The Clarinet BBoard

Re: How do I smear?

Author: music_is_life  Date:   2005-03-25 20:21 I'm not sure if I do it correctly...some people can manage to do it with their embrochure...but what I do it start on whatever note it starts on (like, say a 4th line D) and kind of slide your fingers, one by one off the holes, quickly, but in order and not TOO fast. this will cause the notes to progressively get higher as you take your fingers away, but since you are sliding them off and still blowing, it "smears". You have to work at it because when I first started doing it, it would squeak and it took awhile to make it clean, but my smears sound correct. I hear rumor that thinking low and positioning your jaw correctly can make something like a top space G sound like a B, and you smear up with the use of your mouth, not fingers. I have not been able to master that and find that what I do with my fingers suffices. I am sure someone will refute me or give you a better way to do it. hope this helps. -Lindsie

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Re: How do I smear?

Author: Robert Moody  Date:   2005-03-26 04:45 A "smear" is really a matter of voicing. In the upper clarion and altissimo registers, it can be done completely without the use of the fingers. If you want to begin in the lower clarion somewhere around fourth line D, then you will need the fingers to help you start (for most people). A quick note about sliding fingers: The smears you hear of jazzers or a good smooth Rhapsody in Blue smear are not accomplished with the sliding of the fingers off the keys. At the most, the fingers guide the sound to orient it around certain pitches, but the smear itself is solely in the voicing in your mouth. I was also told by my teacher that it is really difficult to explain, but once you accomplish it, it becomes very easy...very quickly. He said you just kinda have to figure it out. I agree and disagree all at the same time. You are going to really need to become familiar with how things "feel" inside your mouth when you are playing. I'm not necessarily talking about your teeth, your tongue, your palate. I'm talking about where the "pressure" is in your mouth when you are blowing. To give an idea of how to determine this...or rather...discover this, I would offer this exercise: Play a strong low E with your eyes closed. Think about where you feel the pocket of air or pressure in your mouth when you are playing. Imagine a ball of air swirling around in a small area inside your mouth before it goes into the clarinet. That pocket of swirling air would feel like pressure in whatever portion of the mouth it was in. Now play the low E again and, still with your eyes closed and thinking about how it feels in your mouth, consciously try to move your tongue to the position of saying "Eeee". Did you feel a change in the perceived pocket of air? Where it was and where it moved around to when you changed to saying "Eeee" when you played? Now try playing the low E, eyes closed, and set the inside of your mouth as if you were saying "Oooooh". Did the pressure change in your mouth or did the pocket of pressure move? In order to smear you are going to mess around with that pressure and pocket of air. Keep trying that exercise on different notes until you are fully aware of the pressure or pocket of air and where it is located when you are playing. We are going to shift it nearly to the back and starting down your throat. Remember...all we've done is try to make you aware of something. That is not the smear. After you have played around with the idea above and have become aware of the pocket of air, I would ask you to play a throat G. Play with a nice sound and think about the pocket of air. Now I would like you to "squeak" the G. You can adjust your embouchure if you need to, but bring it back once the G is squeaked. Keep trying and eventually you should get the G squeaking to be totally under your control and with a decent sound. That "squeaked G" is really an altissimo D above the staff. This could take a little while to master. However long it takes, make sure you are taking time to do some of it with your eyes closed and noticing the voicing (pocket of air) in your mouth as you switch between G and squeaked-G. After you have become rather comfortable with the squeaking and feel you have good control of it, play the squeaked G and attempt to move your voicing as you did in the low E exercise above. So you will squeak the G to the alternate D and then, while sustaining a good sound and with your eyes closed, move your voicing from "Eeeee" to "Ooooh". You can try other vowels if you have the interest. You may or may not end up bending the pitch in that process. IF you do, GO FOR IT! Bend it all over the place and see how far you can bend it down. It is not likely that you immediately went to bending the pitch, but the important part is learning the difference in your voicing to play G and then squeak it and learning the difference in your voicing in the low E exercise. Lastly, with the voicing feeling in your head and mouth, play G on the top of the staff. Slowly slide your fingers off from the ring finger up and directly to the side. The ring finger should lead and as it passes the halfway open point of its hole, the middle finger should be beginning to open its hole. The key here is, again, to close your eyes and feel the resistance in your mouth and the air as you, playing with good support, begin to transition off of the good G and to the inbetween space leading up to A. It is somewhere in that space and weird resistance between the two notes that you will again attempt to change between "Eeeee" and "Oooo". If you feel the pocket of air beginning to move back to the throat and the sound begins to dip in pitch, you are certainly on par to learn to smear. Remember, a real smear is done in the voicing and aided by the fingers. The fingers may help start a smear but are not responsible for it. You must become aware of the voicing in your mouth and throat in order to do a real smear. [Edit and extra note: I just wanted to add an observation of poor semantics in some of the response before this thread concerning clarinet glissandi. Despite people's inclination to say it is part of the embouchure, that is not a good description. Most people equate the word "embouchure" with only the muscles of the lips, chin and cheeks. In that case, the gliss is NOT a matter of embouchure. The lips, chin and cheeks remain poised in a good embouchure position during a smear. Voicing deals with the inside of the mouth when playing and it is not effective to call voicing part of the embouchure...because it simply isn't.] Hope that helps or give you some ideas. Take Care, Robert Moody http://www.musix4me.com Free Clarinet Lessons and Digital Library! Post Edited (2005-03-26 17:23)

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