Author: Craig Matovich
Date: 2007-04-19 20:15
The angle change I described is within a single reed, relative to its characteristics. (Probably assumes no serious underbite.)
Sometimes darker reeds are thinner and brighter reeds are thicker... depends a lot on the cane.
Do not bite to thin the lips...
Rather, with the normal (hopefully fairly relaxed) embouchure play and then push your lips forward and backward slightly (ignore ugly tone a pitch for now...)
It allows the looser flesh riding on a well trained embouchure foundation
(which is firmer) to become thinner or thicker. Teeth should never pinch the lips or leave an indentation after playing.
Once you hear tose differences, play normally and listen for similar differences in sound as you maintain your regular embouchure and move the oboe higher and lower, say 30 - 45% keeping your head steady. That emulates the muscle change I described, then by changing the filtering and dampening effects of the embouchure allows the reed to sing more brightly or a bit more darkly.
Do not bite at all. I'll repeat something I used to tell my oboe reed making students at the conservatory:
"You can pinch it, you can squeeze it, you can even wiggle it, but never, NEVER bite it!"
(Yes, I did find myself explaining things to the dean a few times in the years I worked there. But we had fun!)
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
