Klarinet Archive - Posting 000126.txt from 2009/03

From: "MICHAEL MARMER LINDA MARMER" <mlmarmer@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Rhapsody in Blue
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:14:43 -0400

LOL

I will let my Trombone friend know.

I hear that trombonist can be deadly at times, especially if they are a Cubs
fan too. LOL

Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 7:45 AM
Subject: Re: [kl] Rhapsody in Blue

> MICHAEL MARMER LINDA MARMER wrote:
>> This is from a professional trombonist in the Chicago area.
>>
>> Mike Marmer
>>
>> It is not a "rip" Is IS a Glissando. It's done by gradually removing
>> fingers covering the holes. ANY Clarinet teacher can help her with this.
>> All serious HS & College students practice this constantly. It is one of
>> the required excerpts for all professional Clarinet auditions.
>
> Well, this kind of suggests to me that the trombonist actually doesn't
> understand what the problem is ... :-)
>
> The comment about 'not a rip, a glissando' is interesting because of
> course 'rip' has a very specific meaning for brass players which is very
> different from the 'slide' effect of a glissando on trombone or clarinet.
>
> But apart from that it doesn't seem to me to actually give you a lot of
> info on how to solve the problem. You _do_ slide fingers during gliss,
> but it's not the dominant part of how you actually perform an effective
> glissando -- it just looks that way to anyone watching. It's the tongue
> that actually has principal control of the slide.
>
> I just tested my own 'Rhapsody' gliss a few times and found that in fact
> once I'd started the gliss by creating the 'leaky tube' that Tony P.
> speaks of in the link I posted, I could remove my fingers _entirely_
> without affecting anything.
>
> The problem is that now I have the tongue movement right I actually
> can't easily go back to what I was doing when I was first trying to play
> that gliss. But I do remember that I spent ages and ages trying to
> create the effect by sliding fingers off slowly one by one, which was
> kind of what had been described to me as 'what to do', without any
> success.
>
> Then one day something just 'clicked' and I suddenly found myself able
> to perform the gliss reliably. I had no idea what I was doing but it
> was quite apparent that the fingers _weren't_ in control, it was more
> like the fingers had 'handed control over' to something else which I
> wasn't consciously aware of but would do what I wanted.
>
> Tony P.'s comments about the 'leaky tube' were kind of a 'eureka!'
> moment because it finally clicked that this was indeed what I was doing
> -- sliding my fingers off (all) the keys just enough to create tiny
> gaps, which lets the tongue take over control of pitch.
>
> I'm still buggered if I know what my tongue is _actually_ doing during
> all this, but that's less important than knowing that I can give it
> control via this 'leaky' technique, and then it can sort things out for
> itself.
>
> -- Joe
>
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>

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