Sing N' Play

One of my students has a particularly difficult time with pitch on the oboe. He has a good setup with the embouchure, and I am pleased that in general he takes the time to think about his embouchure formation before he begins to play, however, as he is playing he begins to immediately move the placement around.

Intonation on the oboe is affected in different ways than on other woodwind instruments. Since we have a different shaped bore- what is called a conical bore as opposed to the cylindrical bore of say a flute or clarinet. This just means that an oboe starts smaller at the top and gradually gets bigger by the time you reach the bottom, just like a cone. Instruments with a cylindrical bore stay the same over the length of the instrument.

Because of this unique bore shape, oboe players cannot simply "push in" or "pull out" like you would a slide valve, or clarinet barrel, or sax mouthpiece. If we did, it would break the airtight seal between our instrument and the reed- (i.e. waste all of our valuable air).

We need three things to play in tune:

1. Oboe in working order

2. Reed which will crow a "C" at A=440

3. Proper embouchure set up

So I put my student through a little exercise, somewhat painful to the ego of the 6th grade boy- and asked him to SING. Most students HATE to be asked to sing, they will tell me "this is why I chose to play an instrument, I can't sing" or just sit there awkwardly for minutes.... seriously not budging until I either laugh or start singing myself :)

My answer to all of my students is; YES YOU CAN. The act of reproducing a given pitch or intoning a pitch is something that anyone can do with a little practice and either a tuner or piano. Intoning the pitch helps to get the note from in your mind in being in your BODY. This is a really powerful thing, and generally after only a few tries has the student playing much more in tune.

My assignment to my student was this:

Choose the scale you want to work on, (we first used a B-flat Major scale) and take each note separately:

1. Either reproduce the pitch on your tuner (yes they can do this!) or sit at the piano and play the first pitch

2. Wait until you have the pitch firmly established in your mind, then SING the pitch

3. Finally, play the pitch

I know, I know, it sounds SO simple- and it is, and it REALLY works.