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I'm a Music Education major in a wood winds methods class, and a final project assigned to us was to make note book, with fingering charts, and common problems with the intstruments. When I say problems. When I say problems, stuff like, "This note is usually flat on Bassoon, so do this with the lips, or use this alt fingering just in this octive.) That kind of stuff. We had to pass off on a single reed, double reed, and flute, and I played all 3 and passed my playing test. Yet I do not know enough about them for this note book. When I try to look stuff like that up, I tend to find websites that mention repair issues with the intruments more than playing ones. So my question is, does any one know of any websites that deal with the playing issues of wood wind instruments. As a hopeful future music educator I thank y'all so much!

Benjamin Joseph Garlic
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Xi Theta Chapter

The best thing to do in this case is to TALK to people that teach the instruments regularly. Even if you find a website, it's not the same as someone letting you HEAR the difference that fingering choices make. With woodwinds (one word, not two) the choice of fingerings can make a HUGE difference but may or may not be appropriate depending on the level of student that you end up teaching. Knowing when to make adjustments is as important as what adjustment to make.

The best example I can give for this is the band director that teaches their trumpet players to kick out the 3rd valve slide for low C# and D. This is great. It's makes the trumpets in tune, BUT if your tuba and euph players are playing 3 valve instruments, they can't make an adjustment and now your brass section is out of tune. I'd rather play out of tune together and half in tune and half out. But, that's my personal preference. Your mileage may vary.

Benjamin, do yourself a favor. Stay away from those woodwind players and their weird sounding instruments.
Those people are crazy.

tubatooter1940 wrote:Benjamin, do yourself a favor. Stay away from those woodwind players and their weird sounding instruments.
Those people are crazy.

Stay further away from double reed players. Even other woodwind players think they're crazy.

windshieldbug wrote:

tubatooter1940 wrote:Benjamin, do yourself a favor. Stay away from those woodwind players and their weird sounding instruments.
Those people are crazy.

Stay further away from double reed players. Even other woodwind players think they're crazy.

And they carry knives!

windshieldbug wrote:

tubatooter1940 wrote:Benjamin, do yourself a favor. Stay away from those woodwind players and their weird sounding instruments.
Those people are crazy.

Stay further away from double reed players. Even other woodwind players think they're crazy.

I'm married to a double-reed player. I can confirm the above BUT some of those skills are transferrable and are very much enjoyed.

One general note about woodwinds in an elementary band: Many beginning clarinet players often will play flat due to undeveloped embouchures and lack of good breath support, so i usually tune my elementary band a little flat, tuning to a middle pitched clarinet player. The players who do play up on pitch can pull their barrel out a bit.

Conversely beginner flutes tend to blow sharp, so you need to pull the head joints a bit for them in order to get their pitch down. I also work with them to blow low into the tone hole a little more than up over the hole. I defintely tune my elementary band lower than 440, not sure how low though.

Saxes usually run the gamut and will play all over the place due to the variances in instruments and beginning embouchures. The saxes seem to have the most variation in pitch and intonation compared to flutes and clarinets. One can easily bend a pitch on a sax a half step or more depending on your embouchure so you really do need to tune the saxes carefully to get them as close as possible. (the same goes for oboes)

(also my brasses will have slides pulled out a bit more than normal to get the pitch down to the clarinets)

With elementary beginners in band, pitch is pretty subjective, but by doing the above you can get them close and have them sounding much better than if you just have them play a note into a tuner. I spend a few minutes at lessons talking about pitch and listening, especially as we get closer to a concert.

Again these are very general observations I have made over a long career of teaching elementary band beginners.

ken k