27 Guided Practice Lesson 3.3
Objectives
Students will be able to:
- use air speed and lip corner firmness to adjust pitch while maintaining consistent tone quality
- utilize articulation with consistency of attack without distortion of the sustain of the note
- demonstrate the continuity of air between notes with different articulations
Materials
- Instrument
- Metronome
- Tuner
Activities
- Mouthpiece Sirens. Start on a comfortable pitch in the lower register. Glissando up and back to that original pitch in one breath. Focus on consistent tone and smooth pitch transitions without adding tension into the embouchure.
- Broken Remington. Listen carefully to the intonation of the note you return to. Keep the embouchure equally relaxed between upper and lower notes, and minimize the amount of physical adjustment of the lips. Think about using faster air to move notes higher and relaxed corners to lower pitches.
- Lip Slurs 2. Make sure to consider the change in oral cavity as you move between partials. Singing Ahh–>Eee can help to focus on faster air for higher notes. Be aware of the tendency to tense the center of the lips to move to higher partials.
- Contrasting Articulation Study. When altering articulation, make sure the weight of the attack remains the same from one note to the next. On staccato, make sure that the lower abdomen stays actively engaged, so that the air column remains present and the attack is not huffy. On the accent, watch that the tone of the note is not distorted by the stronger tongue attack.
- Dexterity Exercise #1. Using a legato articulation, play through each exercise with attention to even tone and continuous sound. Aside for when you breathe, there should be no significant breaks in the sound due to the release of notes. Your lower abdomen should stay consistently engaged, rather than starting and stopping with each note.
