A new Internet friend shared this gem with me (click for slightly larger):
If you know these pieces (I’m familiar with all but the Howden—anybody know this one?), you know that this is a very impressive program. None of these are filler pieces, and the Mozart and the Ibert strike me as particularly large and challenging.
I like the use of the understated term “instrumentalist” here. And I’m glad that smoking in the recital hall is no longer an issue.
I asked the person who sent me this, a member of Mr. Tootelian’s family, if it would be all right if I shared this with my readers. Mr. Tootelian, now retired, kindly gave his consent.
Update, August 2012: I was saddened to hear from Mr. Tootelian’s family about his passing last month. No doubt he has gone on to a place where the reeds are always good. Rest in peace. —BP
The problems with my original technique are that you have to determine your precise tempo ahead of time, and you don’t have any flexibility to change it on the fly. You also can’t easily change your mind about the sound that you want—if you decide you really wanted something flutey instead of something brassy, you have to edit another sound. If you want to play several pieces or movements at different tempi, you need to dedicate a separate voice to each one. You also get a maximum of 1.27 seconds of echo. For my recent recital, I wanted the flexibility of playing multiple movements and changing my mind about sounds, and I needed a longer delay time for a slow movement.
At the time of my original tutorial, I assumed that the external device needed would be some kind of looper, but upon further exploration I have actually found a digital delay pedal to be the best way of accomplishing the effect. I am using the ubiquitous Boss DD-7, used by many electric guitarists, but presumably these instructions can be adapted to other similar gadgets (you are on your own to work out the details). I also used an auxiliary pedal, the Boss FS-5U. This simplifies things slightly on stage if you want to be able to turn the echo on and off quickly, but it’s totally optional. I’ll tell you how to make this work with or without it.
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!
Bamboo flutes and other “world”-type woodwinds of true musician quality can be difficult to find, and if you’re not experienced with them it can be nearly impossible to tell if an online seller’s wares are genuinely playable or more like souvenir items. I’m going to share an experience of mine in which I gambled and got burned, in case it is instructive to anyone out there.
Recently I needed a bamboo flute in a specific and unusual key (high B-flat) on very short notice for a gig (a performance of the Duke Ellington Nutcracker Suite). My favorite trusted flutemakers don’t currently make flutes in that key, so I placed an order with a flutemaker that I hadn’t bought from before. (I won’t identify the flutemaker here, but I will say that he and his staff were very nice to me. When there was a totally-understandable wrinkle in getting the flute shipped on time, they even overnighted it plus threw in a very nice flute bag at no extra charge.)
Ability to ship quickly was certainly a factor in my choice of vendors, but I was also reassured by the fact that the maker sells flutes in three grades: student, intermediate, and professional. I ponied up the money for a professional flute, and expressed to the flutemaker my need for excellent intonation and a strong high register.
Here is what I received:
cute, right?
Now, the proof of a flute is in the playing, and there’s no way to know for sure if it’s any good without giving it a try. But here are some immediate visual warning signs:
uh-oh
The embouchure hole is strangely shaped. I don’t know for sure what the flutemaker intended, but round-ish is pretty standard. Since bamboo is an irregular material, a certain amount of air noise (vibrational inefficiency) is to be expected, but this flute is very airy, and I suspect the oddly-shaped and roughly-finished embouchure hole is a contributor to this.
This is an extremely wide-bored flute. Often for flute-like instruments we see a length-to-diameter ratio of something around 30:1, but this one is closer to 15:1. To oversimplify the ramifications of this a bit, a wider-bore flute (a smaller ratio) will generally tend to be stronger in the low register and weaker in the high register. For this gig, I needed a flute that could play just to the second octave above the fundamental note—not an unreasonable demand for any common variety of bamboo transverse flute. I couldn’t get this flute to do it. A smaller-diameter bamboo would improve this flute’s upper range.
The finger holes are fairly large, and about the same size. Generally, similarly-sized holes leads to more even tone across the instrument’s scale, but also means that the right hand index and middle finger holes are placed very close together for a simple-system major-scale flute, and on this one the holes are uncomfortably close for me. Larger holes decrease the likelihood of finding usable cross-fingerings; I needed one good cross-fingering for this gig, and couldn’t find one that worked—couldn’t even “lip” the chromatic note into tune. A well-designed flute strikes a balance between large and small holes, and similarly- and differently-sized holes.
The second octave is quite noticeably flat. This is a common problem of bamboo flutes (or any cylindrical-bore flutes), but this one is particularly difficult to wrangle into tune. Really excellent bamboo flutes are sometimes made from bamboo carefully selected to have just a bit of taper in the embouchure-hole end, like a concert flute’s headjoint, or have some bore work done to create an internal taper; this helps to bring the upper register into tune with the lower.
When I realized that the flute wasn’t going to be usable, I packed my piccolo and a B-flat pennywhistle as possible alternatives. As it turned out, we didn’t end up playing the movement in question, so I was off the hook.
You don’t need a “strong” embouchure, you need a relaxed embouchure.
Embouchure “strength” is a myth. Stop biting and pinching.
Your embouchure is made up of little facial muscles, which are good at subtle, expressive movements, like for facial expressions and language (or for nuanced variations in woodwind dynamics and tone color). They aren’t good at feats of strength or endurance.
Your abdominal muscles, on the other hand, are very good at strength and endurance. You use them all day long and they probably never feel tired unless you are doing sit-ups or something. Instead of straining with your embouchure, let breath support do the work.
You should probably check on your voicing, too. I mean, you could bite your clarinet up to pitch instead, but it’s painful and causes lots of other problems.
You know that thing where you play a reed instrument and you get a blister or callus from your teeth on your lower lip? Good news, you don’t need a dental appliance or some kind of tape. You just need to relax your embouchure. Try it! Now you can practice for hours without fatigue or blood, and sound better doing it.
Ever try to play in one of the upper registers of the flute, and get an undertone or some dirtiness/growliness in your attacks? The key to clear, beautiful transitions into the upper register is a relaxed and flexible embouchure.
We can argue about whether your jaw is part of your embouchure. Nah, never mind, I have better things to do. But in any case it should be open, creating space for the soft tissues of your lip and facial muscles to make the aperture. Go ahead and unclench. By the way, opening up your jaw is what people really mean when they tell clarinetists (mostly) to do weird things with their chins.
I know, somebody taught you in your formative years about the vital importance of a brutishly muscular embouchure. Take a deep, cleansing breath. Everything is going to be fine.
I studied with Bob Tootelian in 1956-57, and he was a very impressive guy. He was the #1 woodwind doubler in Chicago for many years and played all the big touring shows that came through Chicago.
I went to his apartment in Rogers Park several times for oboe and oboe reed making lessons, and was blown away by his collection of woodwinds. He had a whole room full of them — every flute, double reed, clarinet and saxophone imaginable. I had never even seen many of them before.
And he played and taught all of them at a very high professional level. Never met anyone since quite like him. He inspired me to pursue doubling, even though I was often discouraged by my music teachers because it was going to “wreck my lip”. I now have a room full of woodwinds, similar to what I saw back then at Bob’s apartment.
I studied with Bob Tootelian in 1956-57, and he was a very impressive guy. He was the #1 woodwind doubler in Chicago for many years and played all the big touring shows that came through Chicago.
I went to his apartment in Rogers Park several times for oboe and oboe reed making lessons, and was blown away by his collection of woodwinds. He had a whole room full of them — every flute, double reed, clarinet and saxophone imaginable. I had never even seen many of them before.
And he played and taught all of them at a very high professional level. Never met anyone since quite like him. He inspired me to pursue doubling, even though I was often discouraged by my music teachers because it was going to “wreck my lip”. I now have a room full of woodwinds, similar to what I saw back then at Bob’s apartment.
Great memories. Rest in peace “Toot”.