The Fingering Forum

Dropping your jaw?

Author: TorusTubarius  Date:   2003-04-23 02:21 Yeah you're definitely a saxophone player. My advice: <i>When playing the oboe, forget everything you have learned about playing the saxophone.</i> Playing the oboe should feel nothing at all like playing the saxophone. The saxophone is the polar opposite of the oboe in a lot of respects, especially when it comes to blowing. As for the low notes, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First of all, don't drop your jaw! It does sometimes help to open you mouth <i>very</i> slightly when going down low, but I find this depends a great deal on the reed, and with my reeds, I usually don't have to open up at all. If you do drop your jaw and open your mouth up, what happens is that the tone becomes wild and unfocused; this is particularly noticable in the low register. Also this will have an adverse effect on the intonation of the low notes. I think sometimes people are tempted to open up the mouth for added volume, but what happens then is the tone spreads out and becomes unclear, which actually decreases your ability to project. In order to obtain a more secure attack on your low notes, the first thing you should do is thinking about taking more of the reed out of your mouth. It's sometimes helpful to think about your embouchure forming more of an "O" shape as you decend, as if you were actually saying the letter "O". Conversely, as you ascend, especially starting on the "A" first ledger line above the staff, you should think of your embouchure forming more of and "EE" shape, as if you were saying that vowel. The effect of these subtle embouchure changes is to bring more of the reed in your mouth up high, and to take more reed out of the mouth down low, without actually changing the position of the reed on the lips themselves. The next thing you can do to obtain better response down low is to make sure you are blowing with sufficient pressure to allow these notes to sound cleanly. I see a lot of the time beginner oboists who are afraid of the low notes, and consequently hesistate to blow with the same vigorous air stream that they would use on notes in the middle and high registers. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense to make sure you are using enough air on the low notes, as the actual vibrating column of air inside the horn has to extend down nearly the entire length of the instrument instead of only part of the way down as with the higher notes. The last thing I would say is to make sure your chin is being held sufficiently flat as you play, and that the corners of your mouth are providing enough lateral support on the reed. This is important to focus the tone throughout the range of the oboe, not just on low notes; however maintaining this position with your lips will also encourage the low notes to sound in the first place, with a nice centered, resonant sound. As you become more and more accustomed to playing the oboe, I think you will find that you must learn to use your lips to make much more delicate adjustments than what you would in playing the saxophone. With the saxophone, the teeth and the amount you bite down on the mouthpiece play just as large a role in the embouchure (perhaps larger) as the position of the lips. John Mack in a lecture once said that to him, the teeth should ideally have <i>nothing</i> to do with the embouchure when playing the oboe. Rather, everything with the oboe is dependent on the strength and flexibility of the lips, and the production of a very fast and very focused air stream.

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Author: TorusTubarius  Date:   2003-04-24 02:10 Yeah just for kicks, I went upstairs and pulled out my old alto sax and played a few notes on it. Now granted I don't play saxophone much anymore, but playing saxophone is like riding a bike, and I still sound fairly decent. In playing it though I bet I didn't use my lips a tenth as much as when I play the oboe. I did however succeed in making a nice painful line on the inside of my bottom lip with my teeth. I'm not at all used to having to bite down on the mouthpiece anymore, nor am I used to making the tone vibrate with my lips. Nor am I used to actually running out of air! Very different.

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