* I'm doing right.
Maybe it's just something I've got to get used to?
Susan
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
