Stav,
You got me thinking and I want to continue this discussion.
You raise three points in your last email. One, that my suggestions about
jaw and teeth and throat position, shape etc. are too technical. Two, that
you just blow and blow and have done exactly the same things for three years
but now you get better results. And three, that a technical approach and an
emotional approach are contrasting development techniques. I leave your
whole email at the bottom for reference.
One: Not sure of your background or who you've studied with but many of the
great players/teachers I've been exposed to talk about technique,
embouchure, air flow, jaw etc. Masayuki Koga in his beginner book has two
drawings of the mouth and teeth. One shows the teeth position at rest and
the next when playing. Here the jaw has moved forward and the top and bottom
teeth are now in line or directly above each other. Neptune told me that
because he has a large overbite he has to move his jaw way forward to get
his teeth in line. Akikazu Nakamura at his lessons makes drawings on a
black board to show the air column and explains how the angle and which part
of the air column hitting the blowing edge affects tone and pitch. These
great players don't suggest we line the teeth up a certain way just for the
heck of it. With the teeth in line the angle of the air column is affected.
And, since the only way to adjust the angle we blow at is to move the jaw,
we also get a new shape to the mouth cavity, throat etc. and a fuller,
richer sound. You might find this on your own in 3 years or 10 or never.
If it's explained to you there's always the chance you'll get it sooner.
Two. I don't know how you can do the same exact thing for three years and
suddenly get a different or better result. I believe from much practice you
have begun to do many subtle things differently. And this is the value of
blowing and blowing. Things can happen. But, some students blow and blow
and get stuck in a rut. They need to try something different.
Three: I don't believe learning about technique and emotion or passion are
two different approaches. Both can occur at Japanese flute lessons and
violin and piano lessons for example. A violin teacher may spend the first
part of the lesson going over how to hold the violin and the angle of the
wrist and maybe the part of the finger that should touch or compress the
strings. Later in the same lesson the teacher may say Hold the violin like
you are caressing it, or Play that passage again and this time imagine you
are telling a story at bedtime to your children etc. I know the son of one
of the main masters and Kinko school heads in Japan. He said When my father
taught me this piece he said try to imagine mist rising off a lake at
sunrise. I had a great lesson with Yokoyama Katsuya's main Deshi Furiya
sensei in Tokyo and he combined both. He had me play the first line in
Yamagoe and corrected fingering and maybe some other technical things. Then
he had me play the line again and said What are you trying to say? Tell me
a story. He was practically shouting and so full of passion and laughter. I
loved this part of the lesson, but, I needed the technical corrections
too. I learned a lot at that lesson and didn't think that he had two
contrasting approaches. There are many aspects to teaching and learning.
It's true that the traditional lesson for generations in Japan has very
little talking or explanation. "The Sensei plays and the deshi has to catch
it". This is a great approach. The students ability to observe increases.
You learn by osmosis. Interestingly enough by trying to imitate your
sensei's sound you adjust your jaw and throat etc. just like an
impressionist does when trying to imitate Bob Dylan or Louie Armstrong.
One difficult thing about learning flute however is that we can't see inside
the mouth of the teacher. You can see a lot more watching a piano player
than a flute player. Some of the Japanese teachers now have begun to
explain more. I'm not sure why this has happened but it might be because
they have so many western students. They must also believe it can help. I
know it has helped some who weren't able to "catch" everything.
I actually am not a "technical or intellectual guy". Words like chemistry,
and math or even science cause me to begin to slip into a coma. But, when I
discovered that I could change and greatly improve my sound just by playing
with the position of my jaw, and shape of throat etc. I became very excited
and have really focused on these aspects. However once I begin to play or
perform I don't think about technique etc. at all. That's for the
pracice/experimentation time.
What's wrong with looking into these things? If a guitar teacher told you
to hold the guitar differently and it made a huge difference in your playing
would you say That's too technical for me?
Peter
On 5/13/05 3:05 PM, "Stav Tapuch" <tapuch@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Some of the suggestions here to improve your sound seem so technical - open
> your throat, move your lips just so, align the teeth, lower the jaw, expand
> or do not expand the cheeks...
>
> and others are very intuitive, or emotional: imagine the sound you want.
> Sing, in your head, the sound you wish to produce, and so on.
>
> Over the past three years my sound has improved a lot, but I honestly do not
> know why my sound is improving. As far as I can tell I am doing the exact
> same thing, but with much better results.
>
> This has left me very skeptical towards the technical approach towards
> development. There was no single tip that made be sound better, I am just
> blowing and blowing and blowing all the while wishing for a better sound,
> and, eventually, I began to sound better...
>
> Do the different approaches help towards working against different obstaces?
> Would be interested in hearing about the relative results people have
> experienced with these two contrasting development techniques.
>
>
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