Great stuff here!
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Listen carefully to the way Yo Yo Ma or a great singer (perhaps even a better model since it's so closely related to what we do) manipulate their color.
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I remember something very interesting that I read in “Arnold Jacobs: Song and Wind” by Brian Fredericksen. One of his instructors at the Curtis Institute was Marcel Tabuteau who taught a course on phrasing. Tabuteau wrote,
- “A fine oboist can produce as many as fifty different tone colors on one note, just as a singer can vary the colorings of the voice in an infinite number of ways. Therefore, the oboist must think vocally.”
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- Deep, deep listening in a variety of acoustics will help.
- The way to develop different concepts of sound is simply to listen....a lot.
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I took this advice to heart and found two study sources that help me to really explore sound colors. In a post called
Most beautiful melody? I highlighted recordings by Jay Friedman and Cecilia Bartoli paired with standard literature for trombone and voice. Hearing these amazing performers interpret this music and then playing it myself has allowed me to explore colors that I had never considered in my own playing before this “deep, deep listening”.
Another thing that I have been doing with the Rochut trombone etudes is to trade phrases with my instructor at the beginning of every lesson. We do two or three before moving on to anything else and it allows me to dovetail into his sound. This has been a long-term practice (literally several years now), and I’m amazed at how similarly I have started to approach playing these etudes in alignment with my instructor.
If you get a chance, follow the link in the above post to something else that I wrote called Don’t Drop the Ashtray. It gives some additional things to think about that were very helpful to me.
One last thing. In “Song and Wind” Jacobs said, “Tabuteau formalized the concept of controlling phrasing and dynamics by a numbering system. Each dynamic would have its own level, depending on the instrument. During the class, Tabuteau would have us play at various dynamics by asking for ‘oboe, number five’ or ‘tuba, number three.’ It was magnificent training.”
When I found
Marcel Tabuteau Lessons, this CD puts a tangible perspective on these concepts (recorded by Tabuteau himself). I would highly recommend getting this CD.
Hope these ideas are helpful!