 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Em
Date: 2004-06-03 01:50
I played the clarinet pretty devotedly for about 12 years, then set it aside for two years, and am now trying to get back into it. Not surprisingly, where I'm having the most trouble is with my embouchre. I can't manage to play for more than 20 minutes at a time, at least with the Vandoren 3 1/2s that I used to play on. Should I buy some softer reeds to use for a while, or will that just create bad habits? Does anyone know what sort of learning curve I should expect as far as getting back to where I was before I stopped practicing? Any recommendations?
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Author: Pam H.
Date: 2004-06-03 02:13
Yes, it's probably a good idea to go back to a bit softer reed and have shorter practice sessions in the beginning - for just the reason you stated - to build your embouchure back up. It will come back with time. I'm not sure how long it will take you. I'm sure that others will respond to your question though.
Best wishes as you begin again!
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-06-03 02:48
Hi Em,
Welcome back to the clarinet. With 12 years experience, you are somewhat familar with the literature so make up a schedule like this for each practice session for a little while.
1. Long tones in different registers (use a tuner as you get more comfortable). Slow warmup.
2. Slow scales of two octaves. Work easily through a few sharps and flat and do the chromatic. Get a metronome and set the speed so as to increase as you gain confidence.
3. Some technical work. Easy etudes to begin with (Rose are my favorites)
4. Some very lyrical solo work or an easy concerto (you can really measure your progress by seeing how some of the tougher sections improve over time).
5. Something fun to shoot for at the end (get one of the CDs that has a piano accompaniment for some solo work).
Don't push it too much. Your endurance will increase gradually and then you can begin to make changes.
So slow, steady, tuner, metronome, scales, technical, solo, etc.
HRL
PS This schedule should take you about 30 to 45 minutes to complete.
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Author: claclaws
Date: 2004-06-03 03:22
Thanks for the practice schedule, Hank.
May I quote it?
At least 1 hour seems more reasonable to cover all the 5 steps, I think...
Lucy Lee Jang
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-06-03 11:36
LLJ,
Of course you can quote the schedule. This is just about what I would suggest for all my students when I was teaching privately (I guess is is cool now to call it a studio although a lot of it was in a basement studio in a music store).
Use as you desire.
HRL
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Author: Em
Date: 2004-06-07 19:17
Thanks to everyone who responded. With a softer reed I've been able to play for longer, and I'm slowly making progress.
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Author: ron b
Date: 2004-06-08 07:34
Posts like yours, Em, inspire folks like us. Some of us are returnees and some are thinking about it. Your encouragement is a great boost to many. Not all of us are primarily clarinet tooters, but most of us are. I returned to the clarinet about five years ago after a thirty year "layoff".
I don't "teach" anyone but I love to share information and demonstrate and help aspiring musicians (any age) whenever the opportunity comes my way. Advice to my friends who've taken up the clarinet, when they ask me how long they should practice, is, "Maybe ten, but no more than fifteen minutes a day, preferably every other day. Take a total break on weekends and holidays. If you're not careful you'll blow your embouchure all to smithereens. Most people just don't have what it takes to develop the chops for long sessions in a short time. It takes time and much patience, maybe years and years to work up to it."
It may surprise no one around here that they usually tell me later on (a month or two), with a sly smirk, that they've been playing/practicing about an hour a day... or longer, and are none the worse off for it -- so there. If they 'happen' to have their horn handy they're more than delighted to demonstrate how much they've improved in such a short time.
[heh, heh... it works (almost) every time....]
I plan on two of my beginner buddies playing in our quartet this summer. They've definitely got what it takes.
- r b -
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Author: Buster Brown
Date: 2004-06-08 12:48
I returned to clarinet 2 years ago after a 40 year layoff. I practiced daily for 3 months (15 minutes first increasing to 1 hour). I started with soft reeds and "student" mouthpiece and gradually (about every 2 weeks) progressed through a series of old mouthpieces finally to my Portnoy (or Woodwind) mouthpiece with a 3-1/2 or 4 V12 reed. Practice was long tones and various exercises. Not sure what you practice matters a lot as long as you practice. Then started playing clarinet with the community band, and shortly thereafter alto in a local jazz group (big band).
"Chops" (stamina) do/does come back. Last night I played for two hours (first clainet) with the band and 2 hours (lead alto) with the jazz group and could have gone longer. Got home at 11:00 after leaving house at 6:00pm. It was great! Just like the good old days when jazz work (dances) could last 4 or 5 hours.
Incidentally, "it" does come back. After 2 years of playing I can read just about anything within my technical capability. It wasn't that way 2 years ago. Sound/tone has improved markedly (at least that's what I'm told).
Music/clarinet/sax is wonderful! It's with you your whole life.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-06-08 13:24
Em,
You sound like me. I played it throughout elementary/high school, took the first two years in college off from playing, missed it, and now am back in it stronger than I was before! (And I've gotten better than I was before too!)
Good luck and keep us posted with the progress. This board helped me learn A LOT about clarinet playing and just about clarinets in general. I used to ask questions multiple times a day and the members were (usually) nice enough to answer them without yelling at me.
Just make sure that when you have a question to use the good 'ol search feature first. It may have been asked/answered before.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2004-06-08 16:18
I returned to playing after a 43 year break. In the beginning I played for ~15 minutes 4 or 5 times a day using the same reeds (I mean the same 43 year old ones) I had as a teenager. They were 2.5-3 Vandorens on a Clarion HS* with a Bonade ligature. Since starting I have bought a box of 2s (too soft) and box of 3s (too hard) and my teacher gave me an unopened 30 year old box of 3.5-4s (2x4s). Turns out today's 2.5 Vandorens work just fine and I get a whole lot more playable reeds out of a box then I did 40 years ago. Fortunately you got 25 reeds in a box back then.
I started with a fingering chart and C. Paris scales and quickly switched to Rose 32 and the first 167 exercises of Kroepsch. Currently I practice at least two hours a day and things are coming back. I would say after 7 months I am now where I was in the 9th or 10th grade but figure it will take me another year before I would even attempt to try out for the principal chair in the local symphony which I held at 17.
What I have found doing this as a 60 year old is my sound is better thanks to a world class teacher. My "feeling" is way better as I'm no longer interested in flash (show) but in music (substance). However, the down side is that fingering patterns don't stick like they did when you are 16. Also, progress seems to be in step functions. You struggle for a week or two and then see a step function improvement, then struggle for another week or two and bang another jump. It's also cut down on my drinking, no way can I practice in the evening after a glass or two of wine.
The up side of the coin is you can now afford a "great teacher" and all the horns that were out of your reach as a kid. I learned on a pre R13 Buffet Bb but also had a Leblanc Symphonie in A. I loved the feel of the Leblanc and never really liked the Buffet. Well today the Buffet is put away and I have a pile of old Leblancs (Symphonie, Dynamique, LL) all carefully resurrected from neglect by myself. I prefer the Symphonie and don't like the feel of the LL so it's going to get dumped back on eBay in the fall after a few of the keys are replated. However, it was only with the LL's barrel did the Symphonie play properly, another LL barrel has since been purchased.
Today my fascination with music is the same as when I was a kid. I can sit down with a Rose 32 or Kroepsch 26 exercise and before I know it the sun is down, my thumb is killing me and my stomach is growling from lack of food. The other thing that has really changed since my youth is the availability and quality/quantity of recorded music, thanks to Amazon.com and the quality of today's audio equipment. As a kid I could never play along to the Mozart or Stamitz concertos, as a retread I do it all time.
Now to get a basset horn.................................................
A great teacher gives you answers to questions
you don't even know you should ask.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2004-06-09 03:45
Bill wrote:
"However, the down side is that fingering patterns don't stick like they did when you are 16."
Boy, howdy! I have started playing in a community band 40 years after the last time I did anything like that, and it is indeed the sluggish finger response that is getting me down. I used to just whip it off. And I could see passages coming miles away. Now I can't read ahead very far, and it takes me just short of forever to get my brain and my fingers to agree what to do next.
I find that once I am familiar with a piece, it stays learned. But it does take longer to learn it. And I do, as you said, have a much nicer sound and a superior musiciality compared to what I had way back when. And definitely a better horn. But I am just aghast at how many steps I have lost in the quickness category!
Somebody please tell me it is going to get better!
Susan
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Author: ron b
Date: 2004-06-09 05:27
Don't expect great strides overnight, Susan. If I read your post correctly, you jumped right into band practice after a forty-year retirement! wow... wish I had that much boldness. My experience has been that it takes a few months to get back to a natural comfort zone of playing.
I started off, after a 30 year 'snooze', with 15 minute - progressively increasing to about 45-min to an hour a day routine and it took about four months to gain back some consistency and squeeze what I could of the sluggish out. I've now (about five years later) settled into playing/practicing comfortably about twenty to thirty minutes a day. I will not, for personal reasons, participate in a community band and the few public performances I do participate in I try to limit to no more than an hour.
To jump right in and play in a community band is pretty remarkable, Susan - at least in my opinion. You have my highest respect and I admire you for your bravery and determination.
(I may have to re-consider my own course... it wouldn't be the first time 
- r![[cool]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/cool.gif) n b -
________________________
[Edit] P.S. Oh, yeah, by the way... it WILL get better!
Post Edited (2004-06-09 05:30)
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Author: claclaws
Date: 2004-06-09 09:42
This is really a heart-warming thread.
Regardless of the present age, snooze period, etc, we can still enjoy and make music, right?
Lucy Lee Jang
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2004-06-09 15:40
Ron sez --
"If I read your post correctly, you jumped right into band practice after a forty-year retirement! wow... wish I had that much boldness."
Well, I do have a sufficient amount of chutzpah. And I guess I jumped into the frying pan, if not the fire, pretty precipitously.
I had played, like a lot of folks, all the way through high school, and was always "the best" in whatever band I was in. I took that very much for granted -- like a birthright.
I stopped playing when I went to college. This wasn't so much a conscious decision to quit as it was a mindless decision not to play. I sold my instrument (which, truth be told, was part of the problem -- it was a rotter).
Then I didn't play at all for about 15 years. One day, for reasons that I don't understand, I came across a very worn, ancient (1926) Buffet pro horn at a music dealer, and bought it for something like $300. Took it home and ignored it (well, I did have a new baby at the time . . . )
About 15 years after that, I had an opportunity to play little ditties in church. It was at that point that I found out how badly out of tune the old Buffet was. So I got myself a new R-13, thinking, of course, that I would take right up where I had left off thirty years past.
I did work at it a little, and even took a few months of lessons (where I learned a lot, despite myself). But life intervened, in the form of early widowhood, and the clarinet went back into the closet.
So, ten more years and a new husband later, I dragged it out again and started playing in a clown band -- a place where I didn't have to be good, just had to show up, preferably in costume. And I really had a good time, so I decided I would join the community band -- again, presuming that I would take up where I had left off 'way back in 1962.
The big shock has been in realizing how very different it is to actually play in a group of my peers and superiors again, instead of just noodling around by myself or learning one piece for church, or whatever. As I said, my big complaint is how cranky my fingers seem to have become. I feel like I am playing with mittens on my hands, sometimes. (Or maybe a tourniquet on my brain -- I am just not as sharp as I think I used to be.)
But, all in all, I am grateful for being able to have the experience at this late date, and I think they will be patient with me, because I do have really pretty tone now, and I can float those high notes with the best of them -- if I am not already 5 bars behind in the score when the time comes to play them!
Aaarrgghh!
Susan
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Author: winthropguy
Date: 2009-09-22 18:14
I know this is a very old thread, but it was great to read that I'm not the only one who is trying to pick back up after a hiatus. I was a pretty decent clarinet player up through high school, but quit when I went to college 11 years ago.
Yesterday, I bought some reeds (3 instead of the 4s I used to play on) and put together my Leblanc Concerto for the first time in years! I can only play about 7 of my scales and decided to focus on two octaves instead of the full range, and figure I'll probably bore myself to tears with long tones, scale exercises, and tonguing exercises over the coming months!
Having said all that, I've picked up some great advice from this site - and now some encouragement!
Thanks, all!
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