Author: vboboe
Date: 2005-12-03 23:45
<<< Vibrato can be produced naturally with correct air support. If you get relaxation (of your air column) in balance with air volume, the sound will produce that "spin" automatically. No isometrics or throat-churning, (or at worst lip wobbling) needed for beautiful vibrato. >>>
<<< The way you speak of high notes ... you might be adjusting too much for each note. I mean, it's true that each note has it's individual tendencies, but if the air volume and pressure match what is physically necessary for the reed, and the length of open tubing (high vs. low) your embouchure shouldn't actually have to fish around too much. >>>
Thanks! ... OK, really helpful comments here, d-oboe, yes, you're probably right i'm sweating the small stuff on each note, but hey, it's a learning curve with wide variables in experimentation
What do you mean ... isometrics ... ? Midriff tautening?
My overall playing goal this year is to improve tone and intonation (and as a sidebar, produce more dramatic contrast in my relatively monotone dynamics). My physical reality obstacle, now identified one third the way through the year, is that my aerobic muscles need general re-conditioning and oboe-specific restructuring!
This will take quite a while ... me old bod responds slowly and requires gradual coaxing into this desirable oboe-playing condition ... wry geezer example ... Haven't my old fingers got that key A-flat 16th's moderato run from top A-flat to middle A-flat with a third up and down with middle F ... YET? i've been practicing it minimum 5-8 times daily for a month already!!!Yes, thank you, it's actually doing a lot better, 3 / 8, but none of those 3 are consecutive {:- [ )
So, OK, moving along, would you care to describe in more detail what good air support feels like to you, what you have to do to physically to maintain and adjust it, internally that is? My teacher's trying to explain it to me, i'm trying to get handle on how it feels inside my bod ... more input from different sources with descriptive analogies may help me get it sooner?
Can parrot the theory but i'm not yet connecting the dots to what my body has to feel like when this optimum balance between relaxation and air volume and air pressure occurs, what say you? Trouble is, once somebody's learned something on automatic habit by experience, it's tough to describe it to somebody else?
As a female voice, former choral singer, producing any oboe note within my singing range automatically flexes my vocal cords to that frequency, can't seem to help that. Should i be retraining myself pro-actively to stop doing that? I don't sing any sound with my own voice, of course, but the "tuning" in my vocal chords just happens ... so then, on the upper end, where my vocal cords can't go, i'm wondering what to do, do i tune my vocals to octave lower, improve resonance thataway?
Or should i just be relaxing my vocal cords 100% and just letting the air flow be there, open throat, all notes? This is the 'right way' to blow oboe physically ... ?
OK, if do that, where do you actually feel the ''origin" of the air-pressure and the foot of the air column -- in the ribcage or behind middle of breast bone, and never-ever constricted (or even funneled, channeled) by the throat? At the moment i feel the air pressure in my throat, wrong place presumably?
OK so when i can learn to do that differently, then my natural air-flow vibrato from "the barrel" (chest & belly abs) would surely be much lower pulse frequency than the actual high note frequency being played, low alto F# is my natural Tonic when in good health, so i'm consciously puzzled here ... is that enough to zing (spin) for the high notes, even after increasing (pushing & focusing) the air pressure a bit and rolling over a bit?
And, when 'focusing' the air pressure, how physically is that actually done?
Which muscles 'squeeze' the air-flow into narrower & faster stream?
I intentionally lip-wobble only for jazzy playing or for mischievous fun, usually with more Duht ^ as well, gives more 'wowwow' effect, yes? For standard playing though i don't use lip-wobble ... unless it's muscle fatigue !
Understood theoretically that roll-over is microscopic, teach'r keeps telling me i have too much reed in my mouth, but that's where my rollover keeps taking me just now, fine motor muscle control of microscopic area focus still under development
And lastly, i'm confused about this length of open tube thing you said, i was originally taught i have to sustain enough air blow pressure to fountain out of the bell minimum 6"at all times (s'pose that's the equivalent minimum 5 lbs psi ?)
... so, is what you're saying a refinement? to actually adjust the air column balance based on the finger positions? Is this what i think you mean, or something else? i'm thinking as in "tuning the air" to vibrate at finger-hole note pitch already heard in mind's ear for spot-on intonation first attack?
Sorry if my questions seem excessively complicated, how else explain what needs to become consciously automated and then forgotten?
... hah, this is my second year learning curve all right ... do we all concur oboe is a really challenging instrument to master :-)
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