How many times have you worked with a student orchestra or attended orchestral concerts where the wind and brass were letting the side down and undermining the desired effect of the composer/conductor? Why was this happening and can you pinpoint specifically the cause of the questionable sounds?

Is it intonation; the quality of the sound; are they too loud or the opposite; are they out of synchronisation with the strings; are the brass continually cracking or and mis-pitching? This whole area has often been problematic – and neglected – and therefore requires some attention.

Because of the numbers and technical similarities, a string section generally adequately acquires a homogenous entity and timbre. Quite often however, when wind or brass instruments are added, they take away from the overall desired effect and undermine the object of the exercise.

A homogenous sound in a wind and brass section can be achieved through: good sound production; good intonation; good articulation; good balance; good phrasing; and good ensemble.

Colour and emotion
The difference between a really good orchestra and a not so good one often comes down to the wind and brass. I have often told my orchestras at the Royal Irish Academy of Music that the only difference between the Berlin Philharmonic and themselves is intonation and tuning (flattery gets us everywhere…). In short, the winds and brass should enhance and strengthen the strings. They are a very valuable source of support and add untold amounts of colour and emotion to the orchestral timbre.

Let us start by agreeing that if you add, say, twelve flutes, a clarinet, an oboe, a trumpet and a trombone to your orchestral strings it will never work. It is almost impossible to get this number of flutes to play together in tune. In addition, there will be major harmonic black holes in the performance of the work. It is therefore important to encourage students to begin learning minority instruments like the bassoon, oboe, French horn, trombone and tuba. The aim is to arrive at a situation where all of the wind parts are represented. We would not perform without a second violin section, so why would we perform without a second clarinet?

The issue is production
Some other aspects of playing relative to wind and brass instruments. also need to be addressed.

Good sound production is the basis of all good wind playing. If this is not dealt with at the very early stages it is practically impossible to retrieve the situation. Not so good production leads to bad intonation and vice versa – players need to produce sounds at the pitch the instrument is designed to vibrate. If the student plays above or below this we get tight or weak sounds – never a quality sound – and thus projection suffers.

Often students are encouraged to pull or push mouthpieces and slides in and out to adjust pitch. This, I am afraid, exasperates the problem. Once a student overdoes this, the instrument becomes out of tune with itself and here we speak of weak intonation as opposed to tuning. Pulling out or pushing in slides may fix pitch for certain notes, but the intonation on the entire instrument then malfunctions. Sometimes it is difficult to detect which way an instrument is out of tune. This can be approximated by trying to detect a tightness or the looseness in the sound. We should always look for a focused production.

The issue is production. A specialist teacher will have the student spend quite a lot of time producing the sound on the mouthpiece/reed alone. This solves a lot of difficulties for the student and helps them focus on the importance of production. It can also help develop pitching, breathing, stamina and articulation.

Breathing is also a key factor in good wind playing. We should try to get the diaphragm into action straight away. Teachers are not asking for a lot. People use their diaphragm when they cough, sneeze, yawn and even when they ‘haw’ hot air on the inside of a window on a cold day to make it fog up. All of this is natural – and so is playing a wind instrument!

Articulation is what gives the character to the playing. The universally accepted way to produce a crisp beginning to a note is simply achieved by articulating ‘ta’ or ‘te’ at the beginning. There are variations to this such as ‘da’, pure legato, slurring, double and triple tonguing. Again if the sound production and breathing is correct it is not so difficult to develop this area.

Balance can be a tricky subject. All of the wind and brass players have individual parts and each of these parts is indispensable. The object of the exercise is to have them all played and get them all to blend and balance. Sitting behind the strings, in some cases quite far behind, lends to the problem.

When all is said and done, wind and brass players (just like everybody else) need to learn to listen not only to themselves but also to those around them. Ultimately this is what gives that potentially wonderful organ like timbre which is so exciting and unique to the genre.