Klarinet Archive - Posting 000343.txt from 1996/03

From: Walter_Quan@-----.CA
Subj: baby clarinetists
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:12:39 -0500

I wonder if we might engage in some personal historical examples - my
elementary school didn't offer banned class (tee hee) until Grade 4... In
preparation for this, my parents (both non-musical) had consulted with
'those who know' and made sure that I had piano lessons with the neighbour
from about grade 2 on, thus giving me (some) familiarity with reading
music, keys and so forth. Thus, after languishing in banned for a year,
the parental units decided that I should have clarinet lessons - the rest,
shall we say, is 'history'.

[I call myself a 'semi-professional', having been 'paid' (but not scale)
for some gigs previously, having some kind of bent towards playing on some
kind of level, but not ultimately pursuing a career - I'm an Arts
Administrator by trade, and am quite happy counselling artists about their
options...]

I'm wondering if KinderKlarinet (previously discussed and clarified here)
is the way to go then... surely basic musicianship, not to mention two
clefs and a 'universal' instrument like the piano, might be a way to go - I
know of NO "Suzuki"-trained clarinet players (or Kodaly or Orff, for that
matter, just to mention some 'popular' methods of music education for baby
musicians)...

anyone else have any comments - I suspect that my experience (piano first,
then clarinet) isn't uncommon... And is this the current way of training
our clarinetists of the future???

Walter Quan
Victoria BC