Klarinet Archive - Posting 000199.txt from 2002/04

From: Glen Shannon <gshannon@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] OT More Piano suggestions for clarinetists; was
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 12:51:49 -0500

Thinking about what you wrote below, I remember that I did all right
for the most part with fingering and thumb use. I was playing the
piano not to practice for any sort of performance, but just to keep
myself occupied and entertained rather than study my college
coursework. Distracted busywork of a sort. For me the execution of
the music was something fun and engaging to do with my hands, and
ended up being mindless mechanical clockwork while I thought about
something else. That's why I couldn't pick up where I left off
because I never really knew where I was!

I confess I did the same thing to Rossini's Introduction, Theme and
Variations but at least that time it won me a seat in the 1st
clarinet section of the all-county band.

Glen

>Glen wrote:
>
>I'm sure I had incredibly bad habits and made bad fingering decisions.
>
>
>Patricia:
>
>This last is quite telling. Because fingering is CRUCIAL to playing piano -
>absolutely CRUCIAL. The fingers have to flow in a straight line, one after
>the other. One also has to be able to move the thumbs underneath both 3 and
>4 on both hands (I don't know about 5 - never seen it indicated and never
>had a teacher who ever asked me to do it) in order to keep the lines going,
>especially in contrapuntal music. Of course, there are going to be places
>where different people are going to make different choices of fingering.
>However, once you make that choice, you must be consistent and practice a
>passage the same way every time you practice it. Otherwise, you waste a lot
>of time.
>
>Patricia A. Smith
>pattiesmith@-----.net

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