Does woodwind doubling ruin your embouchure?

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Nope.

We use our embouchure muscles for all kinds of things: facial expressions, speech, eating, kissing. Do any of those things “ruin” your embouchure? Of course not. The embouchure is made up of very flexible, agile muscles that are very capable of carrying out multiple tasks.

When people (almost always non-doublers) express concern about embouchure ruin, most of the time what they seem to be talking about is tension, or sensitivity loss, or buildup of callused tissue, or maybe strengthening the “wrong” muscles. If playing any woodwind instrument is giving you these kinds of problems, you are playing it wrong. Your embouchure for any and every woodwind instrument should be relaxed, balanced, and pain-free. Get some lessons with a qualified teacher, quickly.

Woodwind doubling presents real challenges. No need to invent fictional ones!

What I’ve learned from playing different musical styles

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One of my favorite things about being a performing musician is moving in and out of different styles. Recently I’ve performed as a classical, jazz, rock, and blues musician. I’ve been thinking a little about the skills that I associate with each, especially skills that have expanded my musicianship and carried over into playing other … Read more

Favorite blog posts, February 2019

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Hand-picked high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from around the web, February 2019 edition.

Switching between saxophones

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If you are an alto saxophone player and pick up a tenor or baritone for the first time, it’s pretty common to have a thin, weak tone, to be on the sharp side, to struggle with low note response, and to have issues like the top-of-the-staff G and G-sharp squeaking. If you are a tenor … Read more

What should be on your musician website

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It’s cheap and easy to create a website. Any serious freelance musician (or aspiring musician) should have one. This should be a website about you, an individual musician. It should be separate from your ensemble’s website or your academic institution’s website. It should exist long-term, and serve as a sort of permanent address for finding … Read more

Favorite blog posts, January 2019

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Hand-picked high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from around the web, January 2019 edition.

Decrescendo to zero

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Woodwind players often struggle with decrescendos that quit too soon. (“Decrescendi” if you prefer.) It’s pretty disappointing to play a graceful phrase and have the last note end abruptly instead of fading down smoothly to zero. There’s not a special technique to deploy in order to make successful decrescendos to niente. This delicate dynamic effect … Read more

Observing woodwind playing objectively

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If you are teaching a woodwind methods course, you might be interested in my book. I have my woodwind methods classes do a lot of observing of woodwind playing. They comment on each other’s woodwind playing in class, write concert/recital reports, and make written comments on each other’s playing exams (for my eyes only). This … Read more