 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2004-07-31 04:44
High notes are soooo annoying... grrr... I'm getting very irritated with them... Especially when I tongue, it makes this really annoying grunting sound (as my teacher calls it)... I DUNNO WHAT TO DO!?!?!?
I mean what's happening... is my instrument not working right or something? I don't hear other clarinet players grunting... AM I JUST WEIRD?!?! Maybe I'm just grunting because I'm a beginner, but still... Should I buy a new instrument?!?! How do you fix this???
I'm so confused, I DUNNO WHAT TO DO!!! Please help... thanks for your time and consideration....
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Author: William
Date: 2004-07-31 14:37
One excercise that was suggested to me by Russell Dagon--clarinetist and teacher extrodianire--was to tongue four C6s, first with the register key followed immediantly with four more C6s, but without the register key. Speed is not the objective, but rather the clariety of your "attack". After the C6s, try the same proceedure with some B5s. Then Bb5s, A5s, Ab5s........as far downward as you can go, realistically reaching E5 or slightly lower. The C6s, etc, will be relatively easy to produce, but to reach E5 (or lower) requires raising the back of you tongue (as in producing a cats hiss) and concentrating the air flow to the tip of your mpc/reed setup. And this is the objective of the excercise, to gain oral cavity control over the focus of your breath support and "accelerate" it to the reed tip in order to produce a more clean articulation. The "grunt" you refer to is a result of insufficient air at the start of your articulation to cause the tip of the reed to vibrate "on cue". Using RDs excercise should help you overcome this common problem. Even in my "old age", I still sometimes go through a variation of this excercise just to keep my articulative "chops" keen.
(Russell Dagon taught for one year at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, while Professor Glenn Bowen was "on leave" completing his DMA at Eastmann--and I was lucky to have been one of his many appreciative students)
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Author: Rick Williams
Date: 2004-07-31 15:41
Hi:
My first thought after reading your post was what you consider to be high notes?
Best
Rick
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Author: WoodIsGood
Date: 2004-07-31 16:00
The problem lies in the grrr... and the solution is in the direction of relax.
First understand how the reed works. Finger low bflat, push the jaw out and down and raise the bell up about 8inches. Now blow easily across the reed. There should be no sound. Now lever the bell slowly downwards across the jaw. This will cause the opening between the reed and the mouthpiece to slowly narrow. At some point the reed will begin to sing.
This is the condition that must be maintained over the range of the instrument. The reed flies like an airplane wing from air flowing over the upper surface. Too strong a grip, too little air, and no sound.
Now finger high C. Keep the bell high. Keep the jaw out and down, gently apply embrochure pressure while easily blowing untill the reed sings. One can start a high note at ppp easily, if the gap is at the critical point. Shade the first hole with the edge of the index finger and lower the little finger of the right hand. Note the effect of each.
Raise and lower the bell while keeping the head and mount motionless starting and stopping the note while blowing steadily. No tongue involved!
Next refine the note by pulling upward and outwards with the ends of the lips. Keep the center of the lips relaxed. (Nice trick when you learn it)
Learn your way up the scale at your own pace. You will be surprised to find in the end that high Ccan be easier than C third space to sound.
Now tounging. It you can feel the reed touch your tongue you are tonguing too hard. It just needs to come near enough. A temporary aid is to put the tip of your tongue against the bottom edge of your teeth and slowly float the middle part up untill the sound stops. Tonguing this way will let you learn the feel of microtonguing. After you have the feel you can tongue any way you need to.
Recommend you buy Kieth Stein's "Art and Craft of Clarinet Playing" About $14 from Amazon.com
Relax - relax, relax. Good Luck
Mike
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Author: mkybrain
Date: 2004-07-31 16:40
I was just saying ur private teacher could probably help u more than anyone could on an internet forum, sinc ur actually present with that person. I usually ask these people questions if my teacher wouldnt know.
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2004-08-02 14:15
if "c4" that´s what given on top of this page (is this an Amercan ciphering? in Europe this would be a "c1"), notes above "h6" are always very touchy with the clarinet (my "special friends" are "d7-f#7"); since the (alto-, in my case; I think the ss is as any soprano-wind very difficult in the altissimo-area, the notes being so close to each other, speaking of the air column inside the instrument) saxophone tends to be a more easy-going tool for hitting those notes very high up, I suspect this particular difficulty with the soprano-cl is so because of the cylindrical air-column there, in opposition to the saxophone´s cone-shaped one. be it as it may, the grunting and screeching high notes are part and parcel of grappling with clarinet. It is,perhaps, a weak consolidation, but the best You can get, that every clarinet-performer knows what You´re talking about.
Markus
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-08-02 15:24
Markus Wenninger wrote:
> if "c4" that´s what given on top of this page (is this an
> Amercan ciphering? in Europe this would be a "c1")
No, it's one of the many international standards; this one is based on the 88-key piano and is unambiguous.
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