 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-07-15 17:45
From the Robert Spring video:
(after playing Langenus Book 3, p.22 single tongued at mm=208, mm=224 and mm=240)
"... At that point I feel like my single tongue is pretty well warmed up and I start doing some double tonguing..."
Yikes !!
...GBK
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Author: DAVE
Date: 2008-07-15 18:08
I think the most amazing thing he does it the single tonguing. It is astounding.
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2008-07-16 00:03
Very impressive, if he can single tongue why does he need to double tongue? Anyway I know what i'm going to do tomorrow...
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2008-07-16 00:48
I found Bob's warm up on line when I had 15 years in the Army, about the time I took over solo clarinet chair. I was in my mid 30s and what struck me as different from Ass. Prin. was that as an an Army Band Principal you could find yourself up to your butt in alligators really quickly. I also so feel that everybody has about 30 min. of playing that is for human consumption. So the last thing you want is for that 30 min happening when the conductor cues you for a cadenza. So that year I put a little booklet together of Bob's recommended things and I'd head to rehearsal with enough time to run the routine and get a cup of coffee. After doing that for a week, I was never worried about getting "caught" not ready to play something ridiculous and uncharacteristic on the clarinet. I've done the routine pretty much every day since 1995? I find it really important now that I'm getting close to 50. Going through it everyday helps me figure out if I had a stroke in my sleep.
One thing I felt that didn't come off in the video was( totally my opinion here) the emphasis on the quarter= 60 part of that warm-up. This the key to speed Everybody loves to run the things doing the fast, few will do it as per directions. I am also always amazed at how few people will do something the way someone who excels at something recommends to do it. Record something, Rose Etude, anything. Copy out those pages from those books, follow his directions EXACTLY, do it every day for a week, then make a tape of yourself playing the thing you recorded before, notice the improvement after a week of a solid warm-up. I find it nice to have a practice session that's a "no-brainer" in that I don't have to figure out what I need to play. I'm glad it's on Youtube!
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with The Atonement, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in Clarinet performance, maybe I should get a DMA, Nah
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Author: William
Date: 2008-07-16 15:28
I was right with him.......until he got past the C7 long tone--LOL.
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Author: Old Geezer
Date: 2008-07-16 15:34
Thanx for the super link...sometimes we can miss a good thing if we don't do a lot of trolling around the net. Clariperu has become a great site!
Sometimes people carp at his double, triple, tongueing...probably just jealous; I certainly am. If I did just half of his warm up routine, I'd be wiped out for the day! His technique is a phenomenon of modern clarinet playing...wonder how Stadler and Mulfeld would be playing today...a few lessons from Dr Bob and they'd probably be with it!
Clarinet Redux
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-07-16 16:39
In the history of the clarinet there have been many outstanding players, teachers and solo performers, but there is a very short list of players who have come close to achieving complete technical mastery of the instrument.
Robert Spring is on that short list ...GBK
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2008-07-16 18:33
I'd say that nobody is on that list - and I doubt Robert Spring would claim to be himself. Anyone who spends as much time doing that kind of practice is someone who acknowledges there is always more to do.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-07-16 19:22
The problem (if one considers it a problem) is that when one reaches the level of technical profiency that Robert Spring has attained, the amount of continual dedicated daily practice to maintain that level also exponentially grows.
...GBK
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Author: ChrisArcand
Date: 2008-07-16 22:43
"The problem (if one considers it a problem) is that when one reaches the level of technical profiency that Robert Spring has attained, the amount of continual dedicated daily practice to maintain that level also exponentially grows.
...GBK"
Well put.
ca
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2008-07-19 16:14
I recall it said somewhere - probably on Robert Spring's page of the college site - that he practices 4 hours each morning, usually followed by around 8 hours of teaching. He also concertizes, frequently premiering new works.
I don't see why that amount of diligent practice over enough years wouldn't suffice to not only reach Robert's technical level, but to maintain it and continue to steadily develop it. Several times in the video he indicates milestones he is currently at or has recently reached - the high F in his long tones, the 240 speed for the tonguing exercise.
It's surely a matter of focus, long and diligently applied. Nothing magic. If other high-end players don't achieve that facility, I suspect their focus is elsewhere, for example, on the hours of rehearsal, travel, and performance required of professional orchestra members.
As an amateur working full time, I can barely manage 2 hours a day. It was gratifying to see that the focus of my first hour is not terribly different from Robert's warmup - except for the circular breathing, multi-tonguing, supersonic speeds, etc.! Ha. (Then again, I do most of this while walking around my house for exercise, which he doesn't do.)
But I do happen to work that same Langenus etude, and can currently mangle it pretty bad at 160-180, if I don't mind my tongue bursting at the seams with lactic acid by the end. I'm after ya, Bob!
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Author: Ryan25
Date: 2008-07-19 16:27
"If other high-end players don't achieve that facility, I suspect their focus is elsewhere, for example, on the hours of rehearsal, travel, and performance required of professional orchestra members."
I assure you other "high-end" players have similar technical abilitys. If they didn't have the chops, they would not have the job. But they are busy making music and performing, not playing scales on youtube videos. If you actually think Drucker, Nuccio, Morales, Yeh, Meyer, Frost, Stolzaman, etc could not play through this warm up with little to no effort, then you are fooling yourself.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2008-07-19 19:47
"I assure you other "high-end" players have similar technical abilitys. If they didn't have the chops, they would not have the job. But they are busy making music and performing, not playing scales on youtube videos. If you actually think Drucker, Nuccio, Morales, Yeh, Meyer, Frost, Stolzaman, etc could not play through this warm up with little to no effort, then you are fooling yourself."
Is there agreement on this?
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2008-07-19 20:40
No agreement with the atitude behind it. You get good on the things you do everyday. If that's your priority you will get good at it. If you need to do for the music you want to play, you will learn how to do things the music calls for. I mentioned that I thought that Bob's warm up was a consise well thought trough routine. To my knowledge, Bob doesn't look at it as a "test" to prove someone's clarinet manhood. It's a freakin warm up. If you play slow scales and move up to fast scales everyday you will get good at scales. Most people won't they will run a few scales once a week, and have a real hap hazzard approach to practicing, or worse cas scenerio sit in a practice room playing the licks they imagine everyone on the other side of the door is marvaling at.
It's not rocket science, a good player responded to a question on Youtube. No "high end" players were harmed in the making of it, and it doesn't strike me as something someone should get up set over.
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with The Atonement, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in Clarinet performance, maybe I should get a DMA, Nah
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Author: Old Geezer
Date: 2008-07-19 22:20
There's a possibilty that while watching the Springs video and noting his work ethic and the hours of practice and daily study he does it may occur to someone that if they practice and work hard enough they might come close to his accomplishments. Colleges and conservatories are full of students who have found out this isn't so. Significanf talent must be present at the beginning...all the work and study in the world won't overcome a lack of needed talent. Sometimes this is called the pathetic fallacy (amongst other things) and it's broken the heart of many a young and not so young player.
Maybe some of the leading soloists in the world can match his technical
accomplshments (immediately or after some wood shedding) but no one
can approach his incomprable staccato!
Clarinet Redux
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2008-07-19 23:30
When Robert Spring's "Dragon's Tongue" CD first came out in 1994 (Summit DCD 166), I'd never heard him play before and I thought to myself as I took it over to the cash register at Tower Records (R.I.P.!), "This guy had better be something special if he's got the nerve to call himself that...."
Well--he's special, and so's the recording.
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: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2008-07-20 01:25
Natural technique is a must, then it can be worked up to a similar level.
Without a high level of natural technique, it can't be worked up that high no matter how much somebody works.
Bob's a really good player and a pleasure to know. He has some pretty cool albums out.
disclaimer: I've done paid promotion for Bob with the Summit Records Label.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2008-07-20 13:19
The high F I use is-
Reg.+ thumb+ throat Ab+ xoxlxxx + F/C
I am not sure what he is using in the clip.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2008-07-21 01:24
Old Geezer referred to the "pathetic fallacy", in regards to young players believing, in some cases wrongly, that if they just practice hard they can equal significant accomplishments of others. I looked the term up, but I can't find that sense mentioned anywhere. All the sources I found define pathetic fallacy as something like "the attribution of human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects or to nature."
I don't mean to disagree, but since I seem to suffer from the kind of fallacy Old Geezer mentions, I'm curious to know more about it. :-)
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Author: Old Geezer
Date: 2008-07-21 15:35
Ruskin originated the term "pathetic fallacy" meaning attributing human emotions to inanimate objects of nature, such as the "cruel" sea, a "vicious" storm etc. I meant it like pathetic illusion, pathetic error,
pathetic wishful thinking, etc.
In a lighter mode, an example of a pathetic fallacy is Yanni's belief that he is actually a musican...to say nothing of John Tesh!
Clarinet Redux
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2008-07-21 20:11
Watching this video inspired me so I contacted Professor Spring and he kindly emailed the complete warm up he uses in that video and his writings on multiple tonguing techniques and how to master them as well as a method for circular breathing.
Very nice chap.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: William
Date: 2008-07-21 23:22
RS also mailed me the same info--what a pleasure it must be to study with him.
Post Edited (2008-07-22 00:20)
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Author: rgames
Date: 2008-07-22 05:54
Impressive technique - the equal of any other I've ever heard.
However (big comma), there's more to music than technique and what really establishes a musician's presence among the elites is his/her musicality.
It's kind of like golfers: there are plenty of guys who learn to do technical trick shots or how to hit the ball 450 yards. Almost none of them are on the professional tours because they just don't play the game very well.
Of course, the more you develop your technical capacity, the more options you have in terms of musical expression. Simply having those tools, however, does not create the expression - that's the role of creativity and musicality.
rgames
____________________________
Richard G. Ames
Composer - Arranger - Producer
www.rgamesmusic.com
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Author: nes
Date: 2008-07-22 16:26
Hi all,
I have unsuccessfully tried searching Google for Robert Spring's website or contact details.
Could someone please either help me regarding his contact details or the warm up that he uses in the youtube video, the one he uses everyday.
Thanks!
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Author: dwdougherty
Date: 2008-07-22 16:36
Here's a link that was posted here previously:
http://www.woodwind.org/OCR/Spring/spring1.html
Regards,
David
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2008-07-22 16:53
How do we know that what we refer to as creativity and musicality are ultimately irreducible to "tools"? I can think of contexts where the distinction blurs.
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