After my examiner moaning about my altissimo register intonation and tone all the way down my mark form, I think I need to do some work on it!

My question;

How can I improve my tone on my high notes (like top E, F and G) without driving my family, especially my brother, up the wall? I know that long notes help to improve tone, but I don't think that that's very fair on them! Any ideas? Would something as simple as a need type of reed help?

Thanks,

PD

Hello PD,

Long notes are good practice for altissimo notes, yes, but you do need to think about a few things:-

*altissimo notes need plenty of diaphragm support, if you don't support the notes sufficiently, they'll come out either with weak tone, poor intonation or both.

*your reed needs to be in good shape. There's no reason why you can't achieve beautiful altissimo notes on a reed of strength 3 or so, the reed has to be in good shape though, no splits/chips, and not a reed that's been used for ages.

*you need a good stable embouchure, and you need to take a reasonable amount of mouthpiece into the mouth, not too little, (or TOO much) or you won't get the control you need. Have a look at your embouchure in the mirror, to see what you're doing. And, however tempting it may be, never, ever, ever bite.

*compare your altissimo notes to the notes an octave lower, to see if they're in tune. It's possible that the fingerings you're using are not the ideal ones for you to use, experiment with alternative fingerings, particularly for altissimo F# and higher. Use a fingering chart to help you.

*try doing a chromatic scale from clarion high C (with 2 leger lines) to altissimo G, and back, to get a bit of dexterity with your fingers in the altissimo register.

Good luck!

Thanks for your reply Barry. What would you class as a biting embouchure? Because I think I might have one, and I havn't noticed, but I'm not sure.

A biting embouchure I would regard as :-

*either biting hard with your top teeth onto the top of the mouthpiece, leaving teeth marks there,

or

*biting upwards with your bottom teeth as opposed to 'pushing' upwards with your bottom lip.

That's a whole lot easier to demonstrate than describe PD, but I hope you understand!

Yeah, I think I might have one then, I'm always leaving teeth marks on my moouthpiece, so I have to use those protector things. How can I prevent doing it? I think I've been doing it so long it will be pretty hard to kick, but I'll give it a try, and have a word with my teacher about it. But I don't bite with my bottome teeth I don't think.

Keep this in mind purple dolphin.

You rest your top teeth on the mouthpiece. The operative word here is 'rest'. If you've been biting hard for any length of time, it'll take a bit of practice to get out of the habit of biting, but I'm sure you'll get there. And try to make sure that your top lip remains on the mouthpiece, try not to lift it up when you take a breath, it's a bit of a squeak risk otherwise.

Good luck!