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Re: tone

Author: vboboe
Date: 2008-05-25 20:37

echo doublereeder's comment about tone evolving as you progress

yes, the reed makes it relatively harder or easier (which is definitely nicer to like) so it's important to have a reed that works comfortably for you any given day

... but, until embouchure & air support have grown, developed and arrived at a state of relative stability where you know you can produce good sounds consistently for as long as you need to complete your pieces, whatever length they are (longer, year by year) these other things are variables which can't be exquisitely fine-tuned yet -- although need to be eventually

the way to achieve this kind of consistency and stability are long tone exercises

as for oral cavity, and ultimately improvement of full resonant tone, i'm finding it's more important to be sure the back of the mouth is wide open rather than just dropping the chin at the front -- it's easy to keep the throat open and the back of the tongue lying flat when the mouth's open, but as soon as lips close around the reed, reflex action is for the lower jaw to snug the back of the tongue up to the roof of the mouth

it's more of a 'yawn' back there, with the lower jaw dropped under the ears, something like slip pliers, and it's definitely a muscle re-training thing, first off, it takes awhile to 'get it' and then quite a while longer to build & maintain it

so, the throat can be open, but if the back of the tongue is arched up towards the roof of the mouth, it bottle-necks the airway

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