Klarinet Archive - Posting 001026.txt from 1999/03

From: "Buckman, Nancy" <nebuckman@-----.us>
Subj: RE: [kl] doubling
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 16:02:19 -0500

> ----------
> From: Sheryl L. Katz[SMTP:slkatz@-----.com]
> Reply To: klarinet@-----.org
> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 1999 11:06 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] doubling
>
You've hit the nail on the head. The octave change is what gets me. I get
some pretty interesting results when playing clarinet on sax and vice-versa.
What really makes me laugh is when I've made that very mistake and the
conductor can't figure out what's wrong. Sometimes it's fun to keep playing
it the wrong way just to keep him on his toes.

Nancy

> I agree with this. I used to think, especially in my first few months of
> playing sax, that sax was easier than clarinet. Now that I've spent a
> year
> of hard work attempting to learn to play the sax well, I believe that the
> sax is as difficult, or even more difficult, in its own right, than the
> clarinet. They are both plenty hard, just different
>
> I now think that a saxophone player brings a lot of woodwind skills and
> musical skills to the clarinet, and an embouchure that has had a lot of
> strengthening. The embouchure may be a bit different and not as trained
> as
> for the clarinet, but it's not the same as starting from scratch. The sax
> player has to learn more fingerings and also has to learn how to cross the
> break smoothly. When I switch between instruments in the middle of a
> song,
> the part that messes me up the most is the differences in changing
> octaves,
> not the embouchure.
>
> Seems to me that doubling is in itself a skill, and we tend to think of
> playing the instruments discretely, yet in a doubling situation we may be
> putting one instrument in our lap and grabbing another one. Putting one
> down, and immediately switching embouchure, key, fingering, etc. is a real
> skill and I wonder how much anyone actually teaches or practices this, yet
> it's the reality in some doubling situations. It's one thing to play each
> instrument well in its own right, it's yet another to play each well
> enough
> not to mess up the sound of the group while attempting to smoothly
> transition from one to another.
>
>
>
>
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