Klarinet Archive - Posting 000167.txt from 1997/07

From: Karl Krelove <kkrelove@-----.com>
Subj: Re: technique
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 15:57:24 -0400

At 01:54 AM 7/5/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I am having some technique problems....
>One of my major problems is arpeggios, no
>matter how much I practice them they don't improve. I know them, but when
>I start to play them they just get jumbled up in my head. I can play
>Hindemith really well, but my Mozart is dreadful.
>Tonya =)
>
Tonya,
This is one of those things that is a lot easier to try to diagnose if
someone can hear you play, especially week in and week out, but it sounds
as though you're working with a teacher and still are facing a barrier of
some kind. Your reference to Hindemith (whose scale and arpeggio patterns
are often not the "standard" ones we all practice) and Mozart suggests that
you may be OK learning note by note from the printed music, but that the
usual arpeggio exercises and even the passage work in Mozart that is based
on them may involve too many notes to learn that way (same reaction the
Emperor has in "Amadeus" - too many notes!). How comfortable are you with
the "theory" on which chords and arpeggios are built? If you aren't up on
the logic involved in those arpeggios, that might be a good additional
approach. It won't substitute for practice, but it certainly can focus your
practice in a different way and help you process something that you seem to
be having a hard time with right now.
BTW, don't bite off too much at once. In the exercises work with one or
two keys at a time. Don't even think about Gb Major or Eb Minor until you
can do one or two sharps and flats. In music like the Mozart Concerto, do
only a selected passage, starting slowly and gradually working the tempo up
only as you can play it reliably - but I'm sure these are things you're
already hearing from your teacher.
Hope some of this turns out even a little useful.

Karl Krelove
"Time is the best teacher; unfortunately, it kills all its students!"