by Marty Schlenker
Dear Fellow Amateurs,
It’s been several months since I devoted a column to my journey in resuming lessons in middle age. So…how’s it been going?
In previous columns, I’ve shared the advice that helped me the most the fastest, including repositioning my tongue farther back and reshaping my air column to be narrower and rounder, as if it were a straw that I was holding between my lips. Making these changes has enabled the fronts of my notes to be less percussive with the tongue, and they have made it easier for notes to speak.
I alluded to but didn’t really describe other guidance which I know will be good in the long run but which was really challenging at first. It was said in several different ways, but the common concept is that I was exerting too much of my whole body in the attempt to get notes, especially in passages containing large interval changes. This manifested in small ways (eyebrows) and large (clenched shoulders), but fundamentally, it was a substitute for work that should have been done by facial muscles within the mouthpiece ring.
The advice, “keep still outside the mouthpiece ring, no matter what the register or interval” has proven quite difficult, especially right after travel-induced practice breaks. The “hefting” I was doing was only delaying the development of a broadly capable embouchure. Quelling this movement made sense, but it took a while to find any kind of substitute.
Practice breaks…. My business travel slowed down significantly in March and April. The circumstances of my employer weren’t great, so this wasn’t planned; but the silver lining was the longest continuous stretch of practice days since I resumed lessons. With daily conditioning rather than a couple sessions a week, it became easier to summon air from my lower torso, and I could start to make melodic jumps while maintaining a more relaxed upper body.
That’s not to say that this is a resolved issue. Far from it. I would estimate I’m not even a quarter of the way to the embouchure strengthening that I think I need. But it’s a start. Here are some of the “case-in-point” passages newly attained (most of the time, anyway):
Mueller (ed. Chambers) Vol. 2 #23:
Kling #4, in the style of Rossini:
There’s lots more to report that will have to wait until future columns: I acquired another horn and have some things to say about it. I was invited to conduct a trombone ensemble and overcame some self-doubt. I attended the world premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff’s oratorio Saul and made a playing adjustment inspired by the horns of the Harrisburg Symphony.
Fellow amateurs, have you resumed lessons? Are they helping? How? Please write and share your stories; this column will be better for it. marty.schlenker@cavaliers.org
Your servant and kindred spirit,
Marty Schlenker, Amateur Hornist
