Klarinet Archive - Posting 000116.txt from 2006/05

From: "Tony Pay" <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] fingers out of control !
Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 18:25:17 -0400

On 5/14/06, Gillian Craven <gillian_craven@-----.com> wrote:

>> Every time I get to to the semiquaver runs my fingers lose control,
I rush and it all gets very messy. I practise them for hours with
metronome slowly, then faster but still mess it up when I put the
piece altogether.>>

Difficult to help properly without hearing you -- but I can say that
it sometimes happens that people practise slowly, but with fast moving
fingers. Then, naturally, that won't speed up nicely.

Rather, practise slowly with your fingers moving really slowly, and
then a bit faster with your fingers still moving only as fast as they
need. Remember that in, say, an octave F major scale from low F, each
individual finger can move as slowly as you like, however fast the
scale is. It's just that in a faster version, the movement of each
finger follows that of the preceding one after a shorter interval.

Thinking of it this way helps keep you relaxed even when you're
playing at speed.

Of course, not all note-changes behave like the note-changes in the F
major scale -- a trill, for example, requires fast finger movement
when the trill itself is fast -- but usually chunks even of a
difficult passage can be played with 'slow' fingers.

Identifying them will show you when fast finger movement *is*
required, and thus make clearer what to practice. (And 'chunking' is
helpful in and of itself, of course.)

Tony

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org