ON PRODUCING GOOD SOUND.
The rules of fingering alone are not sufficient to play the serpent well, which in this regard is one of the most difficult instruments, but one who is organised can, with particular work, and listening carefully to the sounds of the notes, manage to play it well.
The sounds of all the notes on the instrument, produced either by modifying the embouchure or fingering, must be formed first in the imagination, and if it happens that the inner feeling is false, the sound produced will become so too. Now as there is no method to teach chanter juste: perfect pitch?, that is to say, to teach how to produce with the voice a determined intonation; or to sing in unison with some note, there is also not, in the same sense, a way to teach playing so on the serpent. Musical knowledge is therefore here the first condition required, and the student who received it from nature must, before putting lips on the instrument, have acquired, through the exercise of the solfege, the habit of comparing the sounds, measuring the intervals, and grasping the intonations.
ON THE EQUALITY OF SOUND.
The equality of the voice of the instrument is the complement to all the conditions that must be met in order to have a good quality of sound.
This equality derives from that of the interlocking sounds and is obtained, as far as possible on the serpent, by avoiding giving too much strength to the brightest notes of the instrument, such as the pedal D and A, and artfully modifying them to bring out with more advantage and ease other notes that are naturally veiled or weak.
We will therefore get used to placing the sounds equally, by swelling or decreasing them with the same care, to play sparingly the easy sounds to focus on those that are less so. It will be through this essential study, indispensable to obtain equal sounds, round and mellow, that the student will succeed in acquiring a beautiful quality of sound.
ON TRILLS.
The trill, improperly called a cadence, is the alternation of two notes, consisting of the main note and a small note or grace note placed on it.
The trill or cadence is indicated by the sign .svg){kind=small}
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