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Re: How to develop a good Embouchure

Author: vboboe
Date: 2005-02-17 13:00

Thank you all for the drinking straw embouchure exerciser tip (got it from at least two folks on this board I can remember, maybe more) -- it WORKS, YES ... didn't have plastic drinking straw concept umpteen decades ago when I first learned to play on "bad" reeds .....

Didn't have any instructions to squeeze straw flat first, so I didn't do that.
As a result, my discovery is that an un-creased and 'bounce-back' plastic straw is a really SUPER embouchure exerciser for three basic embouchure positions generally suitable for lower register, middle register and high register

By using just the maxi smile muscles in cheeks, can tighten and loosen embouchure around straw, first to get the basic position between level lips for the mid register, then smile to really narrow the slit down for high register, and loosen smile only enough to open the slit a tad more than starting position for low register. Keep doing those three positions for as many reps as possible ... WOW, work out!

And yes, blow through straw too ... it's quite a challenge, narrowing it down enough to be like a reed all the time ... straw bounces back too wide have to really control it ... so air-flow feels focused. Still working on it ...

Of course, in real oboe-playing, application of the three basic positions isn't exactly as exercised, but the same muscles are needed anyway, which is the whole point of the straw exerciser ... really helps prevent the 'drac bite syndrome' on real reeds.

Now I really understand what my long-ago oboe teacher kept telling me ...
kiss the reed. The difference between pressing down on the reed with teeth behind lips using the jaw or biting muscles, and smiling softly around the reed using cheek muscles ... like night and day in tone production

Now at last can drop jaw to make mouth cavity for resonance behind the reed ... can't do that when biting down

As a renewed beginner it helped me to schedule straw exercises twice a day -- around breakfast time and then around bed-time, with daily real oboe-practice sometime during the day, before any main meal so tummy doesn't compete with air support

LOVE my new dimples ... and less middle aged jaw-line flab too :-)

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