Klarinet Archive - Posting 000095.txt from 1997/05

From: "David C. Blumberg" <reedman@-----.com>
Subj: Air speed
Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 12:29:38 -0400

I have to disagree with the part that states that you can't control air
temperature. It is possible to blow on your hand warm air with a small
mouth opening by changing the air speed. Fast air, or slow air- what is
difficult about that concept. I think a 4th grader could easily grasp that
concept. I teach Flute, and Sax also - I use those concepts every day. When
you push out the air hard - doesn't it come out faster?

Jonathan Cohler wrote:
On the subject of fast/slow, cold/hot air etc. here are my brief thoughts.

People have no conscious mechanism (to my knowledge) of controlling the
temperature of the air that comes out of them. When we blow on our hands
to warm them (and the air feels warm), we do so with a wide open mouth so
the air moves relatively slowly onto our hands. Therefore there is no
"wind chill" effect and the air feels warm.

If we blow faster air, the wind chill kicks in and the air feels cooler.

However, in both cases the temperature of the air is the same (presumably
somewhere between body temperature and room air temperature).

Furthermore, we have no direct mechanism of controlling air speed.

Therefore, in teaching students how to play the clarinet, I find it
completely useless to talk about things like hot/cold, fast/slow air with
them, because it is nothing that they have any direct control of.

On the other hand, they do have direct control and immediate understanding
of the physical parameters their body. The two important ones here are how
hard you push the air out (with your various abdominal muscles), and the
openness of your throat and oral cavities.

Telling students what to do with air speed is analagous to telling someone
learning spins in figure skating that they need to "spin faster", when what
they really need to know is "bring your arms in closer". Of course, once
the skater knows how to spin, you could tell him/her to spin faster, and
presumably he/she would know what to do to accomplish this. However, there
are more than one way to spin faster, and the student may do the wrong
thing (i.e. push off too hard with the foot, etc..)

Therefore, being precise about what it is that the student needs to
actually do to accomplish the desired effect is very important. Too many
vague, non-physical and inaccurate "concepts" float about this musical
world that obfuscate the real issues and confuse students who are working
hard to learn *how* to play.

- ---------------------
Jonathan Cohler
cohler@-----.net

David C. Blumberg
Principal Clarinet Riverside Symphonia
Adjunct Woodwinds Instructor Univ. of Penn., Bryn Mawr College
reedman@-----.com