Klarinet Archive - Posting 000262.txt from 1996/08

From: "Fogle, Bill" <bill.fogle@-----.COM>
Subj: piano/clarinet
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 13:26:01 -0400

Greg wrote about different finger/muscle movement for piano and
clarinet playing.

My feeling is that successive generations of teachers/players/artists
tend to swing the pendulum back against the direction of the previous
generation. In piano, there is still a huge backlash against the individual
finger dexterity school (Czernzy, Clementi) that prevailed in piano
pedagogy until the turn of the century. This elbow business is it's own
school. Look back further in piano history to discover the tortures from
masters who *insisted* on finger independance. However, it is of course
quite a different thing to play keyboard and clarinet. Why do ask how you
are going to play clarinet? One can ride bicycle and drive a car.
I don't understand. ----Bill Fogle.

>Mike,
>
>I have one thing to add to your comments on finger movement. I am
struggling
>with learning to play piano (some school requirement). My piano teacher
says
>that the fingers were not meant to move by themselves. He says that muscles (?)
>move against muscles. Instead, he says the movement should come from the
>elbow, and that weight is placed from the torso on each of th individual
>fingers. Furthermore, he says I am to unlearn the individual finger
movement
if
>I am ever going to learn to play piano.
>
>How am I going to play clarinet? I would appreciate any input from
>piano/clarinet players onl the list. Thanks.
>
>Greg Baker