Klarinet Archive - Posting 000126.txt from 1999/09
From: Audrey Travis <vsofan@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] 52 year old 'beginner' needs help - please!
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 10:51:59 -0400
Franklin Kercher wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Audrey Travis <vsofan@-----.com>
> To: klarinet@-----.org>
> Date: Saturday, September 04, 1999 10:21 PM
> Subject: [kl] 52 year old 'beginner' needs help - please!
>
> >I began playing clarinet two years ago at age 50, and am studying with
> >Wes Foster, principal clarinet of the Vancouver Symphony. Wes is great
> >and has helped me tremendously, but now that I'm on the Net, I'd like
> >more ideas. My two main problems at this stage are finger and tongue
> >speed. First, the fingers - they don't want to move very fast,
> >especially the RH pinkie and the finger next to it, and the LH pinkie.
> >I suspect I may have a bit of arthritis to add to the problem. Does
> >anyone have any suggestions to limber up all my fingers - perhaps
> >exercises to develop the strength of my fingers ( a physiotherapist once
> >told me my fingers are a bit weak). At this stage, I can do 16th note
> >passages only very slowly and usually only if the notes are pretty much
> >stepwise. My fingers also seem reluctant to do certain note (finger)
> >combos quickly - like lifting off several fingers together especially if
> >either pinkie is involved. Any help out there?
> >
> >Also, my fingering and tongueing speed are sometimes uncoordinated - I
> >can often slur a passage accurately, but may not be able to tongue and
> >move fingers at the same speed - for example the 3rd movement of the
> >Mozart Clarinet Concerto - full bar 7 - I can play this if I slur the
> >whole thing, but my finger and tongue speed don't match if I tongue it
> >all at the same tempo. Ideas? Wes has taught me to move fingers before
> >I tongue, but I guess I'd have to practice this very slowly at first and
> >finally speed up.
> >
> >Any useful ideas that might make sense to a 52 year old whose limbs,
> >fingers and brain don't move as fast as they used to? A youthful
> >clarinet playing friend of mine says her teacher insisted on her
> >learning all the scales, etc. before age 19 (?) because after that it
> >would be too late. Hope that teacher was wrong!!
> >
> >Any ideas will help.
> >
> >Audrey Travis
> >E-mail: vsofan@-----.com
> >
> >Well I'm almost in the same boat as you. While I did play in school, my
> clarinet sat in the closet for over 20 years during my military career. I
> started up relearning about 4years ago as did my wife with her flute. My
> fingers/hands have been smashed, bashed, burned, crushed, sliced and lord
> knows what else doing search & rescue in the Coast Guard. You just have to
> keep doing excercises over and over and it will get better. Sometimes it may
> seem as you have made no progress but if you go back and play some of your
> earlier music or excercises you probably notice they are easier and that you
> ARE getting better. Don't get discouraged, stay with it. I like to work out
> of an old Klose book but when I get bored with that I'll grab my old Bb fake
> book full of the old standards just for a change of pace. It helps in sight
> reading to do this too.
Thanks go to DeeD, Mark, Bruce, John and Franklin for your ideas on how anyone,
not just a 52 year old can improve finger and tongue speed - they're good
ones. I've worked on some of them, and will adopt others.
Some of you commented on the fact that I'm playing the Mozart Clarinet
Concerto - as a band teacher, I am fully aware that it's way too difficult for
me, but as a lover of classical music, and especially of clarinet, I wanted to
be able to play it for the sheer joy of it. Obviously, most of it's way beyond
me at this stage. In the third month of lessons, my teacher, Wes Foster put
the main theme of the adagio in front of me, and we began to work on it - I was
hooked. Of course, I'd been listening to the Sony recording of his own
teacher, the great Robert Marcellus play it at least 40 times in a row, and
wanted to recreate some of that sound. I bought the music for the entire
concerto and nervously brought it to my teacher, thinking, he'd probably laugh
at me and tell me to bring it back in 5 years, but he put it on the stand, and
we began to work seriously on the rest of the adagio. Now, while we work on
other stuff, I often play other parts of the concerto to improve my finger and
tongue speed. Since then, I've moved on to other pieces I want to learn, and
Wes always takes me seriously, and we work on the piece until technical
problems are met which are insurmountable at that time. I know we'll go back
to them in a few years.
Maybe the lesson for those of us who are teachers, whether of children or
adults is to respect the passion our students bring to us, and further their
love of music by taking them seriously.
Thanks for your help, and if there are more comments and suggestions on how to
improve my speed - I'm listening!
Musical cheer to all
Audrey Travis
vsofan@-----.com
>
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