Klarinet Archive - Posting 000993.txt from 1998/09
From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Leaps and slurs
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 04:50:14 -0400
Avrahm Galper wrote:
> The tongue has a different placement for each note on the clarinet. So
> when you play open, G it might be difficult to get high C with the
> same way you play open G.
> As an exercise, play a scale slowly and go up to high C. Try to
> remember what it feels like in your mouth, in other words, where you
> are at with tongue placement AT high C. You might then try and do the
> slur. When trying for the high C, try to get the same feeling when
> you went up the scale and got to high C.
> It all takes time. So persevere!
I think this is wise advice.
In case anyone may find it useful, there follows a short piece I wrote a
couple of years ago for my students about the general problem. It's
very much in the spirit of Avrahm's contribution.
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Intervals, leaps, and the 'distance' between notes
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is natural to talk about an interval as though there were a distance
between the two notes which constitute it. The notion is reinforced by
the appearance of musical notation on the page as well as by the words
we habitually use. The word 'leap', for example, which we sometimes
use, has built into it the idea that we must move some distance in order
to get from one note to another, and perhaps also the implication that
some sort of effort and even danger is involved. On some instruments,
you can *see* the distance: on the piano, for example, and perhaps on
string instruments. Is this an accurate picture of what occurs on the
clarinet?
Well, if there is a distance between one note and another on the
clarinet, and if it is meaningful to call it a distance (in the sense
that it behaves like a normal physical separation), we can surely say
that it should take some finite time to traverse it. So, in a perfectly
executed legato 'leap', how long does it actually take to get from one
note to the other?
In trying to answer this question, you can immediately see the
inappropriateness of the 'distance' metaphor. In trying to perfect this
'going' from one note to the other, we are in effect trying to perfect
something that doesn't exist, in the usual sense of what we mean by the
existence of something physical: namely, to be located in time and
space. When we succeed in playing the leap, it takes no time at all.
In other words, when we play perfectly, *there is no leap*. We simply
start playing the second note immediately we stop playing the first.
I should emphasise that in making this observation I am not merely
trying to engage in a 'clever' philosophical man›uvre. If you examine
your experience as you approach what is for you a 'difficult' leap, I
suggest that you may well find that you first make this distance real in
your mind, and then attempt to traverse it. It is this which is
counterproductive.
How can we avoid it? There are two possible alternative metaphors I
would like to suggest in turn.
(1) The Y-shaped pipe metaphor
The idea is to break the hold of the entrenched 'leap' or 'distance'
metaphor and its undesirable entailments by creating another metaphor
which does not use the idea of distance. This new metaphor will
associate the act of playing the first note followed by the second not
with a change of position, but with a change of direction. You proceed
as though you are investigating an imaginary physical system.
What will change direction in this imaginary system is, appropriately
enough, an airstream, and to model this we imagine an arrangement of
three pipes forming a letter Y, with a valve at the centre which directs
an airstream coming from the root of the Y into one or other of the
branches above. The two branch pipes are supposed to represent two
clarinet systems which are set up to play the two notes of the interval
we are addressing. (I'm using the phrase 'clarinet system' here
deliberately to mean not only the clarinet itself, but the instrument
plus shape of mouth cavity -- i.e. tongue position -- plus embouchure
plus fingering plus anything else we happen to discover in the course of
the investigation.
The investigation proceeds not by studying the 'leap' as sequence of two
notes, but rather by studying each 'clarinet system' in isolation and
comparing the results.
We begin by playing each note on its own for several seconds, with the
intention of producing the required sound, dynamic and general quality
which we want the note to have in the finished execution. As we do
this, we try to notice the experiential character of each system. We
may find that one note seems to offer more resistance than the other,
and that if we ask ourselves where in the mouth each note seems to
resonate, or exactly what our tongue position is, we get different
answers. The idea is to remind ourselves, temporarily, that every note
on the clarinet demands a slightly different address to sound its best.
Mostly we don't notice, or want to notice these very small differences
consciously. That they nevertheless are important becomes obvious if we
by accident play a note using the wrong fingering. Often what comes out
is not the note we have fingered, but *nothing*. Sometimes, high up,
what comes out is more like the note we have imagined, even though the
fingering is quite wrong for that note.
Anyhow, in the investigation, we can begin to feel these very small
differences if we pay close enough attention. As we continue, we keep
in our mind's eye a picture of the air flowing from the bottom tube
through whichever of the two tubes is associated with the note we happen
to be studying, and associate the experience of playing that note with
the mental picture of that tube.
When we have examined our experience of each note for a minute or two,
we dismiss all we have learnt and start again, concentrating our
attention on the valve in the picture of the Y-shaped tube in our minds.
Then we play the first note, and imagine that changing from the
fingering of the first note to the fingering of the second *is to turn
the valve through the small angle necessary to redirect the air stream*.
This we may easily imagine to take no time at all, since the change
from one fingering to another is effectively instantaneous. (Our finger
movement here should be slow, though, if only for psychological reasons:
we don't want to remind ourselves of the 'leap'.) As we see the
airstream 'change direction', the second note sounds immediately.
Usually, I find that it is then easy, by repeating the process a few
times, to establish a physical rapport with the experience, so that I
can do without the mental picture. I've learnt a lot unconsciously in
the investigation, and can now play the interval cleanly without
thinking about it.
You can extend the idea to more than two notes by imagining a valve
which controls the passage of air to a sequence of several pipes.
(2) Creating and vanishing the distance
The other approach is similar in intention, and first admits the
non-existence of the 'leap' ™ but then, creates it! (Thanks to Jens
Schou for the idea behind this suggestion.) We begin by playing the two
notes of the interval one after the other, but 'fill in' the gap with a
glissando. (It is also possible to use a scale, perhaps like the
'slow/fast F major' one we had before, but a glissando is better ™ it
doesn't matter if it is an imperfect one.) We repeat this a few times,
and then gradually shorten the gap (and, therefore, the glissando) until
it is so short that it vanishes, and we are left with the pure interval.
Once we have a perfect interval, we again repeat it until we have a good
physical rapport with the experience.
Why do these two metaphors work?
I would say they work by 'cleaning up' how we play. In particular,
their structure automatically and naturally requires us to maintain the
fundamental air-delivery system unchanged throughout. We tend to
acquire a collection of unnecessary habits as we play large or
'difficult' intervals, mostly to do with interrupting the airstream,
though there are other complicating factors. Rather than trying to
identify these habits, we use a metaphor that forces us to take a
different viewpoint, one in which the habits do not enter the situation.
As with many things, our problem has been to do too much rather than too
little. It's worth remembering that the most noticeable quality of a
success, when we have one, is that we *appeared* to do *nothing*.
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Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
tel/fax 01865 553339
... MONEY TALKS ... but all mine ever says is GOODBYE!
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