My instructor has me do some of the same. He asks me to blow a scale for him listening to my tone. Then he will either ask me to start out loud and go as soft as I can or the opposite. It really helps with blowing those notes softly. Also breathing.
Absolutely. I think those subtones are much harder to do than long, loud, long-tones. Playing loud and in tune is a great way to develop (or re-develop like I’m doing) our tone. He said I’ll be focusing on subtones more as my air support starts to come back to me. For now, we’re focusing on developing the tone back. Johnny has a great exercise of ‘Ehh-Ahh’ in the tone development lessons that is great for building our tone.
.
.