Klarinet Archive - Posting 000281.txt from 2002/04

From: Lucienne <lucienne@-----.ca>
Subj: [kl] teeth.
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 02:32:38 -0400

Hello list.

the dreded time has arrived when the dentist has demanded four of my wisdom
teeth. the only 4 i have.
and while i know i can't get out of this horrible surgery. I was wondering
about the differnece in playing?
have any of you in your experiences found any major differences? four
gaping holes in my jaw has bound to do something to my tone production on
the bass clarinet.

I'm waiting until after my jury.;-)
Lucienne

At 10:57 AM 4/8/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>I don't know if anyone else uses the breathing bag
>concept of famed tubist Arnold Jacobs but I'm finding
>it makes a big difference in sound production. The
>basic idea is to practice moving larger amounts of air
>without hyperventilating. The great thing is that
>while
>you can buy a medical-sized bag from places like The
>Woodwind, it's actually free to put together if you so
>
>want: get a plastic shopping bag and a handful of
>those
>big McDonald's straws (at last something good for you
>comes from the arches!) and then closing the empty
>bag around the straws fill it up from your lungs and
>then breathe that mass of air back in, then re-fill
>the bag etc.
>
>After about 4 exhalations put the bag down and pick up
>
>your horn and play say an F major scale and notice the
>difference. Boy do I notice one! Much fuller and
>bigger
>sound and also a more centered altissimo. The only
>catch is that the change tends to drop off after about
>a minute or so, but with noticing what physically was
>affected it becomes possible to start to make the
>change more permanent. I'd love to hear of any other
>experiences using this and trying to make the
>improvement last.
>
>I took a lesson myself with a jazz bari sax player the
>other week, and to show me breathing he picked up a
>snare drum stick, put one end into his abdomen below
>his ribcage, then told me to push in. I did but he
>said "harder" so I did. "No, harder!" so I basically
>jammed the stick in with wide eyes, definitely not a
>typical teaching technique! Well, when he inhaled did
>that stick come shooting out his gut. Muscle like
>steel down there. And when he exhaled no collapse, no
>"toothpaste tube" breathing here! (Reference to Tom
>Ridenour's great clarinet basics book).
>
>I was there to try and improve my slaptongue. I can
>get a pretty good wham on staccato, but it's still not
>that real "slap bass" kind of 'pow'! Any success
>stories in learning or teaching this? I'm trying to
>pull my tongue away fromthe entire length of the reed
>but the pop just isn't coming.
>
>TIA,
>
>=====
>Peter Stoll
>
>University of Toronto
>Toronto Philharmonia
>Continuum Contemporary Music
>ERGO ensemble
>
>Music, Movies, Sports, Games! http://entertainment.yahoo.ca
>
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