Klarinet Archive - Posting 000972.txt from 1998/10

From: "Sherry Katz" <slkatz@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Hi!
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:25:00 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: Clark, Dorothy <ClarkDorothy@-----.com>

>Also, how can I get back into improvising. I'm studying the scales.
>However, I'm having a hard time remembering how many sharps for each scale.
>Is there an easy memory game I can associate with this? I remember back in
>school, my teacher would sometimes come up with these in order to enhance
>our playing skills!
>
---
My sax teacher has me doing only three scales a week and tells me to play
them differently every day. For example, one day slur every note, then
tongue one slur two, then tongue two slur two, make stuff up. This forces
you to be alert and keep learning. If you play the scale the same way every
day, then you just go on automatic pilot. There are also a couple of sax
and flute exercises that I also do as a warm up on the clarinet. These are
things that sax and flute teachers seem to emphasize that for some reason
I've never had a clarinet teacher tell me, maybe it's just the teachers I've
had.

After you've played the scale, play the scale in thirds, playing the note
and then the third above it in that key, then back to the next note and up
to the third and so on up and down the scale. This is great preparation for
improvising. Do the thirds right after you've done the scale. Also do the
scale returning to the base note. For example start on C above middle C
then play B, then return to C, then play A and so on down the scale, then
return from the bottom note doing the same thing only returning to middle C.
The root note should be short and the next note long although that's more
for if you want to get a jazzy feeling to it.

Maybe these exercises are widely done on the clarinet too, but my clarinet
teachers were all classically oriented and tended to teach from exercise
books and my sax teacher is jazz oriented and tries to teach things that
you'll keep in your head and do automatically. I think it's good to be able
to do both no matter what kind of instrument or music you play.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------