Klarinet Archive - Posting 000090.txt from 2004/06

From: Nancy Buckman <eefer@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] glissando help
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2004 13:04:48 -0400

At 03:33 PM 6/2/2004, you wrote:
>A nice little exercise that I have used in the past involves playing a note
>and trying to voice the pitch down different intervals. High C is a good
>note to begin this exercise. Start with a half step. Play a B natural to
>get the pitch in your head and then try to voice the pitch down using not
>the embouchure but the position of the tongue. Next, go down a whole step
>and so on. This skill will help your ability to grossly alter the tongue
>position in order to blur notes together when glissing.
>
>It is the very same concept as whistling. The pitch is altered by the
>change in air speed created by the altered positions of the tongue. In my
>experience, a gliss is best produced when the tongue is positioned too low
>for the fingered pitch and the fingers either play a chromatic scale or they
>gradually slide off. The tongue is raised at the very end of the gliss to
>raise the pitch to the desired note.
>
>As Bryan said, it is much more difficult to type an explanation rather than
>demonstrate it.
>
>Josh Gardner

Josh's exercise is the best way I have seen to do this. I just returned
from the Clarinet Symposium in Norman OK where Anne Lenoir taught me to do
this. Watching her do it showed me how in quick order. Hearing people
describe it for the last few years just wasn't very effective.

Nancy

Nancy Buckman
Principal Clarinet / Orchestra AACC
eefer@-----.net

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