 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Garth Libre
Date: 2012-03-18 09:32
It took me two days to read the entire book. Mr. Pino is indeed a gentle and thorough instructor and I do highly recommend his book on clarinet technique which is easily available for about $10 on Amazon (my copy arrived for that price including delivery in two days after purchase).
The book covers just about any of the topics regularly discussed on this board plus his number one priority which is relaxation, or as he puts it "one should be relaxed almost to the point of complete collapse". With all the items on our checklist, it's amazing that we can play music at all. We must check our embrasure, posture, finger position, breath control, don't bite - don't bite, corners of the lips in, not too much mouthpiece, not too little, angle held out to the body, difficult passage coming up, tongue position on the reed, tongue position for the slur, and on and on ... Mr. Pino suggest that the list in order of our priorities should be Relaxation, breath support, embrasure and then technical issues like tonguing, music etc. The reason he puts relaxation first is because nothing else is possible if we tense up. The breath control and support is even more important than the embrasure because the source of the air comes prior to ensuring that the air goes into the horn. He states that the embrasure is only there to keep the air in the horn and must only be tight enough to do that without leaking and without stopping the reed from actually vibrating. We all know this but by reading the author's well written account of how to incorporate all this into our daily practice something starts to connect in our unconscious.
Mr. Pino also goes into how to finish a commercial reed and how to make one from a blank. He discusses how to choose a mouthpiece, how to teach clarinet, how to practice, how to approach performing and some history of the instrument as well.
I've taken his book and put some of it to practice and yes, I do find that it is helping me. It goes right along with what I believe already which is that there is no point in perfecting the arpeggios and virtuosity until we can create a beautiful, round natural tone for any single note. After that much of the other stuff should be much easier to learn.
Garth, 305-981-4705. garthlibre@yahoo.com
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Author: camyllacarvalho
Date: 2012-03-18 16:07
i'm reading this book and is awsome........ Do you know other good books that i can order to Brazil?
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Author: kdk
Date: 2012-03-19 01:57
Garth Libre wrote:
> ... Mr. Pino
> suggest that the list in order of our priorities should be
> Relaxation, breath support, embrasure and then technical issues
> like tonguing, music etc.
>
> It goes right along with what I
> believe already which is that there is no point in perfecting
> the arpeggios and virtuosity until we can create a beautiful,
> round natural tone for any single note. After that much of the
> other stuff should be much easier to learn.
>
I don't disagree with the list of priorities as you've cited them from the book. But I think you've taken it a step farther than I suspect Mr. Pino would have (but I don't have the book at hand to read it myself). Prioritizing doesn't demand a necessarily firm sequence.
I think your saying that there's "no point" in working on (none of us will ever *perfect* anything much) the other aspects of playing until you can make every single note sound beautiful is overstating the need to exclude everything else until the sound is fully developed. I don't really believe you meant it the way it sounded, but I would object that there's nothing wrong or pointless in working on technical issues *while* you work toward a beautiful tone. That tone may be years in the making and few students of any age would be willing to work on so narrow a focus for so long. Besides, everything (I can't believe I'm paraphrasing Mr. Rodgers!) grows together. Beautiful sound without a musical context is empty. There is little about technique that can't be worked on concurrently with tone quality, even while placing a primary focus on tone and smooth, even connections.
Karl
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The Clarinet Pages
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