Author: Craig Matovich
Date: 2007-05-21 20:18
I admire Paul McCandless' circular breathing, used mostly in jazz and new age music, although its not tested against the usual oboe orchestral repertoire.
I've done it a bit of it (poorly), but can comfortably hold long tones for a minute or more, so had no real need for it.
If I were to circular breath, I'd be more concerned with expelling stale air than getting new air anyway, and I will have to try that to see if it works.
Only a few times, while playing assistent principal over the years, I've been asked to take over a phrase to grant some relief to the solo player. A good 2nd player could do that as well. And shame on the composers for doing anything to us a good singer could not perform.
They do that, and de Lancie subs in a a clarinet (as mentioned) or I take over a line, or whatever. They need be careful what they ask for. (And I have a LOT of endurance, if they can tire me out, they wrote some bad stuff...)
Still, every trick in our bag is good to have. I am grateful for my double-tongue now and then, and it took a lot of work to develop, Sounded horrible for months.
Perhaps, its time for a couple months of bad sounds from circular breathing!
There must be a way to practice the technique off oboe. I am thinking, reed only or bite on a straw and try to maintain an even, oboe-worthy flow of air.
Sidebar: On the subject of holding stale air... back when I was in the Army and we were learning how to shoot long-range targets, we were told to take a breath and hold it, and then aim and fire within 4 -5 seconds, after which our blood would begin to contaminate with CO2, and our faculties would quickly diminsh, muscles would loose control, hands would quake, and reason would begin to suffer.
So, if holding a breath while shooting an M16 causes probelms in under 10
seconds, imagine what performing an artistic work of genius suffers while we hold our breath to play a 25 second phrase.
![[toast]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley15.gif)
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
