How many instruments do you play?

ByBret Pimentel

“So, how many instruments do you play?” I get this a lot.

The way I prefer to answer is this: I play all of the major modern woodwind instruments, plus some folk and ethnic woodwinds.

That answer usually doesn’t cut it.

So, if pressed, I give a slightly more detailed response: I play flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone, plus recorders, whistles, and so forth.

By this point, people with musical background usually get the picture. But some people still demand a precise number, perhaps thinking that my caginess is modesty, and that it will be polite for them to insist upon an answer.

The truth of the matter, though, is that I avoid the question because I don’t exactly know the answer. A former teacher of mine indicates in his bio that he plays “over 45 instruments.” I can’t help but wonder how he came up with that impressive count. Is he including B-flat clarinet, A clarinet, E-flat clarinet, and bass clarinet? C clarinet, alto clarinet, basset horn, contrabasses in E-flat and B-flat…

I suppose I “play” all the members of all five major modern woodwind families. But I don’t own all of them, and some I only play very rarely and on borrowed instruments (contrabassoon, alto flute, oboe d’amore…), and there are even a few I’ve never really played at all (sopranino saxophone, clarinet in C…). Bringing in ethnic instruments, of course, just compounds the confusion.

How many instruments do I play? Don’t ask.

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    That people prefer to move in energetically optimal ways has been established for decades and now represents a central principle of movement science. … Energy optimization may also occur over the course of a lifetime, as years of experience could allow people to learn the optimal way to move in familiar situations and allow training to tune physiology to be more economical. An additional hypothesis—one that underpins many modern theories of motor control—is that people can adjust their movements to continuously optimize energetic cost.

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    I certainly see this phenomenon in my own woodwind playing and teaching. How many times have you encountered these?

    • More resistant notes failing to respond because there’s just enough breath support for the less-resistant ones

    • Embouchures losing their shape, reverting to a neutral/normal mouth position

    • Voicing, such as the high, cold-air voicing needed for clarinet playing, or the low, warm-air one for flutes and double reeds, lapsing into a medium, luke-warm state that negatively affects tone, pitch, and response

    • Pitch sagging at ends of notes as breath support peters out

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    A factor in this is establishing a suitably high bar for success. For a beginner, the only question might be, “did a sound come out?” For a slightly more advanced student, it might become, “did the correct approximate pitch come out?” A more advanced player might examine the precision of the pitch, the quality of the tone, and the immediacy of the response, among many other factors. It takes a relatively low amount of energy to meet the beginner’s threshold of success, but potentially much more for the advanced player’s.

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    I find that when I am playing at my best balance of efficiency and effort, an hour of playing a woodwind instrument leaves me feeling like I have done some light exercise; I’ll feel the mild and pleasant fatigue of having taken a walk or reorganized a bookshelf. Serious tiredness or soreness are warnings that I’m overusing my body. (Your results may vary depending on your physical capabilities.)

    Be in tune with your own body as you play, and teach your students to be in tune with theirs, so that you’re in the sweet spot of working hard enough but not harder.

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    I try to push them to keep their observations objective. But often the comments are things like:

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  • Woodwind dynamics and the embouchure

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    There’s a lot of confusion about how different dynamic levels are produced on woodwind instruments. How do you think it’s done?

    If you said something like “use more or less air,” you are on the right track, kind of. But how do you put more or less air into the instrument?

    If you said something like “blow harder or softer,” you are asking for trouble. Adjusting volume by increasing and decreasing breath support causes all kinds of nasty problems, especially sluggish response, unfocused tone, and saggy pitch at softer dynamic levels.

    dynamics

    So what method is left to adjust the volume of air entering the instrument, and the corresponding loudness or softness (weirdly, also called “volume”)? Surprise, it’s your embouchure. Take a look in the mirror at your flute aperture, or look at the opening in your oboe or bassoon reed, or the opening between the tip of your clarinet or saxophone reed and the tip of the mouthpiece. By manipulating the size of this opening, you can control the volume of air passing into the instrument, while keeping your breath support powerful and steady.

    The opening isn’t large to begin with, so bear in mind that the adjustments needed are incredibly small. But your lip muscles are well-suited to very small, subtle, expressive movements—certainly more so than your larger breath support muscles.

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  • Woodwind doubling and oboe problems

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    There’s an increasing expectation that woodwind doublers be competent and confident oboists. It can be a challenging double, but a worthwhile one. Many of my doubling gigs have come to me because of my ability and/or willingness to play the oboe. And even though it’s not my strongest instrument, there are considerable spans of my career during which I’ve made more money playing the oboe than any other instrument.

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    Fingering awkwardness. Dedicated, conscientious practice of scales/arpeggios and technical material goes a long way here, but there are some additional considerations specific to the oboe.

    First, the oboe’s toneholes are rather widely spaced, maybe surprisingly so for clarinet and saxophone players. (This has to do with the oboe’s very narrow bore—the toneholes have to be quite small so as not to catastrophically weaken the instrument’s body, which means they have to be spaced widely to produce a scale.) This can be a cause of tension. Work diligently at keeping your hands relaxed. If it helps, use a neckstrap to further reduce hand strain.

    Second, the oboe, more than the other woodwinds, tends to have more keys the more you pay for it. It’s very worthwhile to save up for an oboe with a left F key, and to learn to use it fluently. The left F key should be seen as part of the instrument’s core fingering technique. Many of the other keys available on professional or semi-professional instruments are less-used, but valuable in specific situations.

    Uneven tone and intonation. The oboe requires a very low voicing, lower than a saxophonist is used to and much lower than a clarinetist is used to. It also offers little forgiveness for weak or inconsistent breath support. Learn to balance low voicing against steady support to even out the instrument’s sound and stabilize its pitch. (Like fellow conical-bore instruments the saxophone and the bassoon, the oboe’s response suffers particularly in the lowest register when your voicing is too high.)

    Similarly, embouchure should remain open, not pinched, regardless of register. Remember that the embouchure’s function is to be a mostly-passive gasket between your air system and the instrument. Resist the urge to bite when moving into the highest register—rely on good breath support instead.

    Overall response sluggishness/unreliability. My experience is that many, many intermediate (and especially self-taught) oboists are playing on reeds that are far too stiff. If your notes won’t respond reliably and delicately at a soft dynamic, and you’re sure your breath support, voicing, and embouchure are working well, you should consider a more responsive reed.

    Because oboe reeds are so susceptible to change, the best way to sound like a pro reed-wise is to spend a few years’ worth of lessons learning to make (or at least adjust) them yourself. Failing that, it’s worth it to buy reeds face-to-face from a good reedmaker, rather than from a music store or a distant internet reedmaker, so that they can adjust them for you on the spot. Reeds from a local reedmaker are also adapted to your altitude and climate.

    Another important and ongoing concern is adjustment of the instrument itself. The oboe has many adjustment screws that need occasional tweaking. It’s best of course to learn this art under the supervision of a good teacher. But if you’re mechanically-inclined and have a good oboe technician standing by to bail you out, there are a number of books and resources that explain the method in a clear and methodical way. A small tweak here and there can transform a stuffy, stubborn oboe into a responsive, cooperative instrument that is a joy to play.

    Approach the oboe on its own terms, equipped with good reeds and a good grasp of tone-production fundamentals, and enjoy!

One Comment

  1. The answer for me is, what will I play if I get paid for? Some instruments, such as oboe, English horn, recorder, shawn, crumhorn, Albert-system clarinets, pre-Boehm flutes, etc., I can make recognizable music out of, but it is not of sufficient quality for me to get paid. I can also make quasi-musical noise out of most brass instruments, and I use piano, electric bass and guitar when I compose, but I am not even good enough to play those instruments for my kids.

    I have a rank order for proficiency and desire to play the instruments I will play in public:

    1. baritone sax
    2. alto sax
    3. tenor sax
    4. soprano sax *
    5. bass clarinet
    6. piccolo
    7. flute
    8. contrabass clarinet *
    9. contra-alto clarinet *
    10. Bb clarinet
    11. A clarinet
    12. alto flute
    13. alto clarinet *
    14. bass saxophone *
    15. contrabassoon *
    16. bassoon
    17. Eb clarinet

    * means I don’t own one, but I can play it. I have been paid, or part of a professional-level amateur group, to play all of the above except contrabassoon. I have also appeared playing random percussion instruments here or there, but I do not consider myself a percusionist.

    So, using this definition, I play 17 instruments.

    Reply

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