Chapter 6: Developing Tone & Control
IN THIS LESSON:
Learn how to develop your tone and intonation through basic exercises.
Tone Development
Developing fundamental tone quality is one of the single most important things to practice as a Oboe player. Utilize the exercises in this lesson to learn some of the basics to developing tone.
Breathing, Tone, and Technique Fundamentals should be practiced daily for the best results.
Concert F Long Tones
Set your metronome to 88 bpm.
Set up with good posture.
Take a deep, band breath in time (preferably over two counts).
Set your embouchure.
Articulate your sound with a clear “tooh” start. A great articulation should not be overly hard.
Sustain the sound for the full number of counts, ensuring to release with a resonant sound on count 1.
Use a drone pitch to practice matching what you hear. Try to not “tune with your eyes”. Oboe players must develop their ears, so the use of drones without starting at a tuner is a great way to develop this.
Focus on keeping a steady and focused airstream to produce a clear, block of sound. The sound should start, sustain and end the same. Work on this daily to practice developing consistent tone.
Pitch Bending
For this exercise, we are going to work on our pitch control on the oboe.
Begin with a drone on low F natural (F4).
Play that note along with drone and adjust your embouchure slowly so that you go below the pitch (flat).
Then, adjust your embouchure to bring the pitch back up to match intonation with the drone.
This exercise will help train your ear and help you learn how to use your emoubchure to adjust pitch.
