 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Keith P
Date: 2008-06-03 05:08
Just curious; when did you encounter and work with your best teacher? High School? College? Post College? In an Ensemble maybe or another peer that has impacted your playing or practice and/or concepts? Not necessarily asking who, but if you care to share that to then by all means =).
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2008-06-03 11:38
My best teacher was someone I studied with privately for only a few months. I left every lesson wanting to practice what I was told. I still feel that the core of my playing is based on those few lessons.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-06-03 12:29
My best teacher was at college - not only an excellent teacher but a great clarinettist and musician who knew the clarinet repertoire inside out (though his specialist field was mainly the Classical era), as well as knowing and imparting the (mostly unwritten) short-cuts and special fingerings to make getting around things much easier.
And as Skygardner put it, "I still feel that the core of my playing is based on those few lessons" - although I studied under him for two years his teaching had a profound impact on all aspects of my playing. It was just fortunate that I decided to study clarinet when I started college as he started teaching there at the same time, and clarinet became my main instrument (instead of sax).
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2008-06-03 15:29
Not to diminish the great teaching of Val Heinrich, Dave Etheridge, Jerry Neil Smith, or John McGrosso, I think my best teacher was my first, Oakley Pittman, who was teaching at SMU in Dallas. I took lessons from him when I was in 4th or 5th grade and he taught me solid basics and just how good a clarinet could sound. As a little kid, I was not aware of what I was getting, but we shouldn't forget those people who got us started in the correct ways of playing clarinet.
John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com
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Author: BP
Date: 2008-06-03 18:02
My best teacher while I was living in Chicago in the early 1970's was a gentleman by the name of Don Kramer. He was studying with Clark Brody of the Chicago Symphony at the time and I am sure he used some of the information the Clark Brody had taught him. I still use Don's basic principles. Another great teacher was Lewis Wyatt in NYC, a freelance classical player. But I would say that being out on the road with bands over the years and working with many musicians was also a fantastic education that I could have gotten no where else.
Bill Payne
www.billpayne.wordpress.com
Post Edited (2008-06-03 18:03)
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Author: hartt
Date: 2008-06-03 20:57
Each one of my following named teachers were a favorite.
Each taught with a different style and emphasis.
It's not only what they taught me but HOW they taught it.
Without question, Leon taught each student on a personalized, individual basis (I've heard this from some of his other students).
His teaching method was literally 'private lessons'.
Leon Russianoff
Kalman Opperman
Peter Hadcock
Gene Zorro
regards
dennis
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-06-03 21:16
It’s funny because the “best” teacher for me was the one that I liked the least, learned the least from but inspired me to be what I am today by being negative. It was Earl Bates when I studied with him for nine weeks at the Aspen Music Festival as a freshman in college. He didn’t like anything I did but did not explain how to fix anything, he would just say ‘do it another week’. Instead of encouraging me he simply told me I didn’t have what it takes to be a professional musician. He was probably right so when I came home to my teacher, Eric Simon at Manes College of Music, I doubled my practice time. Then I bought a bass clarinet and Eb clarinet and tripled my practice time. Thank you Earl Bates, I might not have made it if you where not so honest. After him Eric Simon was my first real favorite teacher because he inspired me to love classical music and then Leon Russianoff at Manhattan School of Music for his inspiration and encouragement, which was easy since I never came in with an unprepared lesson, ever. If he gave me ten things to prepare, they were ready at my lesson. Joe Allard was my favorite bass clarinet teacher, of course he was my only one but showed me how not the squeak and squawk. ESP, www.peabody.jhu.edu/457 (listen to my Mozart)
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2008-06-08 00:20)
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Author: marzi
Date: 2008-06-03 21:29
My best teacher was my first one in elementary school, ! Truly. I've had very good teachers since then, but the patience of an elementary school teacher can't be underrated..
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2008-06-03 23:02
I remember not being able to play well for Ron Reuben - I would get too nervous and make mistakes. Really good teacher but not for me so I switched to Gigliotti and we worked together really well.
But possibly Reuben was the better teacher.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2008-06-03 23:20
Someone most of you have never heard of....Ronald Phillips. Long time principal of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. He started in the job in 1926 and retired in 1983! You do the math.
He studied intermittently with Hamelin and Bonade. He had a very instinctive musical way of playing with the French American sound that seems to be a sound of the past.
He played the Mozart Concerto with Thomas Beecham and was told by Beecham that "he had never heard it better."
My other influential teachers were Gigliotti and Marcellus. But not to the extent of Phillips in how to approach music.
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Author: myshineyblackjoy
Date: 2008-06-04 01:21
My best was my first Louis P. Gonda. He taught me from grade 5 to grade 9. He inspired me encouraged all of us to do solo ensembles. I miss him still.....
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-06-05 15:33
I took from Pamela Bingham (Houston, TX) for 8 years starting at age 9. She is a fantastic teacher!
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Author: mamashep
Date: 2008-06-06 05:51
Christie Lundquist was my favorite teacher. She was the principal clarinetist for the Utah Symphony for years. She taught me how to find the real joy in playing by making music, not playing notes.
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Author: RodRubber
Date: 2008-06-06 06:17
I have had a lot of different teachers, and now i even have a "guru." No one was as inspiring as Anthony Gigliotti, I still feel his warmth and think about the things he taught me.
The lessons i had with Yehuda Gilad were the most practical advice and honest insight I ever had, and he got me out of my slump! Yehuda Gilad could be the best teacher alive now.
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Author: DougR
Date: 2008-06-06 16:08
Actually, he may not have been my "best" teacher, but he's the guy who inspired me to transition from a cluelessly mediocre grade-school honker to the committed, dedicated (although perhaps still mediocre) clarinetist I am today.
His name was Bruno Laakko, and he taught junior-high band. Always nattily dressed, always conducting with a little stub of a baton, he taught us passion and musicality. Once, entirely unexpectedly, he brought in a pile of 78s and a gold-plated tenor sax and played along (well) with the recordings. That made him a figure of inspiration to me.
Only recently have I discovered that he was a student at Juilliard in the thirties, and led a pioneering swing band, Lepakot, in Finland before WWII. The records he played along with for us kids were ones he made with the band. (If you search YouTube for "Bruno Laakko" you can hear him singing "Jeepers Creepers" in Finnish!) He also used to entertain us between numbers with stories of the plucky Finnish guerrilla forces fighting the invading Soviet army in the winter snows. He was there!
Being a self-absorbed 7th-grader, I always took him a little bit for granted, but I sure understood (and assimilated) his passion for music. He's a continuing inspiration to me, and I'm glad to have an opportunity to share it.
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