What is voicing?

ByBret Pimentel

I’d like to address the term “voicing,” which I think is often misunderstood. Here’s my best definition:

Voicing refers to the relative size of the oral cavity, which can change depending on the position of the back of the tongue.

There are a number of other terms that are used to describe this same concept in woodwind playing. I don’t take issue with any of these terms individually, and I think that as a teacher it’s useful to have a variety of possible ways to explain this concept. (These terms can become problematic, however, when they are used in opposition to each other: “Open up, and blow cooler air.”)

Here are some examples of ways of describing voicing. I consider the terms in the left column all to be descriptions of the same thing, and those on the right to be likewise equivalent to each other.

More open vs. More closed
Place the note lower vs. Place the note higher
Like an “oh” or “ah” vowel vs. Like an “ee” vowel
Warmer air vs. Cooler air
Slower air vs. Faster air
Like whistling a low note vs. Like whistling a high note

I do think that “faster/slower air” needs to be used carefully, because the air speed can be altered by changing the voicing or by changing the breath support. (Think of increasing the speed of water in a garden hose: you can narrow the opening of the hose by putting your thumb over it, or you can turn it up at the faucet.)

Every so often I hear a woodwind player deny that they use voicing at all—usually meaning, I think, that they don’t change their voicing from note to note. Under my definition, there’s no such thing as not using voicing, the same way there’s no such thing as not using an embouchure. Any player’s voicing at a given moment is some balance of “warmer air” versus “cooler air” (or whichever terminology you prefer).

The larger issue of how to apply the concept of voicing is a contentious one at best. Stay tuned for future articles!

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  • Saxophone hand position

    ByBret Pimentel

    I often see poor hand position among developing saxophonists. It’s not as much of a problem for oboists, clarinetists, or bassoonists, since those instruments’ finger holes demand a higher degree of finger-placement precision in order to close them properly; an open-holed flute also requires a little more care. But the saxophone’s toneholes are all covered by pads affixed to relatively large keys, so even with a casual approach to hand position getting the holes covered isn’t a serious problem.

    But there are a number of advantages to more careful hand positioning, and on a well-designed instrument it’s also really easy: just put the tips of the three middle fingers of each hand on the corresponding key touchpieces. (Not the tippy-tips, like a violinist, with the fingers perpendicular to the key surface, but the fleshy pad or “pulp” of the finger, just to the palm side of the tippy-tip.)

    Let’s look at the left hand first. I have superimposed (poorly) the key touches over my fingers to show their locations.

    Good hand position
    Good hand position
    Poor hand position
    Poor hand position

    Here are the problems that the poor hand position causes:

    • In order to fully depress the keys, the fingers may lock straight or even collapse backwards a bit. This makes the fingers’ motion more complicated and tense, and less efficient.
    • The fingers may contact the keys farther down the finger pad, perhaps even at or below the first knuckle crease. This decreases control over the keys. And/or…
    • The pads of the fingers contact the keys somewhere beyond the key touchpieces, giving the fingers less leverage and requiring more effort to depress the keys.
    • The pinky finger is shifted to a position where it is more difficult to reach the low C-sharp key, and where more effort is required to fully depress it.
    • Although not pictured here, the thumb should also be situated to that its pad contacts the octave key in a strong position with good leverage.

    Now the right hand.

    Good hand position
    Good hand position
    Poor hand position
    Poor hand position

    If poor right hand position is used:

    • As with the left hand, the fingers lose their neutral curve and become unnecessarily straightened.
    • As with the left hand, the contact points between the fingers and keys are less than optimal.
    • The pinky finger is shifted into a position where either the finger must be contorted to contact the E-flat key properly, or a less-optimal part of the finger contacts the key.
    • The ring finger must bend uncomfortably to reach the side F-sharp key, or that key must be pressed by stiffening the finger and contacting the key near the base of the finger, which is imprecise and awkward.
    • Sometimes poor right-hand position results from allowing the crook of the thumb and index finger to sit in the thumb hook. In these cases, good hand position will require repositioning the thumb so that the thumb’s distal joint is in the thumb hook.

    Some of my students, when asked to shift their hand position, have initially objected, insisting that their poor hand position is required due to their individual anatomy or the configuration of their individual saxophones. I have yet to see this prove true. I suppose I can’t eliminate the possibility that very rare situations exist that might call for a slight adjustment to the finger-pads-on-the-touchpieces positioning, but I haven’t encountered a significant case of this yet. Even with my larger-than-average hands (you may be able to spot my custom extra-high green palm key touchpieces in the photos), putting my fingertips on the touchpieces immediately creates an open, relaxed, and efficient hand position, with fast finger movement and a light touch on the keys. If your saxophone has badly-positioned touchpieces, you might consider visiting a good repair technician to have them relocated (or consider it a warning sign of a poorly-made instrument that should be replaced).

    Good hand position is a prerequisite to smooth, effortless saxophone technique. Check yours carefully, and set yourself up for success.

  • The woodwind section in Mozart’s late symphonies

    ByBret Pimentel

    Introduction

    The woodwind section of the symphony orchestra has long held a place of preeminence. Woodwind historian Anthony Baines gushes: “…the woodwind [section] is a small cluster of musicians in whom the greatest virtuosity in the symphony or opera orchestra is concentrated. It is the orchestra’s principal solo section… They are stars because composers for over two hundred years have made them so…”1 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart certainly made stars of the woodwinds—in fact, he may have been the most important link between the string-heavy ensembles of the early symphonies and the lush, varied sounds of the post-Beethoven orchestra.

    Nathan Broder points out that Haydn and a multitude of lesser figures made contributions during this same period. However, when comparing Haydn and Mozart:

    Of the two, Mozart was the more progressive. Younger, more impressionable, more sensitive to contemporary music, and possessed of a wider knowledge of it because of his travels, it was he who, after having learned much from the symphonies of Haydn, took the lead and reached the pinnacle of pre-Beethoven instrumentation. It was he in whose work were combined all the progressive tendencies of the various outstanding composers of the time, and whose symphonies present a summing-up of orchestral advancement in the latter half of the eighteenth century.2

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  • Masato Honda plays recorder

    ByBret Pimentel

    I’ve been practicing the Telemann recorder suite this summer, and I had been meaning to write a recorder-related post. I thought I might mention this video of Masato Honda, a Japanese woodwind doubler and fusion/smooth jazz artist, but Gandalfe at The Bis Key Chronicles beat me to the punch today with this post featuring another video, of Mr. Honda’s really nice saxophone playing. Read More “Masato Honda plays recorder”

  • Dubious pedagogy alert: woodwind vibrato

    ByBret Pimentel

    I think there is a lot of garbage in the way woodwind vibrato—specifically flute and double reed vibrato—is taught.

    Flutists, oboists, and bassoonists use the same basic physiological mechanism to produce vibrato. I often read or hear debates over what, exactly, this mechanism is, with some arguing fervently that it is the “diaphragm,” and others insisting that it is the “throat.”

    It’s worth pointing out here that a major issue in wind-instrument pedagogy is the fact that so many of the important techniques happen somewhere inside the body where they cannot be easily observed. (Violinists don’t seem to have much disagreement about what part of the body to use for vibrato.)

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  • Woodwind doubling and “similar” fingerings

    ByBret Pimentel
    Photo, thorinside

    Some of the questions I am most frequently asked about woodwind doubling involve the similarities in fingerings between the instruments:

    • “You play all those instruments? Well, I guess the fingerings must be pretty much the same, right?”
    • “I play the oboe, and I would like to learn the saxophone. How close are the fingerings?”

    There are, in my opinion, two misconceptions at work here:

    1. Fingerings are the biggest hurdle to switching instruments.
    2. Similar fingerings are a good thing.

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  • The bassoon’s special(?) staccato

    ByBret Pimentel

    I have a vague memory from childhood, well before my bassoon-playing days, of learning that the bassoon had some special quality to its staccato notes. (From an educational tv show? a children’s book on musical instruments? I can’t recall.) My impression was that this sound was different in some way than staccato produced on other instruments.

    That idea stuck in my mind, but it occurred to me recently that in my subsequent years of bassoon study I had never heard a bassoonist actually address this. I turned to some published sources to see if I could locate any information.

    Several books on orchestration (geared toward composers, not bassoonists) refer to the bassoon’s supposedly unique or unusual staccato. A masters thesis by Melissa Pipe brings several of these together. (I should confess I pulled these quotes directly from Ms. Pipe’s paper, and haven’t verified them with the original sources.)

    The real state of the matter is that the Bassoon has a preternatural power of playing staccato, and, if it is forced to play passages of a humorous, grotesque, or macabre sort, it easily endows them with a dry spiccato quality that is almost toneless.

    —Cecil Forsyth, Orchestration. London: Macmillan and Co., 1948, 2nd edition, p. 235-236.

    Its reedy staccato is often invoked for prankish diversions…

    —Bernard Rogers, The Art of Orchestration: Principles of Tone Color in Modern Scoring. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970, p. 36-39.

    For while certain passages (especially staccato passages) have a way of sounding comical on the instrument…

    —Kent W. Keenan, The Technique of Orchestration. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970, p. 89.

    Staccato passages are second nature to the bassoon.

    —Henry Mancini, Sounds and Scores: A Practical Guide to Professional Orchestration. New York: Northridge Music, 1986, p. 86.

    This passage from Adler is a little ambiguous, and may actually be saying that rather than being unique, the bassoon’s staccato is akin to the oboe’s:

    Like the oboe, the bassoon performs lyric melodies beautifully and produces attacks and staccato passages as incisively… Other composers have treated the bassoon as the “clown of the orchestra” and have written staccato passages for it that truly sound humorous.

    —Samuel Adler, The Study of Orchestration. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 3rd edition, 2002, p. 221-222.

    When playing staccato passages, on the other hand, it is an excellent instrument to portray humour…

    —Sammy Nestico, The Complete Arranger. Delevan, N.Y.: Fenwood Music Co., Inc., 1993, p. 57.

    But while orchestrators seem to find the bassoon’s staccato noteworthy, few bassoonists seem interested in addressing that aspect of it. (Many explain staccato technique, but do not point it out as remarkable or unusual.) I found only two counterexamples, but both are well-respected sources.

    Although each tone is started with the tongue, a tone may be stopped with either the the tongue (as in saying “tut”) or with the breath (as in saying “tuh”). Not all notes which are marked staccato should be played with the “tut” style of tonguing. It should only be used in passages in which the composer seeks to use the rather humorous, dry effect of the bassoon’s sharp staccato. Two quite typical examples are the bassoon solos in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4, First movement, measure 64, and in Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

    All other notes which are marked staccato … should be stopped with the breath…

    —William Spencer, rev. Frederick A. Mueller, The Art of Bassoon Playing. Princeton: Summy-Birchard Music, 1958, p. 54.

    Among all the woodwinds our instrument possesses a special capacity for the rendering of staccato. This important effect features in many of the solo passages written for the Classical Bassoon by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; the 19th century French instrument possessed a quality of dry, crisp staccato which was also capitalized upon by many composers. My teacher Archie Camden declared: “a good reliable staccato is one of the brightest jewels in the bassoon player’s crown!” (Camden, 1961). However these days the German system bassoon has somewhat changed in character, being designed more for sonority and strength rather than the delivery of these effects. All too often today’s playing styles are better suited to powerful expressiveness rather than light staccato. Nonetheless we must strive to achieve these articulation effects by the judicious choice of equipment and deployment of technique…

    When stopping a note, there are occasions when we wish to terminate it precisely — chopping it off cleanly as if it were a slice of salami. At other times a more artistic effect will be called for — allowing the sound to die away like the tail of a comet. For the former we may use the tongue, for the latter the breath.

    —William Waterhouse, Bassoon. Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides. London: Kahn & Averill, 2003, p. 112.

    So, one possibility is that the bassoon’s supposedly special staccato is the effect of ending notes with the tongue. This technique is not unique to the bassoon, but is controversial. (Personally I use the technique on all woodwinds when I believe it to be musically appropriate. And I think most woodwind players do, too, even those who claim they don’t.) Perhaps the relatively open discussion of this technique by high-profile bassoonist-authors correlates to its being viewed as uniquely a bassoon effect.

    One other possibility I would like to explore is the possible relationship of bassoon staccato to another controversial technique: the bassoonist’s jaw moving during articulation.

    If you have thoughts or resources regarding the mystique of bassoon staccato, please join the discussion in the comments section!

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