Klarinet Archive - Posting 000066.txt from 2008/06

From: Jason Tiller <jason@-----.org>
Subj: [kl] Help: Dry mouth ruins performance
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:20:10 -0400

Hi, All, :)

I was at a music conference in Riverside, CA, last weekend, where I
accompanied my friend in an arrangement of "I Left My Heart in San
Francisco" on her solo concert. It was the finale of an hour-long
show held in a *horrible* conference center ballroom. The AC was
up full blast and I could literally feel the moisture being sucked out
of my body every time I opened my mouth. (Ross Perot didn't know the
meaning of "giant," lemme tell ya.)

I played horribly. :/ I started out OK, but in my friend's
arrangement, the clarinet plays a the second verse of the melody, with
almost no pause once it starts other than for breaths. Thus, I had
no time to grab an emergency sip of water, and as I wound my way
through the (easy) melody, my mouth got more and more dry, my tone got
less and less focused, I began squeaking, and finally the notes
started to completely fray.

I'm new to clarinet, but... Ugh.

I honestly tried to compensate for this by going backstage during her
penultimate piece, walking around and blowing air through my horn.
But obviously *something* didn't work right, because it was a
nightmare!

Any suggestions for managing these less than ideal situations in the
future? I imagine that my (brand new Festival) is getting fed up with
me and ready to walk on to a more capable owner...

Thanks in advance,

---Jason
Sonos, www.sonos.org

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