Klarinet Archive - Posting 000539.txt from 1997/03

From: Nathaniel F Johnson <clarinat@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Teaching Altissimo
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 00:29:24 -0500

One point about teaching young'uns to play in the different registers: I
try to avoid using the term "break." Sure, I use it when talking to
established clarinettists ("Boy that piece is a real bear; ten bars of
sixteenth notes and they're all over the break"), but I was told by my
first clarinet teacher in college that you should avoid the term when
dealing with kids who are just starting out. "There IS no break," he
would always say to me. His reasoning is that when you say "OK, kids,
today we're going to go over the break." they get anxious and tense up,
and that can easily become a habit in their playing when they go into the
upper registers.

Any comments?

PS I have never taught any brand new students (the very few students
that I've worked with had played for a couple of years already), so this
is not a tried-and-true thing for me, just something that I heard that
seems to make sense.