Klarinet Archive - Posting 000676.txt from 1999/08

From: "Dodgshun family" <dodgshun@-----.nz>
Subj: Re: [kl] Advice on student.............
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:04:03 -0400

> I recently have just acquired a clarinet student who has been playing the
> instrument for 2 school years in the band program there.
>
> She has so many problems! She has never tongued, never listened to the
sound
> of her instrument, leans the clarinet on an angle and plays on her left
knee,
> puts the mouthpiece in her mouth and plays from the roof of her mouth, and
> has bad fingering position.

For starters, make her play standing up, maybe with a neckstrap. This could
alleviate the angle/playing on the knee problem. It may also help with the
embouchure problem and possibly the hand position problem as well. As for
tonguing, maybe put her onto recorder for a couple of weeks. The recorder
is about the easiest instrument there is to tongue, so if she learns to
tongue properly on that (shouldn't take her long) then it's unlikely to be
too hard to carry it over to clarinet.
Fingering position is a bit of a nasty one. The only thing I've ever been
able to do with this is keep hammering it in, and also warn them about the
dangers of RSI. I have a student who will drop her right wrist in order to
be able to play the lower RH pinky keys (ie F# and E) with the bottom of her
finger so she doesn't have to use alternate fingerings. The minute I told
her about how you can get RSI if you don't hold the clarinet properly, she
stopped! Whether she would have got it or not, I don't know. But it was a
useful way to fix the problem!

Good luck!

Anna

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