Improve Your Tone: Don’t Blow Straight Into an Oboe Reed

When I read the biography of Marcel Tabuteau last year, one of Tabuteau’s comments that made it into the book was to not blow into the reed but over it. This stood out to me as a really interesting idea and as I continued to think about it, I realized that I already did this some. I have never found any more material to expound upon what Tabuteau was trying to teach, but I have continued to think about this concept a lot when playing and now when teaching as well and I have developed some of my own ideas that may help you to improve your tone.

As for why this works or what exactly is happening to the reed, I can’t say. My best idea is that the picture I am about to describe helps keep the throat and mouth open and the palate lifted which is necessary for a full, un-pinched sound.

How to Blow Into an Oboe Reed

To use this technique, you have to imagine that you are blowing your air somewhere other than through your reed. Typically, you want to be imagining your air blowing upward instead, which is why I assume this idea helps to keep your body open and therefore your notes much more open. The higher the note you are playing, the higher up you want to be blowing your air.

Lower register: I almost completely ignore this concept for the very lowest notes of the oboe – D down to Bb. Perhaps that is a mistake on my part, but it does seem that air does need to blow more downward for those notes. So maybe I am actually still applying the principle, just in reverse for the opposite register.

Middle register: For middle range notes, imagine that you have a hole on or just above the bridge of your nose and that is where you are blowing air out of your head. The feeling is similar to blowing out your nose and can feel very nasally. This gives me more stability and always improves the tone quality in my students’ playing when I give them this direction. Try this especially if your sound seems breathy.

Upper register: For your upper range, especially A above the staff and up, imagine your air coming out of an imaginary hole on your hairline. I often describe this to my students as being like a whale’s blow-hole and tell them to “play like a whale” as a cue to remind them of this concept. You could also just imagine blowing straight up out of the top of your head or blowing the top off your head if you like a more exciting image! For the very upper range, this really helps to round out the sound and make your tone more bell-like and resonant, and even more in tune, than pinched, shallow, or possibly sharp.

As you play a scale you can imagine the “hole” your air is coming through as slowly sliding up your head as you go higher! As I said before, I don’t know what is happening in your throat and mouth when you do this or how much your air is actually changing direction necessarily, but I find the image and the feeling of blowing *not* into the reed very helpful in improving the tone of myself and anyone else I have taught this.

Is this something you have heard before? Where do you imagine your air going?