Klarinet Archive - Posting 000206.txt from 1994/09

From: Claudia Zornow <claudia@-----.COM>
Subj: Rhapsody in Blue
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 12:50:48 -0400

I had to learn to gliss about three years ago when my orchestra
played "Rhapsody in Blue." When I went to my teacher in a panic,
he told me he had only been successful in teaching the gliss to
1 out of about 10 people who had tried it before me! I won't say
I was 100% successful, but I managed something that sounded acceptable
to me. What I ended up doing was playing scale/chromatic until I was
up somewhere around E/F clarion and then starting the actual gliss.

Two things that helped me (shown to me by my teacher): (1) getting
the feel of what to do with my embouchure by playing a high C (two
ledger lines) and seeing how low I could get the pitch without changing
fingering. I could get down about a fourth (to G); my teacher can do
a full octave. (2) As you start glissing, pull your fingers away from
the holes in a sort of relaxed dragging motion (moving your hands straight
out parallel to the floor). What you're essentially doing is half-holing
everything.

Also, think about playing it with a saxophone style of freedom in your
embouchure. Not that you should actually do this, just think about it!
I think that clarinetists who have spent their lives going for the perfect
clarinet embouchure and who never touch a saxophone for fear of contaminating
the perfect purity of their clarinet playing will have the hardest time with
the gliss. If, on the other hand, you're used to playing five or six
different woodwinds in a show and changing embouchures at the drop of a
page turn, the gliss shouldn't be too difficult.

Good luck!

Claudia