Klarinet Archive - Posting 000619.txt from 1997/06

From: Jrykorten@-----.com
Subj: Re: How to make Stacatto?
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 16:59:33 -0400

Ricardo,

My tonguing was my downfall and caused me to discontinue clarinet because
eventually my throat got so tight when I tried to practice it was painful.
After some many years on piano, I picked up clarinet again, with the same
strength reeds I used to use but a more open facing mouthpiece. The effect
was that I was playing on a harder reed. Somehow this helped me
immeasureably. (Who knows maybe my throat forgot to tighten up in the years
between.) The lesson in my particular case being a setup that is too soft may
interfere with good tonguing technique. (Not a rule, because it is a sample
of one.)

The other thing that many tonguing techniques espouse is the concept of using
the tongue to stop the reed - an effect achieved by saying "udh", not as I
read in an earlier posting to start a reed as is the case when one says
"tee". The point is to put the tongue in as relaxed a state as possible and
only use enough muscle to move the tip forward and stop the reed. By
practicing this slowly (stopping one note over and over again) and working on
bringing up the speed you'll find that rapid "udh udh udh" will produce
cleanly separated notes. The book on stacatto method by Reginald Kell goes
over this very well and I recommend it highly.

The screaming is simply an unstable embouchure that will resolve as you learn
to use as few muscles as possible to move the tip of the tongue. (This may
also be helped by a harder reed?)

The spelling of udh with an "h" is done on purpose to try to relay the
concept that the air pressure remains the same in the mouth even though you
have stopped the reed from vibrating. Everything remians the same as while
you are playing, diaphragm pressure, embouchure etc.

There was also an earlier post about 5 months ago about tonguing that helped
me as well. It dealt with anchoring the back of the tongue between the upper
molars (again relaxed not tight) in the "eee" sound position. Check the
Sneezy archives for tonguing as there were a bunch of really helpful posts on
the subject.

But most importantly check out the book by Kell.

Jerry Korten
NYC

In a message dated 97-06-26 10:31:05 EDT, you write:

<<
> 1. How can I improve my stacatto?
> 2. How can I increase my stacatto spead?
> 3. What are the best methods to study this?
> 4. I'm having trouble with stacato on higher notes (above C#), when I
> get there my clarinet resembles a cat screaming. How can I avoid this?
>>