Klarinet Archive - Posting 000384.txt from 1998/02

From: Barb073@-----.com
Subj: Re: Doubling
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 01:17:14 -0500

I've got news for you, ladies and gentlemen of clarinet land: gone are the
days when a woodwind player could specialize on one instrument. Anna is
absolutely right. Unless one lands a college teaching or full-time playing
position, or embarks on a solo career, a free-lance woodwind player has to be
able to play more than one instrument. The major shows are being written so
that 4 or 5 woodwind players are playing 16-20 or more instruments among them.
One big reason  money. It's cheaper to pay a few people doubling fees than
many people at full rate. That's reality.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that a student take up a second (or 3rd
or 4th) instrument before getting the first one down fairly well. I played
clarinet for three years before taking on the oboe. Later, I added sax and
flute. The technique of the oboe gave me very few problems, and sax was even
easier. Flute came along once I figured out how to get a decent sound out of
it. I'm now primarily an oboist, but I've landed jobs that my single-
instrument playing colleagues can only dream about.

Handling all those embouchures requires keeping the face relaxed and letting
the properly supported air and the fingers do most of the work. The lips
become little more than a gasket between the air column and the instrument.
No hard reeds or open mouthpieces for me!

My 2 cents worth.

Barb Levy
barb073@-----.com

   
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