Klarinet Archive - Posting 000135.txt from 2003/12

From: Kenneth Wolman <kenneth.wolman@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Drool
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 16:41:34 -0500

Another water-related question, only send the sensitive stomached and
children out of the room....

So I'm practicing. Klose scales plus what I (foolishly) thought was an
easy, legato piece: Faure's "Apres un Reve." Yeah, like Faure wrote
anything without a bunch of buried land mines. This may be the first time
since I was a kid where I'm actually motivated enough to follow the
instructions. It's awful. Angling the instrument works okay; diaphragm
("singer") breathing works nicely; keeping my thumb near the rear hole for
the jump to 2nd octave B is great. What's wrong? Trying to combine an
embouchure I was just taught with efforts to fliiiiiiiick my tongue over
the reed, with appropriate relaxation of the tongue as Neil's article from
years ago put it. The outcome? To put it in English, I'm slobbering like
a *&*#&(*@-----. Now, do partials--the dental kind, not the
overtone kind--affect this? Am I doing something technically wrong? Well,
you can't SEE me so how can you answer? I'm trying staccato with both a
loose and tightened bottom lip to relax my mouth, and either way I look
like some guy who's had too much to drink after 8 hours in a bar. It's
frustrating as hell.

I don't expect concrete suggestions because I'm here and you're not, but if
anyone remembers running into this in themselves or in one of their
students, any feedback would be much appreciated. Private replies are fine.

Many thanks,
Ken

Kenneth Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com

"i had not really expected to find any of the art world populated with
ex-murderers fascists green berets and now i know that you can find
anything in the art world and they can even become prophets' -- David
Antin, "Tuning"

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