 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: jmberch
Date: 2006-10-17 17:13
since they closed the thread on emma, i'll ask here...i noticed that her finger hieights on one of the songs was an inch or more away from the tone holes at times. i was always told to keep my fingers about half an inch away at all times. is this right? or does it not matter?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2006-10-17 18:04
I saw this addressed elsewhere that there are a number of top players that have pretty wild finger movements. Although it may seem ineffecient purely from a mechanical standpoint, I wouldn't place any unnecessary restrictions on yourself.
For me I find that it is what fingerings you use and HOW you move your fingers that matters more rather than height perse.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: jmberch
Date: 2006-10-17 18:07
its natural for me now, and i feel awquard if i do anything different, and i think it helps with fast passages. does finger hieght have any slight effects on pitch?
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Author: bufclar
Date: 2006-10-17 19:43
Its my opinion and the opinion of my teachers that it is better to minimize your finger movements. Yes people sound good and play well with wild finger movements but a general rule of thumb is to have minimal movement thus creating more efficiency and precision. Wasted energy is wasted energy and the more smooth and sound ones technique is the better. I think limited movement also can contribute to qulaity legato and more accurate fast playing.
"does finger hieght have any slight effects on pitch?"
Yes finger height can affect some notes. For example..... Opening A of the Brahms Quintet can be sharp on some A clarinets. I performed this piece for Richard Stolzman in a master class and he told me to make sure I keep my right ring finger covering the hole while playing the A to help lower the pitch. You can lower notes by covering tone holes. This is another reason why it is good to just keep your hands calm and steady and close to the instrument. Maybe Emma had crazy fingers for showmanship reasons or because she is just not that good of a clarinetist. Yes she might be a good musician but no she is not a good clarinetist. Her fingers/hand postition look horrible. Her embouchure is off center and false. I could go on but some like her and I dont want to offend anyone.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2006-10-17 21:06
bufclar wrote:
"Her fingers/hand postition look horrible"
and
"Her embouchure is off center and false"
These are both visual observations. Isn't the most important thing (if not the ONLY important thing) what somebody sounds like? Just because your teachers have taught you some textbook method of doing some things doesn't mean that doing something else won't work for other people.
Re: jmberch's question- most teachers will tell you to keep your fingers close to the keys. This is good advice and makes sense from a technical point of view. But you will see some fantastic players doing otherwise, so it's obviously not a "rule" that needs to be religiously adhered to all the time. I think the important thing to learn is that, if you're practising something technical and it isn't working, check to see that having your fingers too far away from the keys isn't causing the problem. Sometimes passages become a lot more difficult because of extra distance that the fingers have to travel.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-10-17 22:19
Just remember, good 'ole Kenny G has become a multimillionaire playing sax out of the side of his mouth. As long as his hair is well-coiffed, it doesn't matter that his embouchure looks screwed-up. Same for your fingers -- whatever works for you is OK, as long as it truly works.
Post Edited (2006-10-17 22:20)
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Author: jmberch
Date: 2006-10-17 23:10
thanks for the input, by the way....brahms quintet pieces(all i know is 4 songs, maybe thats all there is, or maybe there is more) are my favorite songs of all.
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Author: bufclar
Date: 2006-10-17 23:19
Liquorice,
I don't think Emma sounds good and that is why I commented on her visual playing mechanics. I don't want to get into a debate about what is taught by some teachers and what isn't because you are right .....if you sound good then who cares.
Calling it a "textbook" way of doing things I think is a little bit of a stretch. I have studied with 3 members of major Orchestras here in the U.S. and one noted pedagog and I can say with out a doubt that they all were incredible players and all had similar ideas about clarinet playing. They all sounded very different and played in a different way but they also had a lot in common. I believe that while they all were unique and gifted players that did things in a way that worked for them individually, they also posessed a very similar foundation to their playing that was passed down to them from their teachers.
If I listen to Emma Johnson and hear a sound that is inconsistant in quality and slightly out of tune and then see that her embouchure looks the way it does, I am going to notice that and think to myself "her sound could be improved if she would adjust her embouchure slightly." I strongly believe that when listening to Emma Johnson, that what she is doing is not working for her. That is why I said she is a great musician but a bad clarinetist. I'm not denying her musicianship or expressive talent but the sound she produces on her instrument and what I see when she is playing I find to be subpar. Maybe what I have been taught from my teachers might not work for her but I believe she could sound much better than she does.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-10-17 23:29
bufclar wrote:
> Maybe
> what I have been taught from my teachers might not work for her
> but I believe she could sound much better than she does.
Maybe (most probably) she is making the sound she wants. You can choose a different sound and way, but she is sounding, to her, just fine, thank you.
And, of course, she is sounding just fine to those that buy her recordings, thank you very much.
So, let's make this an "Emma-free zone" for a while, shall we? I'm sure we can find someone else to denigrate.
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Author: Mags1957
Date: 2006-10-17 23:33
I heard this from a CSO bassoon player, when a colleague of his asked why he didn't bother to fix his star pupil's unorthodox embouchre: "I haven't found anything he can't do yet!"
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2006-10-18 00:07
Let's consider the action of a finger travelling down to change note. (Somewhat simplified...)
First the finger accelerates. This is a relatively slow process. Then the finger hits the key (which slows it down a little). Then it moves the key to a closed position and rapidly decelerates to a stop.
Some flute players seem to think they get a faster response if their fingers virtually touch the keys. I don't think so. If the travel of the key includes the period through which the finger is accelerating, rather than just involving the finger travelling at high speed, then the time taken for the key to travel from open to closed will actually be greater.
Now you could say that I am wasting time while my finger actually travels to the key before it presses the key down. I rather think not, because we train the brain to make allowances and ANTICIPATE when the key needs to be down. Whether we start with the finger actually on the key or above it, the brain plans the finger movement IN ADVANCE, so that the closure of the key is at just the right time.
Of course there are extremes which would be ridiculous, eg the fingers 10 cm above the keys. However, within reason, I rather think that some teachers make far too big an issue of this.
In reality, many very technically facile players move their fingers a long way, and that includes players of many instruments. Watch the fingers of a bagpipe player. Note that the finger travel on a brass valve instrument has to be quite large, but many brass players can play very, very fast.
Post Edited (2006-10-18 00:09)
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Author: sylvangale
Date: 2006-10-18 06:54
Quote:
Some flute players seem to think they get a faster response if their fingers virtually touch the keys. I don't think so. If the travel of the key includes the period through which the finger is accelerating, rather than just involving the finger travelling at high speed, then the time taken for the key to travel from open to closed will actually be greater.
Finger acceleration makes up for distance of fingers hovering over keys?
There has to be a scientific study to back that claim up, for or against. Anyone?
Just fiddling with my keyboard if I repeatedly press the down arrow of my keyboard with my finger slightly above the key versus keeping my finger on the key and repeatedly pressing it... I can press the key faster with less exertion if I left my finger on the key rather than hovering. In fact the impact of the finger onto the key from hovering seems to also be a little more painful than just leaving the finger on the key.
Finger contact with the mechanism of a musical instrument is by no means unique to flutists, I would associate it more with pianists myself (though many teachers teach finger contact methods on many instruments):
Quote:
If the movement of the fingertip begins above the key surface, it will be moving when it hits the key and will jar the hammer into vibrating. Thus, to avoid a percussive sound, it is essential that the fingertip be in contact with the key before the key is depressed. One depresses the key by pulling the fingertip down and towards oneself. A legato touch calls for a steady pressure on the key. A staccato touch calls for a sort of snap of the finger to send the hammer flying to its goal.
Regards,
Stephen
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-10-18 10:49
sylvangale wrote:
> Quote:
> If the movement of the fingertip begins above the key surface,
> it will be moving when it hits the key and will jar the hammer
> into vibrating. Thus, to avoid a percussive sound, it is
> essential that the fingertip be in contact with the key before
> the key is depressed. One depresses the key by pulling the
> fingertip down and towards oneself. A legato touch calls for a
> steady pressure on the key. A staccato touch calls for a sort
> of snap of the finger to send the hammer flying to its
> goal.
Hehehe. If you think we have religion about where to keep the hands, the pianists have it all over us. On an instrument where the only thing you can really control is the velocity of the hammer before it's released to hit a string, how much sympathetic vibration there'll be, and how hard the key should strike the keybed.
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Author: Mike Clarinet
Date: 2006-10-18 12:04
Most of the keys on the flute (assuming the closed hole variety) are just that - a key. It does not matter whether the finger is in contact with the key or not, as long as the key is open when it is meant to be. Most of the clarinet fingers are covering holes and rings, not keys. I find when I play sax that my fingers are in contact with the keys almost continuously, and I notice many sax players doing the same thing. Fingers too high, although not desireable, does not matter as long as the hole can be closed in time when needed. Fingers too low can be a problem affecting intonation,as demonstrated by the speaker key, resulting in a very poor break Bb if it is too low.
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Author: William
Date: 2006-10-18 15:27
Charles Neidich, technical virtuoso, commented in a master class that he did not "worry about his fingers" and went on to say they "fly all over the place" when he plays. He then played a flawless fast scale on his clarinet and his fingers did come quite high off the keys--and not all uniformally at that. And I have never heard a Neidich recording that was not technically perfect--hard to argue against success.
And for the record, I liked Emmas performance. She can sit next to me anytime.........
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