 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ashley91489
Date: 2008-12-03 03:48
I'm trying to learn an excerpt from Rocky Point Holiday for an audition and there are 16th note runs at 168 that I'm having difficulty with. I can play them slow but it's hard for me to get them sped up let along at 168. I don't have much time to get it down but I want to be able to play it well.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-12-03 06:11
I remember that piece. My high school band played it. I think I know the runs you are referring to. If memory serves, they are not only very fast, but awkward to play because of lots of finger flipping (and I think at least one of them is chock full of accidentals).
I found a PDF of an excerpt from this piece from Univ. of N. Texas on the web. The tricky run in this excerpt is the descending D Major scale in thirds because it seems to require very rapid finger flipping. What I recommend you try (and what I'm pretty sure I did once upon a time) is use the standard altissimo fingerings (minus the RH Ab/Eb key) until you get to the B, then play the C# using the side key C# fingering to avoid re-crossing the break. The rest of that run ought to be easy, because it's nothing but a scale in thirds, which is something you should be practicing regularly anyway.
What I would do to learn the other runs (which is almost certainly what I did when I originally learned this piece) is to break the runs down into 5-note groups (each group being a beamed group of 4 16ths followed by the note that immediately follows the beamed group). You can make more rapid progress practicing each of these small groups individually than if you practice the whole run at once. Then, once you've got a couple of them down, you can try gluing two of them together into a 9-note group, then three into a 13-note group, etc. until you get the whole run down.
Practice the run tounged (slowed down, of course) as well as slurred. Also you can try practicing the run (or groups from the run) by varying the rhythm: first play each pair of 16ths as a dotted-16th-32nd pair, then each as a 32nd-dotted 16th pair, then as straight 16ths. It often speeds my progress when I use this technique.
Also, have a look at the following thread:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=218296&t=218262&v=f
Post Edited (2008-12-03 13:37)
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2008-12-03 07:42
Adding to that:
Practice everything back-to-front. Not in the reverse order, but rather start taking chunks from the end of the piece or passage, and slowly add bits earlier and earlier into the piece.
Your attention is likely the best (and nerves the calmest) at the start, so it's highly preferable to be the most comfortable with the end.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2008-12-03 14:25
Here is what works for me.
Play short sections in this manner:
1. play 3 times at a slow tempo, say 90
2. play 3 times at 100
3. play 3 times at 95
4. play 3 times at 105
and so on until you get to the tempo you need.
(up 10, down 5, up 10, down 5, etc.)
John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com
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Author: johnniegoldfish
Date: 2008-12-03 15:13
A method passed on to me for a difficult phrasing goes something like this:
1-Play the note in a swing beat
2-Play reverse swing beat
3-Triplet/eighth combo
4-Eighth/triplet combo
5-As written
If anything, it helps me to break the habit of repeating the the same errors over.
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Author: William
Date: 2008-12-03 18:25
You could play the C#6 with just the first lh finger--XOO/OOO (you are overblowning the F#4). I also use this fingering for those fast C#s at the beginning of the third mvt of Stravinski's THREE PIECES.
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2008-12-03 18:51
-- "1-Play the note in a swing beat" --
That would be disaster for me! For some strange reason, my brain seems to love the swing beat and I find it very difficult to change back to the normal beat.
You should hear some of my Mozart! :-)
Steve
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2008-12-04 13:03
I was honored to have breakfast with Ron Nelson at the Arizona Biltmore a few years ago. It gave me a chance to thank him for all of the young clarinet students that got referred to me over their frustration with the passage in Rocky Point Holiday!
My advice: slow practice -- many reps!
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