Author: Craig Matovich
Date: 2006-11-22 16:47
There are probably a book full of possibilities around your question.
The other advices you received all seem on the mark.
Without knowing a few things more about you, such as your instrument, how many years you played, if you have a teacher, etc., I would start with a couple areas:
1) Is your oboe in good condition and well-adjusted ( I don't mean tempermentally..)?
I have experienced a sudden loss in the high range similar to what you describe and found debris from swabs and oil had collected in various tone holes, especially the octave vents and the small high trill holes. Cleaning them out helped but you may not be comfortable doing that. Perhaps your teacher or local repair pro could check that.
If you mean high c#, d, and above, I'd suspect the mechanism, especially how the low c# keywork closes the right-hand e key, which in turn closes the small key between loe e and f. Its quite a chain of events. A little too loose on the e closure causes loss of focus and tone on high c# and d.
But too tight and you loose the low range c#...
2) Assuming the oboe is OK, ther earlier comment about not biting on high notes is where I would start. A couple exercises to develop high range 'tone' relate to relaxarion. The tone develops because removing the biting in essence removes the adverse tone filtering effects of the change in embouchure. More consistency happens and things like 'evenness' of tone and scale contribute to 'better tone' in the upper range.
First, the reed really must be up to pitch. Can you crow a good 'c'? One with a relaxed embouchure?
Here is a technique that works well for me. Crow the reed while saying 'tee' with minimal pressure but an otherwise regular embouchure --- try to get just the upper 'c' not the double octave crow. If that works, then continue crowing and change from 'tee' to 'ahh' and let the increased embouchure opening cause the lower c to form below the upper c.
This double c crow tells me a lot about a reed and check it against your tuner to be sure its really up to pitch w/o biting. Ensure it holds pitch once the low octave appears.
( A reed only pitch test w/o embouchure is a god test as well... just put the reed in all the way up to the string and blow slightly until tone appears... it should also be a 'c'.)
Then 'relax down onto the pitch'... and this litte extra relaxation in the high range causes good things to happen with tone, intonation, projection and even your playing endurance.
Its the key to many good things.
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