 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-12-30 02:25
Has anyone here ever had a sudden insight that has improved their playing a lot?
The other day, it occurred to me that I was letting what my fingers and tongue were doing interfere with my keeping a steady airstream. I spent 30 seconds doing a couple of exercise to work on the problem, then I decided to apply it to some pieces. Right away, I noticed a significant improvement in the quality of my playing. (This also gave me some motivation to do a lot of practice on my scales and other technical work)
Has anything of this sort happened to the other people here?
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Author: wjk
Date: 2003-12-30 02:53
One tip that really helped my guitar playing was "stop staring at your hands when you play." By doing this, you concentrate on conveying emotion rather than focusing on where your hands go.
This can be applied to clarinet as well. When I stop thinking so much about purely technical aspects of playing, and focus on conveying the emotion of a piece, I find I play infinitely better.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2003-12-30 03:10
I try to apply wjk's mentality whenever I can. It definitely helps to memorize those tougher spots so your fingers automatically do the work without your brain trying to process all those notes.
For me, it was something with the airstream and not pinching the reed. The one day I took a lesson and my instructor told me to really loosen up and let the air do the work was one of those moments where you could almost see the light bulbl above my head click on. Since then I feel like I've had much better control over tone and dynamics and have finally gotten rid of those nasty undertones that I hated so much.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2003-12-30 03:15
![[rotate]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley25.gif) WARNING! PARAPHRASING AHEAD!
I just wanted to add that I met a piano teacher who had a very odd way of looking at it. One student of his fumbled on a line and accidentally, under their breath muttered "Oh God." He responded with, "God is as far away from you as God can get. And He is eternal. So right now, he is eternally far away from you." After the roaring laughter at such a statement and us all chastising him for saying such a thing he decided to explain himself....
"When you worry about the notes, and about yourself, and about how you look or how you're going to play it, God abandons you to fend for yourself. But when you worry about the music, the message, and conveying it to all of us in it's magnificent glory, God will be right next to you helping you along the way."
Not a bad way to look at things . . . (however true/untrue, politically correct/incorrect this may be)
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2003-12-30 03:26
Besides the little but important things my teachers have said? Here's my contribution: In spite of being right-handed my right pinky and ring finger move awkwardly, less smoothly than the left ones. I found that by having my thumb rest raised (and it needs to be raised a little more) my hand is in a position to use the last two fingers more efficiently. But I still have to be conscious of rotating the outside of my hand so the last two fingers are directly above the keys. To think that for all these years my hand was twisted into an unnatural position and a simple adjustment made so much difference!
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-12-30 14:24
My insight was finally discovering that you could leave some of your right hand holes covered when playing some of the left hand notes....
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2003-12-30 15:10
I experience the opposite of wjk - I need to stop playing just 'my way' and actually utilise my technique. By doing this I believe I create a more balanced performance. And that's what it's all about! We should rarely experience our own music, the audience should.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2003-12-30 22:34
I both agree and disagree with LeWhite.
I find that a focus on technique, especially airstream, resonance, and finger movement, can greatly enhance a performance. However, I immensely disagree that we should rarely experience our own music, but rather it should be a joint experience between you and your audience. Just because you aren't "emotionally" swaying front and back, side to side, doesn't mean you aren't emotionally experiencing the music.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Gretchen
Date: 2003-12-31 01:13
i've started realizing how important air is. It makes an incredible impact when used correctly. I found that a problem that didn't have a whole lot to do with air, like coordination problems in your fingers, can be corrected when concentrating on keeping a steady air stream.
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-12-31 01:37
See, there's air again. It's amazing how many problems a weak airstream can cause. I noticed that my fingerwork seemed a lot crisper and cleaner when I concentrated on my airstream.
(I can imagine my (former) teacher standing behind me saying "That is what I was trying to tell you all through last year!!!". Except that he doesn't yell. He never even gets angry. He is a very patient man. And a wonderful teacher.)
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Author: Lisa
Date: 2003-12-31 04:24
Right thumb pressure (upward) helps the C above the staff. I remember having a lot of trouble with tongue/tone/squeaks once upon a time. Plus I remember a marching band move that involved that same C, and featured my mouthpiece flying out of my mouth on a fast, 180 pivot every time. Right thumb pressure worked for me!
We were playing something in quartet, and I was just butchering the moving line, all sixteenth notes. I could play it, but it sounded so labored. Our bass clarinetist (actually the best musician of the group) suggested that I play it like I "didn't give a s--t." I laughed, but it worked!!!  I relaxed and it sounded fine the very next timed I tried playing the line. Best advice I'd ever gotten that prompted immediate results!
Can you top that story?
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Author: John Noecker
Date: 2003-12-31 05:02
For years now, on multiple instruments that I play.. my band director has been telling me to "open up"... I never had a clue what he was talking about, and everytime he critiqued my playing, it's all he would focus on... my needing to open up to improve my tone.. Suddenly tonight, at my clarinet lesson, I opened up, almost spontaneously.. I just kinda did it (and still don't know exactly what I have to do, just how it feels)... what a sudden insight... my tone seemingly magically became very good.. No more airy, stuffy sounding notes, it was full and projected well. I even produced a really neat echo that I had never heard before.
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