 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Jaysne
Date: 2008-01-11 22:35
I've begun to practice way up there in earnest, and while I am starting to get the notes more consistently, they sure can be thin-sounding and shrill.
Can someone give me some pointers on how to intelligently practice the upper altissimo, say from G6 on up? Thanks.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2008-01-11 23:23
Scales, arpeggios, and longtones are all I can think of. Maybe playing (or attempting to play in my case) some flute music as written.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: bahamutofskycon
Date: 2008-01-12 01:02
In addition to Alexi's sound advice:
Buy "The Development of the Altissimo Register for Clarinet" by Norman M. Heim, published by Kendor Music Inc. It was $9.00 seven years ago when I bought it. 25 pages.
In addition to numerous well thought-out exercises, Heim provides quality written advice and fingering suggestions as the book progresses.
The only negative is that there is no fingering chart included - if you need to look up a specific note you have to flip through the book to find where that note was introduced.
Steve
EDIT - just did a search of the boards and found that Heim's book has been recommended several times in posts about the altissimo register.
Post Edited (2008-01-12 01:05)
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Author: grifffinity
Date: 2008-01-12 01:09
I ditto the flute music suggestion. A good etude book to start with is:
Demersseman op.4, 50 Melodious Etudes for Flute edited by Moyse.
What is nice about these 50 short etudes is that they work the upper clarion and altissimo register amost exclusively, which most clarinet etude books ignore. They also work in less comfotable keys...so you get a two in one type deal with them.
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Author: Jaysne
Date: 2008-01-12 01:39
Thanks for the suggestions. But rather than help on scales and reading and such, I was more looking for advice on air support and especially embouchure issues way up there.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2008-01-12 02:26
I typically take in more mouthpiece than just the tip. I keep taking the more and more mouthpiece until I squeak. Then I back off a smidge (I think that's the technical term) and that's where I keep it. This way I can easily facilitate hitting those overtones (while pressing the correct fingerings) with a slight shifting of my upper lip.
Long story short, after trying and trying and trying, it tends to get easier.
There's a podcast from Michele Gringas that tells you to practice hitting each of the overtones with just your embouhure. Basically, it would be something like "Finger a chalemeau C, and with just your embouchure, change it to a G. Then an E. Then an overtone above that" And try that on every note. REALLY helps cause you get a sense of where your embouchure should be to hit that overtone. And when you put in a correct fingering, it makes it near impossible to miss hitting it.
Alexi
PS - Don't underestimate a correctly balanced reed. My reed choice makes a HUGE difference on the ease. I'm definitely still a little weak and thin on some notes, but I'm attributing a bit of that to the instrument I'm currently using. Also, I'm working on trying to tongue those high notes. DEFINITELY tough for me to tongue repeatedly on altissimo notes. ESPECIALLY at a soft dynamic.
US Army Japan Band
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2008-01-12 03:19
Ack. I missed that you're getting them consistently but are working on making them less thin. Sorry. Kinda geared my advice towards hitting them consistently.
US Army Japan Band
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Author: hans
Date: 2008-01-12 03:36
Jaysne,
With time you'll learn to relax your embouchure and that will result in a less thin and shrill tone.
You could simply transpose your music up an octave or 2 to get more practise at playing upper altissimo.
Regards,
Hans
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Author: James Langdell
Date: 2008-01-12 06:48
Also, occasionally play the altissimo passage you're practicing an octave or two lower to remind yourself of musical qualities you also want present when playing the higher pitches.
--James
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Author: grifffinity
Date: 2008-01-12 14:13
Quote:
But rather than help on scales and reading and such, I was more looking for advice on air support and especially embouchure issues way up there.
sfalexi's advice is good about learning how to find the correct amount of mouthpiece. Ian Gretzer uses a similar demonstration with overtones and it is helpful in some ways. The demonstration is always more dramatic than the actual movements you would make when playing - so its important not to go overboard when practicing that - trust me!
For years I've had a similar problem with the thinness of tone in the upper clarion (above A) into the altissimo - and thought, was it me, my horn, my mouthpiece....etc. It was a combo of my mouthpiece, my oral cavity and support. The latter two on that list really proved to be most crucial.
Outside of equipment issues, when dealing with thinness of tone, you are usually not supporting enough and/or doing something with the oral cavity via tongue position or squeezing too hard with the embouchure. Perhaps, even usuing the throat to focus the air...which leads to other issues when you attempt large leaps.
Keeping the tongue forward is important - sometimes it gets lazy when we are playing long tones or non-articulated passages. Also, think about the tone coming out of the top of your head. I don't know if you've ever taken signing lessons, but some teachers will use this description to help the student lift the back of the soft palate...or even use the yawn technique. You can feel it raise naturally when you yawn. I find raising the soft palate takes the edge off my upper clarion and altissimo notes.
At the end of the day, support is support - you are either doing it correctly or not. I don't find the basics of support change in any register - speed of air is key as well as focus of that air. Many times students take this big breath, but don't know exactly what to do with it or how to control it. Tony Pay has lead some great discussions of support on this board, which you can find using the search functions.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2008-01-12 15:59
Try every conceivable alternative fingering up there. Most will be out of tune, so you need to find the one (or few) that will harmonize. By exploring all the alternate fingerings, you will find ways to sneak around amongst all the "registers" to ease the transitions between notes.
One example: G6 played TRX00|000Eb is in the "same register" as F6 played TR0XXC#|000Eb, but the "Jr High" G6: TR0X0|XX0Eb is in the next register with A6: TR0XX|000Eb
Unlike Alexi, I find it more difficult to slur big leaps in the altissimo.
Up to G6, the Kroepsch exercises routinely run into the altissimo.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Jaysne
Date: 2008-01-12 23:48
"Ack. I missed that you're getting them consistently but are working on making them less thin. Sorry. Kinda geared my advice towards hitting them consistently."
Not to worry--you gave me some great advice. I do wonder, though, what can be done to get a more meaty tone to them.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2008-01-14 11:26
Fearlessness is important - if you flinch because the note looks high, all is lost. One thing that can help is to practice somewhere you know no-one can hear you. First, hit the notes right; only then, tackle the problem of pp entries.
The advice to try all the alternate fingerings is also good. I've played in a band section that was sent out of the hall and told not to come back until we could play the notes in perfect unison. We went somewhere where we hoped no-one could hear us [actually, they came from the far end of the building to check no-one was in pain :-) ] and screeched like cats for a bit. When we returned /everyone/ was playing a different set of fingerings - but the whole was in tune. The differences are small, but important in these most penetrating of notes.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2008-01-14 12:25
The clarinet and mouthpiece can make a big difference, too. I'm an amateur, and probably shouldn't try to comment on these technical issues in any detail, since I don't understand the physics of tone production. However, I collect clarinets and have found that some combinations of instrument and mouthpiece make altissimo literally impossible: I just can't get the notes, at all.
If you're finding that you can play the e 3 lines above the staff and the g 4 lines above the treble staff easily, but can't get the f or the f-sharp in between and can't go above the g without the pitch becoming uncontrollable, then I'd suspect the setup: It's a misbegotten combination of *that* mouthpiece with *that* clarinet. Try some mix-and-match. Chances are, other parts of the range will improve at the same time. (One observation: Don't ask me why, but a setup that produces muffled or flat notes on 4th-line d and top-space e often is the same setup that won't play a decent range of altissimo.)
Other setups--okay, I am going to be a little bit specific here, too: I'm talking about the very free-blowing setups, such as a modern American Selmer with a Hite Premiere mouthpiece--can make it easy to get the notes, sort of, if pitch and tone quality don't matter too much. That type of setup would be too risky for a high school seat jump or a classical audition--yet I'd start a beginner with that setup anyway, just to help give a young student confidence about playing way up there so that a psychological block doesn't develop. Anyway, it's handy later on to own a setup like that, in case you find yourself in a free-jazz environment where you *want* to wail and bend the pitch all over the place (and pretend you're doing it on purpose...)--where loudness matters. I mean, let's face it: It's just too much trouble to borrow a mallet from the vibes player, conk the trumpet player over the head and drag him out the back door by his feet before you start your set.
An extremely resistant setup gives me problems too--I've tried a couple of closed-tip, classical mouthpieces with an old Buffet clarinet that gave me (comparatively) beautiful-sounding notes up there, but in order to get them, I had to bite like a crocodile and blow myself blue in the face. Not my idea of a satisfying practice session!
For best results with altissimo, I recommend: Get boring. Choose the most middle-of-the-road setup you've got. Split the difference between hitting steam-whistle range easily and playing a tone attractive enough that it won't make listeners run screaming.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: ZCClarinet
Date: 2008-01-14 14:08
I still consider myself a young student, so I'd appreciate any criticisms or corrections about these suggestions:
I suggest the following exercises, based on the concept of jumping between registers (the thought process behind this is below). Octave jumps, like the one in Baermann III. Or, take any etude you want, and for each note, half the temporal length and use the second half to play that note an octave up (if you can produce the higher note).
Except this moves too quickly to actually be helpful. I would suggest playing each note 4 or more times in the lower octave and an equal amount of times in the higher octave and at a slow tempo before moving to the next set of notes. Play each note slowly and enough times that you have time to make sure that you are using your best technique. When you're in the higher register, make sure you're using the same technique. Don't play the notes in the altissimo too many times in a row or you may start to revert to bad technique. Once you get used to this, you can start to increase the number of times you play in the altissimo to get more experience and strengthen the concepts you’ve learned, or reduce the number of times you play both octaves of the notes to confirm consistency.
Above everything else, experience is the biggest factor working against you, no matter how much you already have under your fingers. The more, the better. So get playing!
Thought process: the player will build off their already-working technique. That is, if you can produce good tone in one register, use the same technique, but with different voicing in the other register. What you want is minimal change in your embouchure (don’t squeeze or distort), finger movement, tonguing (though the change here may feel more than minimal), etc between the two registers. The only major change would be the voicing (natural changes in airflow and tongue position). What you don't want to do is treat the altissimo as a distinct register of your instrument that you need to develop new technique for. That's not what you want to do or how you should approach it. If you do, you'll treat the register as this huge new mountain of a challenge that it really isn't.
If you now understand the thought process behind the above exercises, you can come up with many more ideas of jumping between registers to make sure you have consistent technique.
About setups: While we want to strive for one unified sound between all of our registers, we are working against our setup. Your reed, mouthpiece, and instrument may all require a different airflow and technique to produce the same tone quality between registers. The argument for this change in technique is that most everything in the market will vary in the same way between registers. That is, the resistance you feel between registers from the mouthpiece you use will be very similar to most other mouthpieces on the market. And you’ll need to change your technique between registers to compensate.
I claim that this change between registers will only require a small adjustment in technique to get your best tone, and the change between setups on the same register is even smaller. Since these changes are so small, don't worry about them now, just focus on getting your best technique up there, then you can make the slight changes for the register and setup to maximize your tone.
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Author: Andy Firth
Date: 2008-01-16 12:52
My advice would be to use plenty of air support and a firm but not tight embouchure no matter what dynamic level you're attempting. I also try to "think" lower as I ascend whilst making sure that I've got plenty of mouthpiece in my mouth, plenty of air support and then do all I can to make sure that I don't pinch the reed by placing too much pressure on it. I guess when you're in this area of the clarinet though the only thing that I know will work is practice. Your mouth, teeth and jaw will be different from every other player so in the end it all comes down to an intimate understanding and "feel" for where the extreme high notes like to hangout. I practice building my ability to play high by picking a top A, B or C (4th) and then spend 15 minutes just trying to pop it out and hold it steady at various volumes, especially p and mp. If I feel myself squeezing or biting, I stop and rest before attempting it again. This works for me but like all advice and insights that players give, try it out for a while, and then decide whether to use it or lose it or seek other ideas on the subject from other sources. Usually I find that top A, B and C's just pop out surprisingly little pressure or effort but D , E and F (4th/5th) are always a bit of a battle so I only use these on approach-usually in a scale or chrom. passage. I would suggest though that from what I know about my own playing, that my mouthpiece and reed set up are a vital part of whether the altissimo notes will play ball when I want them to or not. The key of course is making sure that you spend that essential time getting to know how and why your high notes work with your set-up and instrument. Once you know why you sometimes can't get a note clearly and reliably, then you can usually workout a method to overcome this. Once you do however, make up exercises that exploit this area. Even just leaps from low to high notes,anything really that will give you experience in this register. I try playing tunes up in the extreme register notes-bugle calls, nursery rhymes even standards like "I can't get started or Nearness of you" etc. Anything that allows me to get comfortable and familiar with these notes. A lot of my problems when I was younger came from a fear of certain areas of the clarinet. This fear was not inate but rather instilled by teachers and other players who all told me that the high register was tough and challenging. Once I realised that extremely high notes are just notes like any others, I lost this fear and just played them like any other register on the instrument.
High notes and only that, high that doesn't mean that they are hard to play however. Just get so familiar playing and practicing up there that they just become like any other notes-you just blow and they come out when and where you want them to. Start with something simple like the first few bars of "Yankee Doodle" beginning on "C" above the stave this means that you'll only play up to the "F" above. Then once you're cool with this start on the "D" and you'll go to the high "G" (remember to add the F# and C# though).Then take it to Eb. When you get bored with this, try "Ode To Joy" or "British Grenadiers" or something similar. Before you know it, you should be soaring around the top "A" with confidence within a few weeks. One last piece of advice before I bore everybody rigid. Don't ever, even for one moment let yourself believe that a high note will not be there when you need it or are approaching it. If you do, the sub-conscious mind says "ok we believe we can't hit this note" and so you don't.
It works the same I find if I ever say out loud "I can't play this passage" or "This is the part I always mess up!". Just don't feed yourself this stuff and you'll find that the talent and musical spirit in you will find a way to achieve anything you want to accomplish on the instrument. I hope that something I've said can be of benefit to you and If I can help any further please let me know.
Good luck!
Andy
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2008-01-20 22:30
I've noticed that fingerings that are best on my Buffet Bb can be wrong on my Buffet A, and vice versa. Doesn't surprise me, but I don't recall seeing it commented on.
Sometimes the better sounding fingerings are pretty tricky to handle in typical contexts. A fingering with good intonation may require crossing a "break", some of which can be hard to reliably negotiate.
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Author: Chauncey
Date: 2008-01-22 00:16
I say don't waste your time. As you progress with Baermann III, you will get consistently better up there. The only thing that will happen is your mouth will start shriveling up, and you won't get anything else you need to practice done.
That's the fastest way I got my upper notes to sound pretty good. Of course, this is all my humble opinion... ;P
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