Klarinet Archive - Posting 000167.txt from 1998/02

From: Dodgshun family <dodgshun@-----.nz>
Subj: Re: Starting on E-Flat?
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 19:59:44 -0500

At 06:23 PM 3/02/98 -0500, you wrote:
>My 8 year old daughter has been playing piano for a couple of years and has
recently
>expressed an interest in playing the clarinet. In the past I've turned the
mouthpiece
>around and let her blow mine while I fingered, etc., but I'm thinking that
maybe she's
>old enough now to start the instrument for real.
>
>She's pretty small and it's occurred to me that my E-Flat horn would be a
better match
>for her hands and mouth, so I was thinking of starting her on that horn -
sort of like a
>Suzuki method for clarinet.
>
>I'm wondering if any of the real clarinet teachers out there have ever
tried such a
>thing, heard of it being tried, have strong opinions about the wisdom of
trying it, or
>whatever. I can see both pros and cons to the idea and would really
appreciate some
>knowledgeable input.
>
>Thanks,
>-rick-

I had a really small nine-year old in one of my classes. She had problems
using the RH little finger keys, but apart from that she was fine. When she
first began, we actually covered the thumb hole with tape for her.
Obviously this posed problems playing G, but it helped her tremendously.
She also still uses a neckstrap to support the instrument, which freed up
her RH quite a bit, which made it easier for her to reach the little finger
keys. I started at age 8 myself, and I still have smallish hands, but I
didn't find small hands to be too difficult to work around.

I have heard of people starting on Eb - the only problem tends to be that it
can be more difficult to get a nice sound out of an eefer, especially for a
beginner. Because beginners don't tend to have a wonderful tone anyway, the
noises which can come out of an eefer might be a bit off-putting, both for
player and listeners!

   
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