Klarinet Archive - Posting 000083.txt from 2006/09
From: "Sheri Rolf" <slrolf@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Air leak
Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2006 13:45:27 -0400
Some folks are born with a short soft palate, and some are born with a
submucus cleft palate--a slight gap between the palate bones that is covered
with soft tissue so that it cannot be seen. This isn't usually a problem
with speech, but when the intraoral air pressure is increased, ie. playing
clarinet, it shows up as an air leak. Your teacher introduced exercises to
strengthen the palatal muscles and superior pharyngeal constrictors as well
as to improve the tongue position in order to direct the air flow into the
mouthpiece. Muscle fatigue in the palate and pharynx is no different from
muscle fatigue elsewhere in the body--once the muscles fatigue, you resort
to using accessory muscles in an attempt to get the job done, and they just
don't work as well, hence the air leak returns. Generalized fatigue of the
body produces the same result.
Hope I'm not boring you with all this!
Sheri
-----Original Message-----
From: dhatfield310@-----.net]
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 9:33 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Cc: Gibson,Christopher
Subject: Re: [kl] Air leak
>>>Now the list is a quick and easy way to get and share information about
this problem.<<<
---Yes, this list is a source of information not found by normal means
andsources, and although it seems quick and easy I have to chime in and give
thanks and appreciation for so many things I have picked up here in the
past four years. You folks out there who are knowledgeable and
experiencedand who share that wealth with us are a blessing to so many
others of us.
You have accumulated your knowledge through experience and trial and error
and by asking questions, and you're a valuable commodity I imagine to many
who read posts here but never write one themselves. I hope that on occasion
I may have opportunity to benefit other musicians in the same way.----
Now, about this air leak debate...I likely developed the problem early on at
about age ten or eleven, and I KNOW that my music teachers through to my
high school days had to have noticed, but never remarked. It was something I
wasaware of but, hey - if your teacher doesn't notice and correct something,
must not be a problem, right? It was my first real private instructor my
sophomore year of HS who asked in my first lesson "What's that sound you
make?" ten minutes into the session. I have never had any tissue removed as
some of you have, still have all the original equipment. But mine happened
at the same times Christopher describes, especially from fatigue. I guess
playing four or more hours a day didn't help much when even when I was young
and hardy.
She worked with me on breathing and other areas she thought might help, and
the problem was resolved in part. It still popped up occasionally. It was
only three years later, when I was in college and approached by the choral
director after he heard my
playing and heard "that sound" seated in the auditorium during a rehearsal,
at least fifty feet away, that someone helped me. I started vocal lessons
with him, and after a month of singing and breathing exercises and warmups
with him, and learning to think about it constantly at first as Tony Pay
noted, he helped me apply those things to my clarinet playing. As a result,
I had it pretty much whipped. I will mention that my trouble when it
was at its worst came through in my tonguing, which wonderfully improved as
well once the problem had been identified and solved, because we worked on
issues of the throat and the position of the tongue in reference to my
breathing along with everything else. So when anyone asks who I studied
clarinet with, I always include his name in the mix.
Now thirty years later and only playing a fraction of the time I used to,
again I have to think about it occasionally to deal with it, but know how.
Of course my tissues are clearly lax as are Walter's, so there you go.
Don Hatfield
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