Klarinet Archive - Posting 000090.txt from 2001/04

From: Ed Wojtowicz <ewoj@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] fingering options for beginners with small hands
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 05:30:37 -0400

Of course, choice of fingering has a lot to do with context, but I try to
keep some basic ideas in mind. One of them is to try and keep the motion in
the same hand. For example, if playing the F major scale, it is more logical
to keep the pattern all in the RH, rather than to use the LH little finger
for the F. Imagine a repeated pattern Low F to C and back a few times. Using
the RH little finger, you would just use the RH and the LH would not even
get involved. This would ultimately be more fluid, although I have seen
students get used to all kinds of things.

A few years back, I had a student with small hands who could not reach the F
on the right without sliding off the holes, so we used that fingering until
she became more secure.

Ed

> From: Anne C Benassi <acb@-----.is>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 21:26:57 +0000
> To: klarinet list <klarinet@-----.org>
> Subject: [kl] fingering options for beginners with small hands
>
> Dear List,
>
> I have inherited two students (currently 9 and 12 years old) who were
> quite young - and physically small - when they began their clarinet
> lessons. For this reason their former teachers let them begin playing
> f / c" with the little pinky of the left hand. When e / b' came
> around, of course they used the right hand little finger. It goes
> without saying that they are, by this time, extremely dependent on
> these fingerings.
>
> Now for the life of me I can't see any logical reason why this should
> be a suboptimal way to get used to fingering the clarinet. It even
> makes a few things easier in the long run. But I can't help it - I
> suspect that this fingering pattern slows their technique (if one can
> call it that at their level), interrupts the flow of their scale
> passages, and so on. If these little kids had been my students I would
> have been tempted to begin them on E-flat clarinets and use the
> "standard issue" fingerings.
>
> I've been arguing back and forth with myself about this for most of
> the school year, and I'm stuck in a rut. I am unable to convince
> myself from a logical standpoint that it's an inferior fingering
> choice for their everyday playing, and I'm equally unable to settle in
> and work with these fingerings. I want to change them, but then I
> think, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

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