Klarinet Archive - Posting 001224.txt from 2000/10

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Bell-Leg Symbiosis
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 17:56:33 -0400

Bill Wright posted:

<<< . . . I was instructed not to rest the bell on my leg or the chair.>>>

Hi Bill --

I would not look at this as a Universal Truth. There are many
*exceptionally* fine clarinetists who rest the bell of the horn on their leg
or lap; the late Harold Wright and Elsa Ludwig-Vedehr are two that come to
mind. If that's playing incorrectly, then I aspire to it. I suspect that
the vast majority of people who use a double-lip embouchure rest the bell on
their leg. Most all the ones I know -- plus lots and lots of single-lip
players -- do.

<<<And sometimes you do need to play while standing.>>>

Again, this isn't necessarily true. Harold Wright refused to play standing,
even concertos.

<<<If the thumb isn't strong enough to push the mouthpiece up against the
teeth, then perhaps a strap will serve the same purpose?>>>

Some folks use straps -- not necessarily beginners, either. I recall a
photograph of Ricardo Morales wearing a neck strap in the Met pit. (If this
is a sign of weakness, I should be so weak.) I do not care for them,
however, because the angle of the support feels wrong for my embouchure.
Probably all in my head, but much of playing is all in one's head.

Kooiman (sp?) makes a couple of odd-looking thumb rests that a lot of people
are using now to take the pressure off the right thumb. I know other
clarinetists that have used other prostheses to similar effect -- for a
while, our own Sean Osborne had a hard glove-like appliance that looked
really effective.

kjf

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