The Woodwinds: Perform, Understand, Teach

James Byo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317303039
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

The Woodwinds: Perform, Understand, Teach provides comprehensive coverage about the woodwind family of musical instruments for prospective instrumental music teachers. What sets this book apart is its focus on how to teach the instruments. Preparing students in the how of teaching is the ultimate goal of the woodwind class and the ultimate goal of this book, which organizes information by its use in teaching beginning instrumentalists.

In developing performance and understanding, pre-service teachers are positioned to learn to teach through performance —contrasted with an "old-school" belief that one must first spend much time tediously trying to understand how things work before playing the instruments.

The book is organized in three parts: Preliminaries, Teaching the Instruments, and Foundations. Chapters in Teaching the Instruments are organized by instrument (flute, clarinet, saxophone, oboe, bassoon) and, within each instrument, according to how an effective teacher might organize experiences for novice learners. Basic embouchure and air stream are covered first, followed by instrument assembly, then hands and holding. Embouchure coverage returns in greater depth, then articulation, and finally "the mechanism, " which includes sections on the instruments of the family, transposition, range, special fingerings, tuning and intonation, and reeds. In Foundations, topics are situated in big picture contexts, calling attention to the broad applicability of information across instruments.

Part 1 Preliminaries

Chapter 1 Woodwinds in Diverse Contexts

DOI: 10.4324/9781315649115-1

We begin with relatively brief coverage of five topic areas, which I hope will provide a helpful, bigger-picture perspective before we dive into the details of the instruments and teaching. I view these topics as entry points. The first, “How Woodwind Instruments Work,” is an entry point in acoustics. The second, “The Contexts of Woodwind Performance and Teaching in Schools,” asks you to consider the great many circumstances under which instruments are taught in the schools and how this variety is both a challenge and a potential joy to the teacher. The third, “How People Learn,” is intended to prime your pump, so to speak, about how teaching works best when it is consistent with what we know about how learners learn. The fourth, “How You Learn,” asks you to be a bit reflective about how you might best teach yourself in the woodwind class. Last, “Instrument Selection and Assignment” provides some background to the practical matters of getting students on instruments, but also opens a line of thought into the processes of creating and sustaining student interest in instrumental music.

How Woodwind Instruments Work

If your non-musical but curious grandfather were to ask “What makes a saxophone sound like a saxophone and not like another instrument?” what would you say? To satisfy his curiosity, you’d like to have an answer that is accurate without being overly complex. Wade through just a bit of complexity with me. In a few pages, when you come out the other end, you’ll be in a position to impress your grandfather. Here we go.

Acoustically, a wind instrument sounds as it does because of its shape (cylindrical or conical), the nature of its pipe (closed or open), its fixed and variable lengths (length varying according to fingering used), the diameter of the bore, the sound source (edge tone, single reed, double reed), and the material of which the instrument is made. Interestingly, the impact of material on tone quality is less about the material itself (wood, brass, plastic) and more about the capacity of the material to be shaped to precise specifications in the construction process. Material is no more than a secondary factor in explaining why wind instruments sound as they do.

You see in Table 1.1 that the flute is the only open pipe within the woodwind family. The flute when played is open at both ends. The other woodwinds have one end open (the bell) and the other end closed, the reed end being closed by the player’s embouchure.

Tone is produced when low-pressure, atmospheric air inside the bore of an instrument is activated by high-pressure air supplied by the player. The edge of the flute embouchure hole separates the air stream in two, with tightly alternating episodes of air going in and out of the head joint, creating what we know as vibration. Likewise, the thin and thus malleable tip of a reed responds to tension in the embouchure and speed of air stream by oscillating back and forth against the facing of a mouthpiece (single reed) and blade to blade (double reed). The interaction of high-pressure air (the air stream) and low-pressure air (the atmosphere inside the mouthpiece or double reed) causes the reed opening to close. This increasingly smaller opening changes the nature of the air pressure inside the mouthpiece, which causes the reed to open again. These alternating pressure differences cause the reed to close and open very rapidly. If the clarinet or saxophone reed is not dampened properly by the embouchure (i.e., if embouchure pressures are not correct or at least “ballpark” correct), the reed may vibrate at its own resonant frequency, producing what we recognize as a squeak.

Table 1.1 The Sound Factors of Woodwind Instruments

Instrument	Shape	Pipe	Sound Source	Body Material
Flute^1	Cylindrical	Open	Edge	Solid silverNickel silver^2
Clarinet	Cylindrical	Closed	Single reed	GrenadillaRosewoodPlastic^3
Saxophone^4	Conical	Closed	Single reed	Brass^5
Oboe	Conical	Closed	Double reed	GrenadillaPlastic
Bassoon	Conical	Closed	Double reed	MaplePlastic
Notes 1To beautify and prevent corrosion, flutes are finished with nickel or silver plating. 2Nickel silver metal is an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc. 3Plastics (thermoplastic and polypropylene) are formed from resins that become plastic when heated and cooled. 4Saxophones are finished with acrylic lacquer or silver plating. 5Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.

Timbre (pronounced tamber) refers to quality of sound. What distinguishes clarinet timbre from flute timbre? One tone, any tone, is really a combination of many tones that sound together in a unique combination of individual-tone strengths to form what we hear as one tone or one timbre. This combination of many tones occurs in a prescribed pattern of intervals that form a harmonic series. A harmonic series on the fundamental C is presented in Figure 1.1. It shows 16 harmonics.

About the individual-tone strengths, the cylindrical bore of the clarinet is closed at one end, thus making odd numbered partials sound louder than even numbered ones. The cylindrical bore of the flute is open at both ends, thus having a different effect—the even numbered partials are stronger than they are for clarinet. The conical bore and closed pipe of the saxophone produce still another distribution of even and odd numbered partial strengths. Why do instruments sound as they do? Primarily because shape of bore (cylindrical or conical), nature of pipe (closed or open), and source of vibration (single reed and mouthpiece, double reed, or edge) affect in different ways the strength of the individual partials.

Vibrato is applied as a standard technique to both enhance and project tone on the flute, saxophone, oboe, and bassoon, and stylize tone on jazz clarinet. A diaphragmatic vibrato is commonly used on flute, oboe, and bassoon. Jaw vibrato is common on the saxophone. Vibrato is not viewed as a standard technique for classical clarinet in the United States, though it is used judiciously by some players. Clarinet vibrato in classical music finds greater acceptance outside the United States.

Figure 1.1 Harmonic Series Overtones

You might be thinking that understanding how tone happens is no big deal when one views characteristic tone as one thing—for example, characteristic saxophone tone. What’s a saxophone sound like? A saxophone, of course. But Griffin Campbell gets a “characteristic” saxophone tone that is quite different from Debra Richtmeyer’s “characteristic” tone. There are distinct timbre differences in both of these characteristic tones. Likewise, the tone of an artist-level French oboist is very different from that of an artist-level American oboist. How can this be when there are so many common factors among musicians—bore shape, pipe condition, bore diameter, material, sound source?

Answer: Different timbres exist in large part because one performer’s use of embouchure and air stream inhibits or stimulates certain partials within the range allowed by the instrument more so than another performer’s, and because the common factor of sound source—for example, the single reed and mouthpiece—is not such a common factor after all. That is, one reed style and mouthpiece setup can be very different from another.

What should a player do to get a better sound or a different sound? Stimulate certain partials or dampen certain partials or change reed style.

To your grandfather’s question “What makes the saxophone sound like a saxophone?” you might say: The saxophone is shaped like a gradually expanding cone. When played, it is closed at the reed end with the player’s mouth creating the close. These two things—conical shape and one closed end— make the saxophone sound very different from a flute, which has two open ends, and a clarinet, which has a cylindrical shape. Back to the saxophone—conical shape, closed end, and a single reed sound source combine to give the saxophone its characteristic sound among all wind instruments. When high-pressure air blown by the player interacts with low-pressure air inside the mouthpiece, the reed vibrates, causing the instrument to respond as only a saxophone does.

The Contexts of Woodwind Performance And Teaching in Schools

Woodwind teaching in K–12 schools happens in an amazing variety of contexts. Changing context and the concomitant need for teachers to adapt are facts of a teaching life. What teachers know and do one way will often need to be adjusted to fit a number of different teaching contexts. There are parallels in other professions. A pro baseball player whose been squaring up every fastball thrown his way will eventually see a steady diet of off-speed pitches from wily pitchers. In this off-speed context, the batter will have to make adjustments in order to succeed—a fact of baseball life. Adjustment is a fact of woodwind teaching life.

While reading this textbook, remind yourself from time to time that your teaching will be most effective when it is adaptable. What you learn in this book and in class will be most useful when you take the fundamentals presented one way—for example, the fundamentals of flute tone...