Klarinet Archive - Posting 000166.txt from 1997/10

From: avrahm galper <agalper@-----.com>
Subj: Take a Peek
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 19:16:25 -0400

Take a peek

I have a confession to make: I did not know until about 15 years ago
what the word "staccato" meant.
I found out by waiting for my wife in hair salon and trying to read the
newspapers that were there.
It was an Italian hair salon. The only thing I could understand was the
real estate ads. The names of the streets, the prices. But when I
encountered Bungalow-staccato, or bungalow semi-staccato, I asked the
owner of the salon what staccato meant. Was it possible that it was a
short bungalow?
He answered simply "it means detached." I learned something.

It makes a big difference being short and being detached.

In one of my last postings I mentioned an experiment that was made to
photograph and determine the vibrations of the reed.
( By the way, one of the experimenters was the father of the noted
clarinetist, Robert McGinnis.)
They were able to slow down the pictures and discover that the reed
moves in four distinct spurts.
If you can visualize the reed and the mouthpiece from the side,
Phase #1 would be NEUTRAL, when the reed is standing still and there is
a gap between mouthpiece and reed.
Phase 2 is when the reed moves towards the mouthpiece.
Phase 3 is when the reed returns to NEUTRAL position.
Phase 4 is when it moves more outwards, away from NEUTRAL.
It then returns to NEUTRAL and the whole sequence starts again.
(This, of course, is going very fast.)

A logical conclusion is: For the sound to start, the reed has to be in
the Neutral position.
One can realize that if one stops the reed violently to make a so-called
short staccato, the sound wouldn't start until the reed gets into
Neutral.
This might explain some of the extraneous sounds one can get playing
very short staccato

If one experiments with a mouthpiece and reed, turn it around and sucks
in strongly, one can see the whole reed vibrate. Merely give a light
touch with the tip of the finger and the vibrations stop immediately.

My friend, the late Yona Ettlinger, used to say to me when discussing
this subject:" The tongue should be pianissimo and the blowing
fortissimo."

The question is, how do you know what the tongue is doing altogether?
That's why I say: "TAKE A PEEK"

Hold the pupil's chin with your forefinger and put the thumb on the
mouthpiece and ask the pupil to open his or her mouth and pretend he or
she is tonguing.
It takes a few seconds to get use to this and lo and behold- you see
what the tongue is doing.
Most of the trouble comes from tonguing the tip only. The tongue then
recoils into the mouth and difficulties arise.
I demonstrate to them to keep the tongue under the reed and just move it
up and down.
Not back and forth into the mouth.

Regarding "if it sounds good", I have a little anecdote to tell.
Once a noted clarinet player came to our high school and played with a
quartet. Mozart.
Next day, one of the students asked me what I thought. I said," Oh, when
he was tonguing, he moved something in his throat."
He asked me "Did that hurt the music?"

Avrahm Galper