 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2009-10-17 16:17
I gave a lesson this morning to a young boy and his right pinky key pads were sticking very badly. It turns out he had greased the pads with his cork grease! (His mom made him confess...)
A high school student of mine recently asked, "How do you get rid of that green stuff that shows up on the back of the reed?"
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2009-10-17 17:25
Years ago I had a high school junior come for a lesson, great kid, really smart, he was a doing a number of good things.
He had a big deficiency in his playing, and so I started talking about the issue...I'm halfway through explaining what's going on and what needs to be fixed and he interrupts me saying (incredulously!):
"...so my tongue's ACTUALLY supposed to touch the reed?!?"
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-10-17 19:13
I had a college student years ago that I kept asking him if his tongue is hitting the reed when he tongues and after a year and a half he finally told me it wasn't after I asked him every lesson for 3 semesters. He became a minister.
Don't ever play a young students mouthpiece without taking off the reed first to see if it's clean. Sometimes it just YUK. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2009-10-18 01:28
I've had many similar tonguing discussions. One of the most recent ones involved a young student who wasn't tonguing. He had just started to study privately with me after beginning in school a few months earlier. After we worked on it, he started tonguing very nicely. At the next lesson, though, he wasn't tonguing at all. I asked if he had remembered what we had done the previous week, and I asked if he had used his tongue when practicing at home. "Yes," he said, "I tried to, but I couldn't get any sound out when I kept my tongue on the reed." "You mean," I asked, "that you tried to keep your tongue on the reed all the time?" "Yes," he said very innocently. I tried very hard to keep a straight face, and we repeated the tonguing lesson. This time, he got it.
I taught band at different levels in a large school district for many years, and most of the students were unable to afford instruments. The school provided almost everything. It was always hard to get funding for supplies, and students would destroy reeds faster than I could get funds for new ones. I can't even begin to count the number of reeds that I paid for out of my own pocket. Sometimes students would buy their own reeds, but this wasn't something I was allowed to require.
I went over reed care endlessly with them. I showed them how to put a reed in a cardboard or plastic reed case, and we practiced doing it. I also spent considerable time having them practice putting a reed on a mouthpiece. All of this was put in writing for them with plenty of pictures and diagrams. It didn't make much difference with some of them. Reeds would be regularly jammed backward and upside down in their cases. Reed tips were often cracked, split, and broken. My usual question (after looking at a badly damaged reed) was, "What happened to this reed?" The usual answer was, "I don't know. I didn't do anything to it. It just got broken." The sad part was that the students would say it with a completely straight face.
There was one particular fifth grade public school student that I will never forget. I had had her mother as a student several years earlier, and I calculated that mom was about 14 when her daughter was born. The student was reasonably good, and she even provided her own clarinet. The problem: I had good reason to believe that the instrument was stolen property (I don't remember all of the particulars). I asked the mother a few questions without being accusing, and she swore up and down that the instrument was legally owned. Because I didn't have any conclusive proof, I dropped the matter. (Years before, when I had been tempted to "turn in" another student who had an instrument that I was sure was stolen property, my supervisor told me to drop it, saying, "Please look out for yourself and your own safety, and don't try to play detective.")
This girl was brutal to her reeds. No matter what we did, she managed to completely destroy every one I gave her. I told her that if she didn't start taking better care of her reeds, soon she would be buying her own.
One day she came to school telling me that her clarinet had been stolen at school earlier that day. For me, this was panic time. I knew the principal wouldn't be happy to hear this, and I knew her mother would be very upset. We started searching, and I asked this girl a lot of questions. Almost 45 minutes was spent on the matter when I realized that the student was telling me a whopper. The instrument had never been brought to school that day, but the girl never admitted this. She had told me the whole story with a completely straight face. The next day, I saw her again, and the stories continued. "My mom told me," she said, "that if my clarinet was stolen, she'd get me a new one. Last night, she went out and got me a new one." "Okay," I replied, "did you bring it to school today?" "No," she said, "I can't play it yet because my mom didn't have enough money to buy new reeds for it." (No, I'm not making this up!) I never did see this new clarinet, and the student never returned to band (although she told me a few weeks later that she'd be getting the reeds soon). It's nice to give students an opportunity, but there are limits.
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2009-10-18 02:28
I had two students last year a 11 year old 4th year and a 10 year 2nd year and I managed to have the 11 year old rotating between 4 reeds at a time and the younger one to rotate between 2 reeds at a time and there did not come a situation were they would be playing on a reed at a concert that was newer than 4-5 days old. The goal was to ask them every week how many they had left and to ask them to play on a different reed than they had been using between lessons. It was also very helpful when I asked the older student to move up to reed #2.5 to start on a fresh new reed in the lesson if I found the current reed was getting a bit soft to help him getting used to higher strength and supporting the middle register.
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2009-10-18 02:33
And btw. When I was a young student(I started at 10) I was so frustrated with reeds until I was 15 when I was first(too late in my opinion) taught to brake-in reeds,rotate them and practice on most reeds and not just the best ones and save those for important concert.
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Author: Rapidcif
Date: 2009-10-18 02:53
Ok i am the student here.
On my very FIRST day of playing the clarinet i opened the case and saw the reed on the mouthpiece. I thought the reed was like a wooden wrapper. You know how you tear off the wrapper before you eat the chocolate?
I tore off the reed, trying to rip it apart, and i succeeded.
I then put my mouth on the mouhtpiece forming something i just learned, called an "embouchure." I tryed to make a sound that way(without a reed.) I couldn't
I asked my band director what was wrong, and if it was because of a problem with my "embouchure" that i couldn't get a sound out. My band director looked at me like my face was purple and looked away for a few seconds...
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Author: BrianChau
Date: 2009-10-18 03:39
When I got my first clarinet (about 6 years ago), I found some reeds and a ligature in the case. My first instinct was to turn the mouthpiece with the opening facing up and trying to stuff the reed inside the opening.... until I realized that the ligature holds the reed...
Brian
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Author: ShazamaPajama
Date: 2009-10-18 10:10
as a music major they let us teach at the adjacent highschools, so i struck a deal with a band director to get paid for teaching his clarinet section.
i ended up helping two of the four clarinets with their festival music.
the first girl told me "i'm only here because i have to be" and as i started to give her advice on her embouchure she interrupted "am i annoying you yet"
needless to say, it was not a pleasant thirty minutes.
the next girl was a little more welcoming. as she played through the music, i noticed she could only play one dynamic, piano. so i asked her to play one of the more aggressive parts in the chart, and sure enough she played it timidly and quietly. I asked her to play forte, she tried and faild, and then turned to me and said "i cant breath in, it hurts"
i asked her if she was alright and she explained that she had surgery 6 months prior to remove her appendix, and that ever since then she could only take shallow breaths.
i asked her if they said that would happen, and she said no.
I became worried, i told her to go back to the doctor to make sure they didnt leave anything behind while they were operating. (hopefully i didnt scare her) I told her band director, who seemed unmoved by what i thought was an emergency.
the girl reassured me that she would ask her mom to take her to the doctor.
yeah thats it.
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2009-10-18 12:08
A few more goodies from my public school days . . .
I once had a clarinet player who was coming for the third or fourth time. I had spent a lot of time with the beginning clarinets, and there were great pictures and descriptions in the book. This student came to class trying to play the clarinet with his reed on his upper lip. I asked if anything seemed strange, and he said no. I really couldn't figure out why he had started doing this, and he couldn't figure out what he was doing wrong. I finally had to tell him (trying to keep a straight face) that the reed went on the lower lip.
I also have a couple good flute beginner stories. One involved a young student who was trying to put her headjoint into her flute. She was a cooperative student, but her coordination wasn't the best. Somehow she managed to hit and cut her forehead with the end of the headjoint, and it started bleeding. The bleeding wasn't bad, but I had to spend a lot of time writing up an accident report. There was also the young flute player who came to class (for about the third or fourth time) who was trying to play her flute with the instrument pointing to the left and her arms in the most convoluted position. She honestly had no idea what was wrong until I gently reminded her that the flute pointed to the right.
And finally, from about 30 years ago, there was the young trumpet player who tried and had a good attitude, but had a hard time with the instrument. Before state lotteries began, in many areas the numbers games were popular.
Even after state lotteries became established, the numbers games persisted in some areas, even though they were and are illegal. This girl proudly told me one day, "I played my trumpet last night for my dad and for the numbers man who came over!"
Post Edited (2009-10-18 12:10)
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Author: Joe B
Date: 2009-10-18 15:08
Ed Palanker gives some very good advice on not playing on someone elses mouthpiece without taking off the reed. I had a situation where a student was having trouble producing a sound. When I went to try his instrument, but before I put it in my mouth, maggots started coming out of his mouthpiece. That is the worse I have ever seen. Needless to say, I skipped lunch that day. Ever since then, I first have them take off the reed like Ed said.
Joe
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2009-10-18 17:58
There was once a young Clarinet player who as a kid the summer before had played the Trombone, took his Clarinet and ran water through the body as it was starting to smell. The pads were sticking a bit, so after drying the bathtub cleaned clarinet completely, he took some baby powder on a piece of paper and put it under the pads to keep them from sticking.
Worked pretty well - unbelievably............... no damage to any of the pads at all, and the powder did keep the pads from sticking.
ok, it was me - had only played for 2 months.
Got lucky, really lucky on that one.......... 
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2009-10-18 20:31
LOL, David! Somehow, I KNEW you were going to say that!
The little boy I mentioned in the first post of this thread: I did nearly the same thing with his pads. I was in the family home and the dad gave me some corn starch, which I carefully sprinkled on each pad, then blew the excess off. It worked and will hold until the mom can get the pads changed this week.
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Author: Bluesparkle
Date: 2009-10-18 20:45
I don't teach, but a friend of mine has a daughter who was a beginning clarinet student a couple of years ago. They bought the girl a used wooden instrument, which she promptly put into the bathtub filled with bleach to "clean it."
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Author: 3dogmom
Date: 2009-10-18 21:47
When I introduced the concept of swabbing out the clarinet to my band students, I had one girl say that she didn't have to do that because every day after band she put her clarinet through the dishwasher. And it was FINE. A Selmer. Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.
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Author: USFBassClarinet
Date: 2009-10-18 23:26
Joe B, I think I got a little sick reading that...I just ate too...close one.
As a student, I was rather knowledgeable about woodwinds already having played in orchestra for so long. (I was a violinist long before a clarinetist) I believe the only 'bad' thing I ever did was for a scale test. The teacher got furious at the girl who was assigned to teach me bass clarinet because I played all my scales without any alternate keys.(no banana keys or side trill keys. I did use the LH Ab key because this bass had it. yamaha 621 btw.)
I had always thought before being a violinist that reeds were gross so I have taken extra care of mine I think. If they change color a little bit I usually get rid of them, regardless if they still play well.
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Author: hinotehud ★2017
Date: 2009-10-19 21:26
I taught band/orch in public schools for 35 years. The most bizarre incident happened with my 6th grade clarinet class. Students would store their clarinets on shelves in a storage room during the day. I made sure they labeled their cases with their names but several times a year, someone would grab the wrong clarinet in their rush to get to the school bus. I made a point of telling them that this may happen, just bring it back in the morning, it was not a big problem. Well, one day, a 7th grade student said her clarinet was missing. It never showed up. Two years later, somehow, the police found out that a 6th grade girl took the clarinet home by mistake. She was afraid to bring it back, so she buried it in her backyard! When it was dug up, the keys were pretty rusted. The insurance company had replaced the missing clarinet two years before. The girl (now 8th grade) dropped out of band immediately but I heard suffered a lot of emotional problems after that incident.
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Author: Drake
Date: 2009-10-20 00:03
First of all, Joe, that's really unfortunate and gross. Well, at least you found out why he couldn't produce a sound. XP
I am a student myself, and I have owned three clarinets so far, two of which work wonderfully, and the third is permanently out of commission. How, you ask? Well, I am in the marching band, so I own a plastic Selmer CL300 for marching season, and a wooden SML for concert season. My first CL300 lasted me from fifth grade to junior year of high school. Then came the tragic accident that killed it. I was at my set, waiting to be called to attention, when another kid ran into me, sending my clarinet hurtling out of my hand. I figured, I had dropped it before with no damage done, so it would be fine then...WRONG. It had snapped clean in half along the first joint when it had hit the turf. I was astonished, and scared to death at the thought of what my parents would do to me when they found out. I called my dad, panicking apologizing over and over saying how it had been an accident and that I couldn't have stopped it. (My back had been to the guy who ran into me, and he hadn't been looking where he was going) I had to use my SML for marching for the next week until I could replace the broken Selmer. I bought another CL300 and now use it for marching. The broken one sits in its case under my bed... In case you're curious, I am a senior in high school now. Both my clarinets get the utmost care. (The SML especially)
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Author: lrooff
Date: 2009-10-20 02:29
Drake wrote:
> I bought
> another CL300 and now use it for marching. The broken one sits
> in its case under my bed...
Did you know that a repairman can probably replace that broken tenon or get you a replacement body for the upper joint? Alternatively, you might look on ebay for a CL300 in mediocre condition or one where the only thing right about it is the upper joint. Buy it for a pittance, swap the keys out on the upper joint, and you'll have your old CL300 ready to play, loan, swap or sell.
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Author: Chris Hill
Date: 2009-10-20 23:06
I had a teacher tell all of his students to cultivate the green mold that grew on the back of his reeds, because "It'll make you sound better." He would actually rub his moldy reeds against ours, and when the mold started to grow, we were responsible for keeping the mold going. We all ended up with white spots growing on our tongues. I stopped doing this immediately after my first case of what we called "tongue disease," and my classmates and teacher thought I was crazy to stop...I transferred colleges shortly after that!
When my students bring dirty mouthpieces into their lessons, I bring up the story of "tongue disease"- they usually have clean mouthpieces after that.
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Author: blazian
Date: 2009-10-21 03:09
That's a little scary... and in college? Are you sure you weren't in some science building instead of the music hall? I don't think I would have done it even the first time. Rubbing reeds is for 6th graders.
I think I'm a strange case for my clarinet teacher. About every other time I show up for a lesson I have a different instrument. A bad case of juvenile GAS. ![[rotate]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley25.gif)
- Martin
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-10-21 13:29
>>I had a teacher tell all of his students to cultivate the green mold that grew on the back of his reeds, because "It'll make you sound better." He would actually rub his moldy reeds against ours, and when the mold started to grow, we were responsible for keeping the mold going. We all ended up with white spots growing on our tongues. I stopped doing this immediately after my first case of what we called "tongue disease," and my classmates and teacher thought I was crazy to stop...>>
I wonder what his spouse or s.o. thought about kissing him? Eeeeeeeeeeewwww!
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: chorusgirl
Date: 2009-10-23 19:56
Thanks for bringing a smile (and several chuckles) to me on a dreary Friday afternoon!
Two stories: When I was in HS, one of our friends fancied herself an instrument repair tech. She convinced our other friend to give her her silver Armstrong flute to "work on". It was returned, all the keys had been removed, everything was cleaned, and burnished to a dull patina with a Brillo pad!!! Not sure what the two sets of parents did to settle this disaster, but no one ever gave the self-proclaimed repair tech another instrument!
Second Story: My son had just started lessons with a new teacher: a lovely, gentle man who taught out of his home. It's an hour drive from our house and my son gets car sick. We arrived for the second lesson, walked in the door, and my son got sick all over his floor. I spent the lesson cleaning it all up with his wife. They were both lovely about it, but we are still embarrassed about it!
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