 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: CarlT
Date: 2010-09-10 14:32
I’m in my early 70s. My situation is a bit different from most late starters. I never even had band in high school, let alone playing the clarinet.
In my 40’s I did take piano lessons to the 3rd level, and that has helped me tremendously with learning the clarinet, especially reading the notes.
I started clarinet in April ’08 and like it more each day. I take bi-weekly lessons, and I practice diligently every day. I’m currently several lessons into Rubank Intermediate Method book, and a little while ago I started playing with the local town band.
I do okay with most aspects of playing with that group; however, having not played band in high school, I find that just practicing the clarinet for 2-1/2 years doesn’t necessarily mean I can do well with the band.
For example, I’m finding it somewhat difficult to “keep up” with measures when I’m not playing (during long rests), especially with fast music, I get lost a lot. I would never have thought that would be so hard for me to do. Also, it’s hard to start playing somewhere in the middle of a measure, as opposed to starting at the beginning of that measure. I find it a bit different from just playing out of one of my method books where I don’t have the long rests, etc. I could go on, but I hope you can see my problem(s).
Do any of you know of a good book, or books, that would help with general band practice instruction? Something that would teach me how to keep up with the music, etc. I did some searches here, but came up short of finding much at all on general band participation hints and instruction.
As usual, I’m very thankful for this forum, for it has really helped me in so many ways.
Any advice will be appreciated.
CarlT
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Author: William
Date: 2010-09-10 15:25
Smartmusic is great. Many school programs use it to suppliment their regular band curriculums. But actually, any experiance to can get will help you become more proficient at reading music. To be able to practice your Rubank lessons and then play them well during a lesson is much different than being able to analysis music, once a week, on your music stand in band. However, if you keep trying, you will get better--however, at our age, it might take a smidge longer :>) I'll be 70 in Oct, but my advantage is that I started my music reading experiance when my brain was still young and I enjoy a local reputation for being able to sightread almost anything correctly the first time I see it. However, if I go for a couple of days without playing, even I notice my reaction times to be not so keen.
[A couple of things] In counting long rests, use the first number to keep track of which measure you are on. Ex. in 4/4 time and resting for 8 meas. count: 1-2-3-4 / 2-2-3-4 / 3-2-3-4 / 4-2-3-4 etc, until you reach 8-2-3-4 and you've counted 8 four beat measure of rest. This works for any time signiture and is what I do when counting 88 measures of Beethovens rests--86-2-3-4- / 87-2-3-4 / 88-2-3-4 / play. LOL
For entering in the middle of a measure, that takes careful analysis of beat rests, notes and often their subdivisions. It may help to take some music and write in the beat patterns in pencil below the rests and notes, just for practice. That is what beginning band kids are asked to do and it works. Try it for a few minutes every day for a month and see if it helps.
Bottom line: stay with what your are doing and--with experiance--musical analysis will become less confusing. Good luck.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2010-09-10 15:41
For me, I'd say that there is no substitute for just playing with a group.
However, I'd also suggest practicing with a metronome. I've stumbled across one that is very musical (that is, it does many subdivisions and various sounds for them) and makes it really fun for me to play along with it. This is the Doctor Beat DB-30. It's small, relatively cheap ($40 at WWBW) and just a breeze to use. It even has a "tap" feature that makes it very simple to determine the speed at which to set it for the next excerpt.
.................Paul Aviles
P.S. I had to add, that if you look at the WWBW website, the photo of the DB-30 is almost actual size !!!! When you click on larger image, the image is about 10 times bigger than the actual product!
Post Edited (2010-09-10 15:45)
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-09-10 16:29
ACK Paul Aviles (about the "no substitute")
Just keep sitting in there. Everyone occasionally gets lost, especially when a piece is new. Most important is that you learn to count, count, count, and to listen to "cues" from other registers - it's so much easier when you know that your "ta-ta-ta-ta-taa!" is due immediately after the trumpets' "ta-dim-dim", especially after 12 measures of rest.
No one is going to stare at you just because you're trying to orient yourself. Happened to everyone in the band, and that's what band (vs @ home) rehearsal is for - to learn to play together. You can do the note drill at home; on "band evening" it's rhythm and timing.
Personally, I find "swimming with the band" much easier than being chased by a metronome. You may want to abuse your cellular phone and record a session for later playback at home. (or better yet, buy some cheap mp3 player with recording capability). Then you can play along at home at the true tempo, to the actual arrangement of the piece on your music stand.
Easy. It'll come faster than you think.
--
Ben
Post Edited (2010-09-10 16:30)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2010-09-10 16:39
All great suggestions above. With the metronome, it takes more self-discipline as you are still by yourself and CAN stop (although you're going to try to practice NOT stopping, and catching up).
Another program that might be good, would be "band in a box". You can get an older copy at a fairly good price on Ebay. The only thing is you need to have the chords in order to program it in. But if you get one of those "Play the music of the 60s/70s/disney/etc." books, usually they have chord symbols above it. You can plug in the chord symbols, open the book, and play along with the computer.
But yes, in general, nothing is better than playing with a group. Another thing you can do, since you're taking lessons, is to play duets with your instructor. You'll HAVE to keep up with him/her and it'll help you learn to sight read and follow along.
Alexi
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Author: kimber
Date: 2010-09-10 18:03
If I'm counting bars of rests, I will almost always lose count as I'm too busy listening the music. I will finger down the instrument for each rest - the first bar of rests puts down the first finger, the second bar the second finger, etc. This lets me keep counting the straight 1-2-3-4, yet still know where I am in the rests. By concert, you shouldn't need to count it anyways, you'll feel your place by hearing the flow of the song.
These days, you can find recordings of most popular band songs on youtube or other internet sites...sit with your music and listen for patterns on those mid measure entrances, i.e. if you know the horns are playing on 1-2, you can silently sing those notes in your head to get your entrance on 3.
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Author: William
Date: 2010-09-10 21:10
The ability to analysis rhythmic patterns and count rests is key to not becoming lost in the music. Listening and cuing on other section entrances is ok, but you should always count and know exactly where you are ON YOUR OWN. No matter how many times I've played a piece of music, I NEVER GUESS at entrances after rests nor in the middle of measures. I always do the count in my head, like I described above. Our old college band director (I was principal clarinet) always used to say, "He who does not count is of no account" and I always took that to mean, never guess--always read the music and play accurately.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2010-09-10 21:53
Rhythm is #1 on what you need to know. You can work on it by working on counting the rhythm out loud. Leave the clarinet out of it, don't worry about the pitches of notes, just either count "1, 2, 3, 4" while clapping the rhythm (I like to tap my hand on my thigh to get a complex rhythm). Once you have the rhythm correct, it's much easier to add the notes to it.
As for counting rests, everyone has a method. One poster puts fingers on their horn for every full measure. I make my hand a fist and put one finger out per measure.
I ALSO learn the music and to hear what's going on around me. This way (like yet ANOTHER poster said) you learn to listen for musical cues. heck, in half of my music, if I have an awkward number of rests, or the music is set up awkwardly (such as a piece that alternates 3/4 and 5/8 bars or something) I'll listen for a very pronounced entrance by another instrument as close to where I come in and write it above the staff. For example, if I come in three measures after "F", and I have 14 measures rest before "F", I listen to hear what happens at "F". If that's where the trumpets come in, or I can hear a key change, or goes into a minor variation, I'll write "Trumpets/Key change/Minor" above the letter "F". Then I just count three measures after hearing that.
Alexi
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2010-09-12 02:53
Similar to Kimber's advice, I also use fingers to count bars rest., but I just put out one finger out at a time (the pointer), then down to the pinky for 4th bar and thumb for 5th bar., then use same hand to go 6-10 (other hand is holding clarinet). I also count in my head at the same time. You can listen to the music as a sideline, but mostly to see how it fits on each beat--not for the enjoyment of it. I must keep on top of whether we are in 4 or in 2, or cut time, etc. And I've been playing since 1963 with a Masters in Clarinet performance, 19 years teaching school band, often a soloist, and currently principal clar. with a mostly prof. concert band. It's not that counting is all that hard, but you never get too proficient to slack off in any way. And- once in a blue moon you STILL get lost!
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Author: CarlT
Date: 2010-09-12 14:59
David and Paul (pewd): I looked into SmartMusic, and likely will subscribe sooner or later. However, I did look at their music library and could only find one or two selections that my band plays out of dozens of typical band music. Maybe I was doing something wrong.
William: Very good advice and well taken. So I didn't misunderstand, did you really mean to count the whole 88 measures of the Beethoven example you gave, or did you have a queue at measure 86? I would suspect that one could have a queue as someone above suggested they do in long rests.
Paul and Ben: I will continue playing with the band, for I have already seen that experience is quite different than practicing for a lesson.
Alexi: I already religiously practice with a metronome. Also, I have just found several websites that have free sight reading and/or rhythmic exercises where you can change the BPMs, and that seems to help a lot (Google "sight reading music", and you'll see what I mean).
Kimber and Tom: Thanks, I will see what works for me.
I am already seeing progress, thanks to all of you.
CarlT
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Author: T Webb
Date: 2010-09-12 22:06
Hi,
Carl I'm about your age and started playing alto sax in a community band in early 2009 after not having played (anything) in over forty years (even way back then I was never accused of being a musician if you know what I mean).
I found that in the community band I had problems with some of the faster tempos and reading more difficult rhythms.
Here is what I did - I got a copy of Finale Notepad notation software (there are others, but Notepad is/was pretty cheap). Notation software is somewhat like a word processor for music.
I would enter (write out) the music giving me difficulty, play it back at a tempo I could handle (listen and/or play along) and gradually get my fingers around the tempo or rhythm. The beauty of this approach is that you can generate any score (or part of a score) that you want.
It helped me a lot after not playing in a band since 1961!
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Author: CarlT
Date: 2010-09-13 00:08
T Webb: Thanks.
I looked up Finale Notepad, and it's only about 10 bucks, and they give you a 30 day trial if you need it. I'm a bit busy for the next week, but after that I'll try the trial and then probably go for it.
I appreciate the tip.
CarlT
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