Skip to main content

Teaching a Beginner

I'm still playing outdoor concerts, but it's suddenly the beginning of the teaching year!  Here's a post about starting out right - please share your own embouchure teaching ideas so we can ALL set out on a good foot!

I had a new student start with me last week.  This was a young boy, who had had a year of band but no private lessons on the oboe.  I spent the first 10 minutes of the lesson getting his equipment to work for him, and the next 15 making him sound like a million bucks, just by setting him up with a good embouchure.

The oboe embouchure is not the most intuitive mouth shape to use.  If you weren't told, you might never think to turn your lips inward in order to blow outward.  You might not naturally come up with the balance of tension and openness that translates to a projecting, controlled, nuanced sound.  It's not an obvious approach, and this particular 11-year-old wasn't even close.

My favorite thing about teaching is how different all of my students are from each other.  Many of the problems are common, but different people need different words to understand new concepts.  I've developed a lot of different versions of schtick to talk about embouchure to students.  Some work better with one and some relate to another.  It took me a few minutes of rapid fire options to connect with my new student.

I talked first about what I saw:
Tuck your lips inside your mouth.  Now your mouth is too flat - think about being round.  Bring the corners of your mouth in.

Then I talked about what it might feel like:
Pretend you are sucking on a lemon - make a sour face! Great, now pretend there's a ping pong ball on your tongue, so your mouth is open inside your mouth. Now think about keeping the dry part of your lips on the reed...

Then I went farther afield with my imagery:
Be a little owl, crying "Hooo! Hoooo!"  Now bring your lips inside.

Be a French person, with your face balanced forward.  Now drop your chin and pull it back into your neck, like Prince Charles.

I tried the analytical approach:
Pretend you are at McDonalds, drinking a milkshake.  First you have to seal your lips around the straw, so no air leaks out.  BUT, if you clamp the straw tight shut with your mouth, there's no room for the milkshake to come through, right?  So you have to keep the straw round and also sealed.  Also, pretend you are sharing with your best friend and you don't want to get spit on the straw, so roll your lips in so the dry part of your lips is on the straw... Do you see where this metaphor is headed?

Finally, this one really worked for him:
Imagine a cute puppy.  Say it with me - CUUUUUTE.  Now, as you're saying that, the puppy is leaping onto your lap and licking your face.  Tuck your lips in so he can't lick inside your mouth.  Because dogs are gross.

And that was it.  THAT'S IT!  Put that on the reed.  Do you hear how great that sounds?  Play me a Bb.  Play me a scale.  Reset, with your lips inside (so the puppy doesn't get them), and play it again.  YAY!

I love young students.  I love teaching.

Who's got more mouth imagery to share?


Comments

  1. I have always thought of you as an exceelent music teacher Jennet.When I was a sudent in Greece we emplyed an adjective to charcterize the qualitie of a teacher: "transmissiveness". The translation is awkward, but you ubderatnd what I mean. I have not encountered it in this context here. You possess it in in the nth degree.Congratulations!(When you develop a technique to teach denture wearers, let me know.)
    So, regretfully now I must part from my fond memory of Lauren Bacall telling Humphrey Bogart: "Put your lips together and blow"! (To have and to have not).But then again the goals were ...less musical.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Transmissiveness." I love it. Thanks, Dimitri!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...

Exciting Upcoming Concerts

The South Bend Symphony has a great concert this weekend that I've been really excited about. If you are in town you should definitely try to attend, as it features Prokofiev's thrilling Symphony no. 5 AND our marvelous concertmistress, Zofia Glashauser, playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. However, I will not be there. This Friday and Saturday I am playing Strauss's Ein Heldenleben with the Milwaukee Symphony , and loving every single minute. This orchestra sounds spectacular, and here's why. They rehearse. They have plenty of time to really listen to each other and get things right. This morning, our service was a wind sectional, which blew my mind. Almost 2 full hours with only the winds and brass, just on this one 40-minute piece. The conductor worked with us on every detail. Intonation, articulation, ensemble, balance, style. And still we have another full orchestra rehearsal tomorrow as well as the dress. I haven't sat in a winds-only rehearsal...

Beauty of Sound

In our dress rehearsal Saturday afternoon, the conductor did exactly what I often do to my students - he asked the violins to play more beautifully, and they did.  He didn’t tell them how, or give them a flowery expressive speech, he just asked for more beauty of sound, and they immediately gave it to him.  To a great extent the sound we produce is set, based on our equipment and the shape of our mouths and our bodies - but it can be altered, too.  Adjustments in reeds and instruments can go a long way, but the key change we can make is in our own minds. I don’t know how to explain it physically, but if you determine the sound you want to make you can produce it.  Or at least you can lean in and approach it.  This is something I’ve been paying a lot of attention to lately in my own playing.  As I prepare the Saint-Saëns Sonata to perform on our Oboe Studio Recital (tonight at 7 - details HERE ), my approach is largely about beauty of sound and vibrato....