Marcel Mule - Mule As A Teacher

Mule As A Teacher

According to Mule, the quality of sound depends on four conditions:

• A firm but light embouchure.
• The precision and quality of emission.
• The mastery of breathing, necessary for the maintenance of the air column.
• The mastery of vibrato, the novelty of which depends on the quality of the expression.

Mule's methodic teachings follow these guidelines:

• Breathing: The breath must be relaxed and through the mouth, using the diaphragm. This will allow the player to have a more confident and serene attitude when performing.
• The embouchure: An embouchure subjecting the mouthpiece with the lower lip on top of the lower teeth and the upper teeth. The embouchure must be firm but relaxed. The different registers of the saxophone must be produced with little variations of the oral cavity and throat.
• The tonguing: The tonguing must be produced using the syllable TA.
• The intonation: The saxophone is not a perfectly tuned instrument; this forces the instrumentalist to develop a very good ear for tuning. To vary the tuning, the player must use the throat and the tongue (positioning the tongue with different vowels), vary the pressure from the lower lip, vary the air pressure, and use corrective fingerings.
• The vibrato: Mule had a clear idea from the beginning how the vibrato should be done, giving clear exercises and the right speed. The right speed is at 300 undulations per minute (i.e. 5 per second), which gives four undulations per crotchet at M.M. 80. The vibrato is accomplished with a movement of the jaw, which creates a variation of the pressure of the lower lip on the reed.
• Technique, based on scales and arpeggios, including articulation.

All these methods are widely explained in his books. Mule gave to the saxophone history a very extensive amount of teaching material, incomparable to anything that existed previously.