 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: TorusTubarius
Date: 2003-07-31 00:06
I agree weak and thin up high most likely stems from lack of air support. However your sound will also begin to sound weak and thin if you're inadvertently biting down as you roll in. Be sure to guard against that as well.
Really I don't think how much red is showing is as important a factor as you might think from player to player since everyone's lips are shaped differently. To me, what matters is that you do not roll your lips in so much that you begin to deleteriously affect tone production. It is possible to accidentally damper the vibration of the reed with all the extra lip you have sucked into your mouth if you roll your lips in too much. This will tend to take the "life" out of the tone, leaving it dull and inflexible, and will also force your pitch down. Additionally your embouchure will have less flexibility.
As to how far puckered out or stretched back your lips should be, what's the most important to keep in mind is maintaining sufficient lateral pressure on the reed. The oboe sounds best when relatively equal pressure is exerted over its vibrating surfaces by your lips. This is best accomplished by keeping the corners of your embouchure tight around the reed, using your muscles to apply pressure from the sides, and then pulling your chin flat so as to decrease the amount of pressure from your lower lip, the side most people tend to lean on the most. I was taught to think of pulling the chin flat and tightening my corners as one motion, as if a string was attached to my chin which simultaneously pulled it down and closed my lips around the reed much like a drawstring closes a pouch.
The way I was taught to change my embouchure with different registers was to think of saying the letter "O" with my embouchure on low notes, and then changing to how your mouth would look saying "EE" on high notes. This forces you to roll out down low and roll in up high so it is essentially the same thing; I just find it easier to conceptualize this way. If you're thinking that this will additionally change how puckered out of stretched back your lips look when you play depending on what register you're in, you're correct; it will. One of the most important things to remember about embouchure is: flexibility.
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Thatoboekid |
2003-07-29 05:40 |
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ChrisM |
2003-07-29 16:17 |
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Thatoboekid |
2003-07-30 02:02 |
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ChrisM |
2003-07-30 16:36 |
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TorusTubarius |
2003-07-31 00:06 |
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The Clarinet Pages
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