Klarinet Archive - Posting 001105.txt from 1997/11

From: Roger Garrett <rgarrett@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: New topic...when to transcribe?
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 18:54:09 -0500

On Sat, 29 Nov 1997, Andrea Kellaway wrote:

> It's interesting to read this. I just joined the list, and I have been playing
> the Bass Clarinet for many years, but it was not an available instrument to
> study at my university, so I switched to clarinet and got in. For the past
> four years I have been playing a VERY little bass clarinet at school, until
> last November I performed a solo with the university orchestra on Bass
> Clarinet, and now no one's allowed me to play my clarinet.

Well....congratulations for being so good that they recognize it and want
to keep you where you are! Welcome to the rest of the bass clarinet world
and the way it could be the rest of your life if you don't demand to play
clarinet sometime!!!

> I am now only
> getting back into my clarinet duties, because my bass clarinet playing is
> effecting my clarinet embouchure drastically. I was wondering if anyone else
> has ever had this problem, and if they ever found a way to rectify it, other
> than 20 more hours a day in the practice room! :)

Because the bass clarinet embouchure and clarinet embouchure are,
essentially the same, they shouldn't negatively affect the other. Where
you are probably encountering problems is that:

a. your embouchure was not correct on clarinet or bass clarinet, and
it is beginning to show on the clarinet

b. you are over-adjusting your embouchure for defects in your
clarinet embouchure that are now coming around as a result of playing bass
clarinet.

c. you are not established in the register recognition (back of the
throat/tongue position) and switching between the two instruments confuses
the voicing......you are, perhaps, choosing the embouchure as the culprit
when it is more likely that it is the voicing.

I find that bass clarinet strengthens and helps my clarinet
playing...especially when doing a lot of doubling between the two. Go
back to long tone (oops.....sorry about bringing that up again Dee!) and
reestablish positioning in both the embouchure and tongue position as well
as slow/fast air concepts.

Good luck!

Roger Garrett
IWU