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Re: Intonation

Author: Halcyon440
Date: 2005-07-28 16:40

Hey everyone! Thanks again for all the helpful comments. It's been 4 months almost since my original post and a lot has changed since then so I thought I'd give an update.

I started seeing a new teacher some time in May. Originally it was supposed to be solely for reed lessons. She's a professional freelancer in New York City and I liked her reed making philosophy. After our first meeting I was able to get my own reeds to actually crow. And after our second meeting I was making reeds that were in the ballpark. Previously my attempts at reedmaking had been unsuccessful. Eventually I begged her to take me on as a student and she agreed.

I played one note for her at our first meeting and she immediately heard and saw problems with my embouchure. I was not bringing the sides of my mouth in and my embouchure was more like a smiley, clarinet embouchure. She too talked a lot about the embouchure needing to be flexible and exercises similar to the ones suggested here. We've been meeting every other week and so far almost everything we've done has been in regards to reed and getting my embouchure to be more circular and flexible. Prior to that I had been playing a lot of music but it sounded quite bad.

It's been a lot of hard tedious work doing mostly long tones and reed exercises but I think it's starting to pay off. My tone is a lot less strident and closer to the oboe sound I fell in love with. I was also somehow playing with too little reed in my mouth (I thought the more common thing was too take too much in). I've brought it in a tiny bit more and the sound does sound more covered now. Also I've been working on my breathing (I had a tendency to wait until it was too late).

So now that I have good reeds (mine that my new teacher fixes or some that she makes for me), have fixed my embouchure problems, and am more adequately supporting the air, my intonation is remarkably better. When I'm practicing at home I use the tuner for reference. None of my notes are wildly out and my scales are more consistent. I've also started playing in a woodwind quartet with friends and intonation within an ensemble is indeed a different beast. Our bassoonist and flutist are pretty much in tune since they're both quite experienced. But the clarinetist is sometimes flat so I have to be very careful especially when I'm tired (since that's when I have to watch out that I don't start biting to compensate for tired mouth). It's a great learning experience and much fun!!

So yes, I think the biggest help was indeed developing a flexible yet strong embouchure.

Hilda, adult amateur
"Nobody is ever patently right about music." - Vigil Thomson

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Intonation new

Halcyon440

2005-03-29 14:27