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RE: finger positions

Author: paul
Date: 1999-10-05 18:16

I have to agree with Kevin Bowman's opinion on slow scale drills for fingering accuracy. Trill drills are also great exercises, starting very slowly and then gradually building up speed with extreme smoothness.

Kevin's point is exactly on target. Whatever you do, take your time and work on it very slowly to get silk-like smoothness to the fingerings without interfering with intonation. Have your fingers poised and ready, with some curvature and some tension, but not much tension. On your horn, figure out where your fingers need to be to be high enough off the tone holes that you don't create sour notes, yet they are as close as possible to be ready for the next note. Minimize finger travel with proper intonation.

Work on trills to create crisp and smooth breaks between notes, such as chalemeau C# to D (a pinky/third finger coordination problem), C# to D# (a definite challenge if you use only the standard fingerings which is the idea of the drill), high chalemeau F to G (without slapping the thumb key ring), and low chalemeau Ab to Bb (without slapping down the Ab key and without playing any extra notes as your fingers go up and down on the tone holes). Note that I stayed in the chalemeau register for these specific drills. The point is to develop a muscle memory for your fingers, so keep the rest of the drill as easy as you can.

The scales and trill drills are quite boring and wear out your hands and fingers. It gets old really fast, especially when the rest of the family can hear you doing it. It's like hearing a scratched CD or a broken record. However, fingering accuracy is paramount on the clarinet. It is an essential basic skill that you must master. Spend a portion of each practice session on these skills. You will surprise yourself when you can play music smoothy and quickly all up and down the scale. Believe me, this really works.

I may be just an adult novice at this, but when I see my senior master professional tutor not only recommending these drills to his students, but doing these drills himself on a daily basis, there has to be some value to it. He does Baermann's scales drills and the trill drills daily.

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