Klarinet Archive - Posting 000234.txt from 2002/08

From: MVinquist@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Re: Abime Des Oiseaux Help
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 21:13:47 -0400

Alexander Brash asks about a difficult passage in Abime Des Oiseaux.

As you've found, working on a nasty spot by playing it over and over, even
slowly, often doesn't work. Instead, you have to isolate notes in pairs and
work on each change.

Sometimes moving from one note to the next involves just one finger (say, low
C to low D), and sometimes it involves many fingers in contrary motion (as in
going over the break). The more complex movements tend to take more time, and
it's also hard to keep them as clean as the easy ones.

Therefore, you need to single out the hard finger movements and clean them
up. You do *not* achieve this by just running through a passage over and
over. The following method isolates each interval and lets you work on it
individually.

Beginning *very* slowly, play the passage in pairs of quadruple-dotted 16ths
and 128ths, repeating each quick change until you have it clean and snappy.
At the beginning, play just the first note; stop and take a small breath;
then "snap" from the second to the third notes as quickly as possible,
repeating until it is clean; stop and take a small breath; then "snap" from
the 4th to the 5th note, and so on. Then leave out the breaths and work up
gradually to close to performance tempo. Notice that you are working on the
transition between notes 2 and 3, then 4 and 5 and so on.

Then, begin again with a 128th followed by a quadruple-dotted 16th. This
isolates the transitions you skipped, between notes 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and so
on.

Work up both versions slurred and tongued.

When you finish, you will have isolated and cleaned up the transition between
each note and the next. Then, go back to the music as written, which will be
almost magically smooth.

It's exhausting work. Give it your very best time, at the beginning of each
practice session. Then reward yourself with something easy and pleasant.

For additional material, see my long posting on the Clarinet board at
<http://www.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f@-----.

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