Author: Bartmann
Date: 2009-04-10 19:12
Liam,
I agree with you about long tones, especially for clarinet. When I was learning the clarinet, I could only play for 30 minutes. But if I played long tones for 15 minutes, that was the end of my practice. For intonation practice, I'll practice scales, arpeggios, and other intervals very slowly. But for me I need the tones to be connected to other tones to be interesting.
In contrast, when I was learning flute, I actually found long tones interesting because of vibrato. Whereas the clarinet's most flexible characteristic is its vast dynamic range, the flute also has wonderfully flexible vibrato. You can vary its speed, amplitude, when you start and finish it, and how you start and finish it.
So on an ascending scale you can choose to slowly crescendo, and increase the speed of your vibrato overall until reaching the tonic. You can apply vibrato to each note separately, you can have a subtle vibrato, you can stretch the period of non vibrato on the tonic to create drama and then apply vibrato, or you can apply vibrato, slow down to a steady tone, and then flatten the note for a native american sound. With the flute I can play a scale over and over discovering ways to resolve the tonic. And varying vibrato with the leading tone is often more fun. Essentially every step of the scale is ripe for vibrato exploration.
Certainly similar tonal exploration can happen with the clarinet, but not with the same broad tonal palette. It's kind of like with the clarinet you have a box of 8 Crayola crayons, with the flute you have a box of 48. And perhaps with a violin you get the box with the whopping 64 crayons.
Enjoy.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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