OK, I have a problem. I am auditioning for senior youth orchestra in my hometown, and one of the excerpts is very long, and with many high notes. I can get the beginning of this excerpt fine, but when I near the end, my lips begin to collapse, my tone deteriorates and I hear a sort "ffffff" breath noise from where my lips are covering the reed; lots of pressure had built up in my lips and I couldn't hold it any longer. While you probably won't be able to reply in time for my audition (today. sigh), I want to keep this from becoming a long-term problem. Please help!

Lots of practice!
It you might have been trying to do too much in one breath. It is usually possible to break up long passages into shorter phrases without destroying the sense of the music.

Good luck

To agree with the first post, lots of practice will help you build your embouchure. Try to push the corners of your mouth in, making an "O". Before you practice your excerpt, play a few scales two octaves. How high are your high notes? Are they up in the Eb's, E's, and F's? Play chromatic and major scales tongued and slurred. You will get it eventually.

Oh, and I forgot to mention another exercise. You can use this on any scale, but I will use C as an example.

Set your metronome to 60. Then play two octaves C Major scale up and down, then two octave C Harmonic Minor scale up and down.

When you are going up the C Major, start at mf and diminuendo all the way up. Stay pp all the way down. Going up the C Harmonic Minor, crescendo, then diminuendo down and hold the last note out 4 beats at a pp volume.

Believe it or not it improves your tone.

Thanks for all your help, but I'm not sure I was clear. I start playing with good tone, but after playing for a couple of pages straight my tone gets worse. This especially happens when I have dry lips.

Thanks!

You need to practice a lot to improve your stamina & hence be able to maintain the sound. Long notes especially in the upper range especially will help. Also work out places to breathe so that don't run out of breath - even a quick break can relieve the tension & help you keep going. In private practice you will find that you can do more before needing to breathe than in a performance so by all means do this in private but ensure you have worked out a performance strategy beforehand so that there is no panic on the day.

Good luck