The new shawm sound

Thinking a bit more about my last post, another possible significant change to shawm playing technique that might date from about 1360 is the use of greater reed control and tonguing. It seems to be generally thought that shawms were (re-)introduced to Europe from the middle east where they were and are still played with reed fully inside the mouth (not in contact with the lips). Most current players agree that the 15th and 16th century shawm was played with lip control, although there is certainly still room for disagreement over how much. This could of course have been a development that came hand-in-hand with a change to the trumpet, each necessitating the adjustment in the other. It also seems the introduction of a larger shawm (or bombarde), played along with the soprano shawm occured around this time. So at least three possibilities for a very noticeable change.

The iconography of shawm players in this period seems to overwhelmingly show mouths that still rested on the pirouette rather than an 'oboe style' where the reed is held between the lips and the pirouette serves no function (or is absent). Unfortunately it is hard to tell from this to what extent, if at all,  they were using lip control - using the pirouette to support the mouth does allow the lips to control the reed enough to help with flexible intonation, tonguing and some dynamics. 'Oboe style' provides greater dynamical control, but with the result that some modern players seem to end up competing as to how just softly they can play these loud winds.

In trying to find some more scholarly backup for these changes in shawm playing style I came across this delightful rant from Jeremy Montagu:

There is no point in gripping the reed of a shawm between the lips as though it were an oboe or a bassoon; when one does so, the true shawm tone is lacking

His general point is that medieval instruments are not the same as renaissance and baroque ones:

Players must realize that if they use cornetts and sackbuts, crumhorns, rauschpfeife, gemshorns and viols, all of which date from the end of the 15th century at the earliest, and recorders, which are only a century at the most earlier, in 12th to 14th century music, they might just as well use oboes, clarinets and violins

Too many people are mixing them up, he suggests, due to unwillingness to put in the hard work to learn how to play the right instruments (or with the right technique):

...the moment that one plays before the public one has a responsibility to the public; either one says 'we are playing early music on fake instruments with fake techniques for our own enjoyment' or one does the job properly. It may mean making one's own instruments; it may mean persuading better craftsmen than oneself to make them well; it may mean a lot of work and a lot of practice, but at the moment the vast majority of early musicians are taking money under false pretences because they are not making authentic sounds.

This was written in 1975. It would be nice to think things had improved since then...