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Re: Acquiring Good Tone

Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-08-21 22:45

These are many good points...!

I'd like to add a couple things about tone.

Pursuing it as a top priority caused me lots of problems with bad habits for years.

Finally one wonderful teacher (Richard Rubenstein) shared John Mack's 5 priorities...

Tone was fifth on the list! It came AFTER pitch (intonation) , stability, flexibility (expressiveness), responsiveness (I may have altered that order a bit...).

It took a long time for the real lesson to settle into my brain. Tone is last of the QA tests (pass/fail), and it can cover a wide range of acceptable sounds provided the other playing tests pass. It opens the door to different reeds for different styles/pieces, and given the fickleness of our reeds in general, that is a good thing.

The other thing I'd like to add: a corollary to 'listen to players whose sound you like' is 'Listen to pro players whose sounds you don't like'. Form an opinion (there is no wrong answer) and really think about the whys of your reactions.

One big benefit in that approach is finding much of value in all the pro's playing.

Personally, I would never want to sound like Holliger. I cannot stand his tone. But I'd sacrifice a couple cherished body parts to be able to play beautiful phrases the way he does, with effortless facility and wonderful expression all the time.

His approach to Mack's 1-4 priorities in a reed are really out of this world to me.

-Craig

Post Edited (2011-08-21 22:47)

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