Health, wellness, and woodwind doubling

As I’ve discussed here previously, when trying to solve woodwind-playing problems there’s a useful distinction between problem-specific solutions and simply shoring up fundamental technique.

Here are some examples of problem-specific solutions:

• Second-octave G-sharp tends to crack on saxophone, especially tenor? When you get to that note, blow warmer air (in other words, use a lower voicing).
• Low notes on oboe respond sluggishly? Try dropping your jaw a bit as you descend into that register.
• Flute pitch sagging at softer dynamics? Increase your breath support as you decrescendo.

Notice that all of these suggestions give you a sort of localized task to perform—make some change to your tone-production technique whenever you play a certain note. This is an exhausting way to play: trying to remember and execute a handful of directives for each note that goes by; discovering that a constantly-changing tone-production technique makes tone, pitch, and response unstable; adding another layer of fixes to try to counteract the instability. It can quickly become too much to process, and higher-order things like musical expression get sacrificed.

Sometimes these localized fixes are necessary, usually as a workaround to some flaw or compromise in the equipment’s design or manufacture. But much more often the “fix” should be an improvement to fundamental technique:

• If lowering your voicing helps the cracking G-sharp on tenor, what would happen if you used that lower voicing on every note?
• If taking some jaw pressure off the oboe reed helps the low notes speak, what would happen if you didn’t add that pressure back in the higher registers?
• If increasing breath support helps buoy up softer notes, would it hurt the louder ones?

My guess is that by making these fixes part of your fundamental technique, instead of applying them here and there like bandages, you would discover:

• a richer, more in-tune tenor saxophone tone
• clearer, more immediate oboe articulation, with less fatigue/pain
• flute playing improved in virtually every aspect

Examine your problem-specific fixes carefully, and try making them your default approaches rather than special-occasion ones.

When dealing with problem spots in your music, it’s okay to remind yourself of relevant and helpful fundamental techniques, but the ultimate goal should be to remove as much as possible of the mental overhead and physical gymnastics from your playing. Develop good basic technique that lets the instrument more or less play itself, so you can focus on the creative aspects.

When a woodwind player plays a phrase like this:

…it could have a variety of shapes, depending. But often a rising line gets a subtle crescendo, and a long note at the end gets a little decrescendo:

To play create this shape, you blow air that makes the shape. You can imagine playing a single note, like this:

…and then let your fingers and tongue play the notes over the shape.

But sometimes less-experienced players blow like this:

That makes the phrase sound weird, like the notes each have their own shapes. For the notes to unite into a phrase, they need to combine into one shape.

To practice this, first decide what shape your phrase should have, and mark it into your music. Then, without your instrument, blow air that makes the shape of the phrase. Then pick up your instrument and do the fingerings, blowing the air shape outside the instrument. If some notes should be tongued, add that next. Once you are comfortable with all those steps, combine them to play a smooth, connected, well-shaped phrase.