Bra vibrationer: Perspektiv på nybörjarundervisning i brass från pedagoger och logopeder

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to investigate the methods used by brass teachers to instruct tone production and embouchure to young beginners, as well as examine what perspective that could be added to this subject by brass playing speech therapists. Data was collected from two focus groups – one with four experienced brass teachers, and one with two speech therapists with experience from brass playing. The result shows both unity and disagreement amongst the informants about the foundations of a good embouchure and how it should be instructed to pupils. There is unity amongst all that the air and breathing plays an important role for the embouchure. The brass teachers of this study disagree about the size of the lip aperture as well as the use of lip buzzing to develop tone production and the shaping of the embouchure. Imitation is used by the brass teachers as the main tool for instructing embouchure. The speech therapists claims that this could be challenging for some children and that different methods of instructions might be needed. Concepts of holistic thinking and specificity in practice were brought up by the speech therapists and from their answers it could be deduced that individual adaptation and the self-awareness of pupils/patients are important principles in their work. These principles should be able to be combined with, and enrich, the work of brass educators.