Author: HautboisJJ
Date: 2008-07-16 01:24
A very very famous oboist from the States recently expressed her dislike for my use of short fingerings for the altissimo range, which, works, and are the norm is many parts of the world. In expressing her openess to ideas in other things it disturbs me that there is such a contradictary nature in the teaching. Use of harmonics are also not widely recognised it seems.
Vboboe:" I first tried this fingering with my European trained teacher, he smiled and said 'glad you know that one, use C or Eb key to dampen it down a bit' (it's very sharp on my oboe), and then later when i tried it with my North American trained teacher she chided me and said 'that's not a real note!'
... so I'm very happy indeed to see another North American mentioning it in a positive context :-)"
The same thing happened to me but in complete different context. I was taught to use the short Db which was very sharp on my instrument instead of dampening it with the C key. I have learnt now that this allows me to really work my altissimo to assimilate the low notes. The resonance, ease, and response of the short Db is unbeatable, but of course, learning it only gives you an option to either do it or not to do it, that is the difference between closed minded teaching and the flexibility of having different options. The disadvantage is that when you play a descending scale the top C might become a bit risky to play in tune, and that depends a bit on the reed as well. There seems to be too much dependence on the ability of the reed to sustain intonation, thus the embouchure is not trained to have the ability to do certain things. Not forgetting, the height of the half hole plate, the shape of the half hole, all these affect how certain notes are placed .
Howard
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