Klarinet Archive - Posting 000279.txt from 1996/03

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Children on smaller clarinets
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 15:53:36 -0500

I have little experience in the matter and am speaking only intuitively,
but it would seem to me that starting a child on a smaller clarinet such
as the E-flat or D is not an idea that looks to prove fruitful.

First, let me admit that whatever competence I had on clarinets was
invariably on the lower instruments. I was a lousy E-flat player,
but I found that the embouchure requirements were so much more rigid
and precise, that I could take few in any liberties with my mouth position
when I played E-flat. Furthermore, the requirements of the mouthpiece itself
were much more stringent. Reed necessities were more severed. In effect,
everything about it associated with the mouth were such that a beginning
child is less likely to overcome these difficulties on an E-flat or D.

These comments may be due to my own insecurities with the instrument, but
I found the E-flat clarinet much more difficult to play at all, and
very much more difficult to play than a C, B-flat, or A.

I realize that, on string instruments, the size of the instrument is a
function of the size of the child, but I wonder if that theory holds
true on a woodwind instrument which has a whole host of problems added
to its already formidable ones when everything is reduced proportionally
in size.

I would very much like to be established as being incorrect in this
hypothesis which, as I stated above, is quite intuitive.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================