Klarinet Archive - Posting 000675.txt from 2001/09

From: Gavin Rebetzke <GRebetzke@-----.au>
Subj: RE: [kl] Glissandi/Cage
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:29:53 -0400

Alex,
I feel chatty today so I'll try to help. The more learned and experienced
members of the list will probably point to the fact that glissandi, smears,
portamentos, etc have previously been discussed to death and you should
search the archives of this list and of the BBoard. Don't let me stop you
from doing just that, you will find a wealth of helpful information. So you
can't gliss and you have to perform Rhapsody in a few weeks. he he. I
recall it took me a l-o-n-g time to work it out for myself when I was still
at school. My neighbours were not appreciative. May you have understanding
neighbours.
What needs to be done is a combination of bending notes and sliding fingers.
I understand that it is customary to slide only the upper part of the run,
that is, from, say C to C. This avoids sliding over the "break" which is
possible but more difficult. The finger technique once you get to B or C
halfway up is to slowly remove each finger in turn, sliding them off the
holes until you get to just the left hand thumb playing top C. Actually,
the more important aspect is the bending of the notes that comes from an
indescribable combination of embouchure, internal mouth shape, lip pressure
etc.(I suppose this is described as embouchure) The fingers only help. The
idea is that you can play any note on the clarinet with any fingering.
Well, someone told me that, but the point is you need to use your embouchure
to bend each note so that they meet each other. Not an easy thing to
describe in words.
Try this first. Start at the top. Play a high C and use your embouchure to
lower the pitch (think less jaw pressure). You should be able to quickly
master dropping the pitch by up to about a 5th. Now start on C, drop pitch
and then bring the pitch back up. Try practising this with just the
mouthpiece without clarinet attached. Put the mouthpiece back on the
clarinet and try to add fingering to what you are doing solely by
embouchure. Now you are ready to put them together starting at the bottom,
sliding upwards.
I hope this helps rather than confuses. For more technically correct
jargon, and further info, search the archives. Good Luck! GAVIN

-----Original Message-----
From: Alexander Brash [mailto:mactrek@-----.com]
Subject: [kl] Glissandi/Cage

Hi Guys,
My Bonade upbringing has finally caught up with me. I need to do the
solo from Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in a few weeks and I can't glissando
for c&^%! It's odd I've gotten around to other extended techniques like
multiphonics but never glissansi! Help!
About Cage, at a music festival this summer I "arranged" it for the
talent show for vocalist piano cello and violin. The rules of the talent
show were that you couldn't play your own instrument (i was the vocalist :)
I thought it was an extremely interesting experience...even to the point
where some obnoxious kid in the audience counted down the last 10 seconds
for us (he was off and looked dumb). The mixture of ppl who knew what was
going on and those who had no clue was fascinating, as those who knew what
it was about whispered excitedly to their neighbors, trying to show off how
smart they were. In many ways, I think that the piece is making fun of
minimalism...ok that's all for now

~Alex

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