Klarinet Archive - Posting 001007.txt from 2004/10

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Joe Allard
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:43:57 -0500

At 07:07 PM 10/31/2004 -0500, Karl Krelove wrote:
>There's more, of course. Sometimes "method" is the result of some offhanded
>or even deliberate remark that a teacher makes in the course of making some
>point. The student then, for any of several reasons, elevates it to the
>level of an "approach" or a "method" and passes it on as such. Wright's use
>of the "rubber band" image (also "gasket") at the one lesson I took with him
>40 years ago is an example - he only meant it as a graphic way to describe
>something. Nothing more. I'm sure I was pinching the daylights out of the
>reed and these were his attempts at correction. I'm sure he used the same
>image with many students as needed, but not as any kind of generalized
>"method" or "approach" (much less *his* "method" or "approach"). Evidently,
>so did Keith Stein in his book, but by putting it in print he apparently
>made the elevation process easier.

I think you are precisely correct. The images of the rubber band, etc. are
nothing more than that: images. They are the ways your mind gets you to
perform, through visualization, the correct actions with the embouchure,
rather than actually different actions. With the exception of the "smile"
embouchure, there is much less difference in what one DOES to form an
embouchure than in how one THINKS about what one does.

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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