by Nikolette LaBonte, Principal Horn, Calgary Philharmonic
I’ve been a somewhat regular SNL viewer for most of my teenage and adult life. Throughout the years watching it, even as casts and writers change, one role has remained a constant presence on the show: the Impressionist. Often featuring heavily in political sketches, the Impressionist can recreate the presence of the most recent headline-making figure and bring them to whatever sketch has been prepared for that week’s cold open. Behind the scenes, I imagine these performers spending time in front of their computers, pulling up clips of the person they are trying to emulate. The actors take notice of hallmark features: tone of voice, inflection, hand gestures, body language, etc. Then they work out how to mimic them: what shape their oral cavity needs to have, how their tongue should move, into what physical shape they need to contort their bodies, and so on.
I’m not a comedian, despite how funny I might think I am. But I’ve been thinking a lot about impressions on the horn. Go to www.hornexcerpts.org right now and click on an excerpt you like. Listen to the first reference recording and think about how you could “do an impression” of that horn player. Just like a comedian, think about the shape of their oral cavity, their air, how they are articulating, their phrase shapes. Then take those ideas and try to incorporate them into your own playing. You might not sound exactly like they do; but do you sound more like them than before?
Impressions are the building blocks of exploring new colors, phrasing points, and inflections. Here’s an example: I am listening to a recording of the Beethoven 6 third movement excerpt, and I hear that the sound is wide and round, and the articulation is minimal. If I want to sound like that, I’ll modify my oral cavity to use an OH vowel, increase my air support to accommodate the larger space, and keep my articulation as low and back as possible. If I do all those things, I can sound a lot like that player’s rendition of Beethoven 6. Do I personally like that approach to that excerpt? Not entirely. But I do like the idea of that floaty sound, so I might try to modify my default oral cavity so that it’s a bit more open than usual…maybe with an AW vowel. But even if I don’t like everything about that approach to Beethoven 6, I LOVE it for Brahms 1. I’ll take the impression over to that excerpt and try it out there—and now my sound is rounder and broader, and it fits the character of Brahms perfectly!
Not sure where to start? Try something! Through trial and error, you’ll find you get better, just as comedians master their abilities over many years. You’ll notice which variables you can change in your own playing to be able to sound like any recording you might hear. And slowly, you’ll discover how to use these variables to create your own musical identity pieced together from various impressions, with varying tone colors, articulation styles, and interpretations. And maybe someday, other players will be working on impressions of you!
