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Re: Collapsing finger joints

Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2009-10-10 13:02

Grenadilla428's exercise is excellent.

At the Clarinet Symposium several years ago, Larry Guy gave some finger-strengthening exercises. Go to http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=20&i=289&t=289 and then to the section "COLLAPSING JOINT."

Also, you're almost certainly pressing too hard on the key spatulas. Experiment to find how lightly you can press them and still have them cover. You may well discover that the pads need to be reseated, or even that the grain of the wood around the rims needs to have filler put in to make it perfectly even.

One way to lighten your fingers is to reverse the muscle action. That is, use (relatively) strong muscle action to lift your finger going up, but let the finger drop by gravity going down, adding only the absolute minimum of pressure to overcome the spring that holds the key open. My clarinets are set up with all the springs set at the minimum pressure consistent with a tight seal.

Ken Shaw

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