 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: JenniferMendez
Date: 2011-01-24 17:55
Hello,
I am a classically trained teaching fellow and have been assigned several students who are jazz sax majors looking to double on clarinet and want to improve their improv. chops.
Does anyone have suggestions about clarinet jazz mouthpiece choices or books available to work on improv.? I am not trying to pretend I am a jazzer in the least, but want to give them material to help
Your help and ideas are appreciated! Thanks!
Jen Daffinee
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: redwine
Date: 2011-01-24 18:02
Hello,
I recommend teaching them solid clarinet fundamentals on clarinet, not trying to find a "jazz" mouthpiece, but rather finding a set-up that allows them to play clarinet well. Try to get them to get the best clarinet sound they can possibly get.
David Baker has some books I've used as text in teaching jazz improvisation. Also, there's an old (maybe out of print) Jamey Aebersold book with some good ideas. It was in newsprint type paper and about as thick as a magazine. I think the majority of it was advertising for his products, but the pages had some good ideas.
It does seem unrealistic for them to expect you to teach them any improvisation skills if it is something you don't do. Best of luck!
Ben Redwine, DMA
owner, RJ Music Group
Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America
Selmer Paris artist
www.rjmusicgroup.com
www.redwinejazz.com
www.reedwizard.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: kilo
Date: 2011-01-24 18:41
I agree with Ben; too often "jazz clarinet" is taken to mean playing loud smears on an Albert system clarinet with a mouthpiece that has a ¼" tip opening. Well, yeah, that's one way of doing it, but phrasing and timing can do a lot to jazz up any piece of music. I'd emphasize the clarinet's extraordinary range to the sax players, and try to get them to take advantage of it. I'd stress the opportunity which alternate fingerings give a player — I know lots of sax players who never bother with learning different fingerings on the sax, probably because the covered tone holes are more forgiving. Some mouthpieces seem to be easier for doubling. I've found that the beak profiles on the Ralph Morgan RM mouthpieces are sax-friendly but this may be a subjective claim.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2011-01-24 18:45
In my (very humble) opinion it doesn't hurt to teach them some classical phrasing, sans vibrato and no cool eyewear. They'll find their way back to improv fast enough...
You can begin with some classical stuff and let them transform it into something swingy - no need to hide your heritage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhgcXqWQhkQ
(yeah, it's a sax quintet, but they'll get the drift...)
--
Ben
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2011-01-24 19:11
I agree with Ben. Teach them fundamentals appropriate to their current clarinet level, including scales and exercises that make them fluent in a variety of keys. If they know how to play the notes, they'll soon figure out how to put them together. Also get them listening to recordings from a wide spectrum of good jazz clarinetists, e.g., Jimmy Noone, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Buddy DeFranco, Eddie Daniels, Don Byron....
Best regards,
jnk
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-01-24 21:15
As jazz sax majors they may already be familiar with the Jerry Bergonzi 'Inside Improvisation Series', but if they are not then it is a good place to go. There are quite a number of book/cd sets in the series dealing with quite a range of issues relevant to improvisation and they are designed for all instruments. Bergonzi is a sax player (I think he used to play with Dave Brubeck) and there are Bb transcriptions for everything so it is particularly well suited for clarinet.
http://www.jerrybergonzi.com/books.htm
The problem is how much they want to learn/you are required to teach them. As has been discussed many times here, clarinet takes a dip in the jazz lineup after swing. Improvisation styles change quite a bit after that so if you want to look at the more recent clichés in jazz improvisation then translating saxophone to clarinet is not a bad idea. I doubt that you will be required to teach them a history of jazz improvisation and I doubt that they will want to know how to play in a 1927 New Orleans Dance Band, although that is becoming modish once more. Bergonzi will introduce them to technique that will most likely fit the milieu in which they will play today. And the rhythm section on the cds are very good players too.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Wes
Date: 2011-01-24 23:01
Band in a Box software is useful as an accompanist. The chord changes of a tune can easily be entered and the tempos and keys are adjustable.
The Bb or Eb or C Real Book is/are a convenient source of jazz tunes of the last 50 years. They are relatively inexpensive on line. It's easy to get together a Real Book session.
There are some very good play along CDs available with printed music. The Jamie Abersol series are often recommended but the keyboard players on them use very complex voicings, hard to play with because the tonalities can get confused and it is easy to get lost. Band in a Box is better for learners. (Too hip for the room!)
It is easier to play with CDs using headphones than loudspeakers because the backgrounds can be more clearly heard. The balance can also be adjusted easily.
Good Luck!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Merlin_Williams
Date: 2011-01-25 16:53
Those students are asking for two different things.
1. lessons in jazz improvisation
2. lessons on clarinet
Sounds like you're qualified to teach #2, so stick with that. Don't bother with jazz specific mouthpieces for doubling students. Stick with something relatively straight ahead, i.e. no bigger than a B45 or B40.
If you just teach them how to be decent clarinet players with good sound and proper technique you will be doing them an enormous favour.
If they're jazz sax majors, they'll figure out how to transfer their improvisation concepts to clarinet. Making sure they develop good technique will help to ensure that.
Jupiter Canada Artist/Clinician
Stratford Shakespeare Festival musician
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: kilo
Date: 2011-01-25 16:59
Oh, I forgot to mention the Bb Omnibook — great for a clarinet because you can play all the transposed parts that are out of the saxophone range. These Charlie Parker transcriptions are great for learning melodic patterns and rhythmic figures.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: chris moffatt
Date: 2011-01-26 01:05
If these guys are jazzsax majors they should be getting the improvisation theory from other instructors. For additional material you can't beat the Berklee books. If they just want to sound like they're playing jazz Jerry Coker has a couple of books out there.
For jazz clarinet they should listen to some of the greats such as Ed Hall, Peanuts Hucko, Buddy de Franco, Jimmy Giuffre etc. some of these guys doubled on sax and were great at it. And remember - it's as applicable to clarinets as to saxes - it was Coltrane who said "we'd all play like Stan if we could". If you have to ask "Stan who?" ask your sax majors
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jaysne
Date: 2011-01-26 12:41
My experience with classical people and jazz is that the biggest problem is not being to feel and play the swung 8th note patterns. They tend to play 8th notes very straight.
I think that as their teacher, it'd be a good idea to get the swing feel in your bones. A comfortable place to start would be to play all your scales, up and down, with the following articulation: tongue the first note, then slur 2, slur 2, slur 2 and so on. Feel this rhythm as "doo-BAH-doo-BAH-doo-BAH-doo..."
Once you get really used to this, you'll feel much better about teaching jazz.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2011-01-26 20:33
The biggest problem with Classical and Jazz students is the tendency think that you can somehow learn to play music with out listening to it. You're not gonna to learn swing feel by playing scales dooby dooby doo, You'll learn how to swing when you spend hours listening to people who know how to swing. Just as If you want to how to interpret music in a classical style you'll do well to listen to players that know how to do that and do it beautifully.
Never has it been so easy to hear and see historic performances, current performers and really listen to music. But for most students feel that just listening is not quite proactive enough to be part of "serious" music study. Look your Master's degree and or DMA is not going to get you a job so why not take the inexpensive way and get about $5k worth of Ipod downloads find a great teacher and spend one hour listening for every hour you spend practicing? Ok your parents won't like it, hell they wish your were in nursing school or law school anyway. But if you really want to learn how to play music, LISTEN to MUSIC.
I had a chance to be at the NAMM show in Aneheim this year with Backun Musical Services for the release of their new clarinets. (the best clarinets I've ever played) but the biggest thrill I got was hearing Ricardo Morales and Eddie Daniels sit with Morrie and "Shake down" the new horns. These two are at the top of their genres and to watch both these artists play when they're not "on" show is amazing. Both these guys have listened to way more music than most musicians with half their skill. Ricardo will sit and and play a passage exactly the way someone played it on a certain recording and then do a totally different way. So even the quintessential "legit" clarinetist, has "copped" licks. I've asked college students if they ever heard a recording of a piece they were going to perform, and I received a " I don't want to taint my interpretation by listening to another performance", Believe me, Ricardo probably has every recording of the piece, has listened to it and can play it that way. So maybe he'll play it in a totally new way. Maybe he liked some version he heard. Maybe he likes the way some singer or cellist plays a certain composer maybe he knows exactly how to do it. Trust me NO TEACHER has told him how to do that.
What can you say about Eddie Daniels, this guy learned how to play jazz exactly how all the great players of the past . He learned how to play an instrument and listened and transcribed his ass off until he could sit in the middle of great bands and sound like he belongs in it. To my knowledge Eddie does not have a doctorate in jazz! Though playing with Thad Jones and Mel Lewish should count.
Sorry about the rant, but I think we need to take a serious look at how we are educating musicians in this country.
Tom Puwalski- Backun performing artist.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: crnichols
Date: 2011-01-27 05:29
Tom,
That's a great rant, thank you for that.
I concur that analytically listening to live performances and recordings ALL THE TIME is the most important part of a musician's education without question.
Christopher Nichols, D.M.A.
Assistant Professor of Clarinet
University of Delaware
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Merlin_Williams
Date: 2011-01-27 12:31
Great points, Tom!
I'd also posit that if a student is an aspiring jazz player, they should find a local jam and get out there and play with seasoned players as much as possible.
I recently started hosting a jazz jam where I live, and so far it's been mostly older players.
Jupiter Canada Artist/Clinician
Stratford Shakespeare Festival musician
Woodwind Doubling Channel Creator on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/WoodwindDoubling
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: srattle
Date: 2011-01-27 17:05
Jen,
I would say that the worst possible thing you could do is try to teach these students how to improvise. Not only does it make no sense if you are not trained in that, but they will feel uncomfortable and probably also insulted (I remember studying aural skills with a teacher who couldn't tap a quintuplet, and had to teach her how to do rhythms all the time during class and my final exam. I was really insulted by this!)
I would take some of the advice here and just teach them how to play clarinet. This could mean also bringing their sax to class and seeing how to edge them onto the clarinet, see what they are doing on the sax and how to translate it onto their new instrument. If these people are good jazz sax players, then I also don't think that you need to give them a lesson on who to listen to and basically anything specific to jazz.
The other thing I could suggest, if they are into more modern styles of jazz, is to teach them also some extended techniques that are clarinet specific, or some specific sound things that you can only get on the clarinet. You could think of them more as classical clarinetists who will focus on contemporary classical music. I'm sure they will get what they need from this, and I can promise you that they will NOT get anything from you learning how to say doobedoobedoo. . .
Another thing, that I think Tom is totally correct about, is listening, but if you are teaching people who are jazz players, then you should probably take some time and listen to a whole lot of jazz clarinet players, and everything else. (it would also be helpful for you to go to hear the students themselves play sax)
Sacha
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-01-27 20:22
I wouldn't want to over fetishize improvisation. It is just a way of playing, after all.
From a teaching perspective, and these are experienced students, I'm assuming, it might be a very profitable thing for all involved to work through some of the Jerry Bergonzi "Inside Improvisation series" as a group. It will help with their improv and, in part, demystify what really has come to be too mysterious.
I know that if I would have had a classically trained teaching fellow with me when I started working through the improv books then the experience would have been richer and more rewarding.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: tdinap
Date: 2011-01-28 01:18
As already mentioned, listening cannot be emphasized enough. I agree you may not be able to teach them much about jazz improvisation if they are studying the subject on sax already, but you can learn what techniques (traditional and "extended") are most useful in jazz clarinet and how to emphasize those skills in your teaching.
Tom
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jaysne
Date: 2011-01-28 13:08
To those of you who belittled my "doo-BAH-doo" suggestions, I wish you could hear all the students I've taught over the last 20 years who I've helped learn how to swing by doing this. And jazz great Lennie Niehaus would agree with me, since I got that idea from one of his method books. It works.
I do agree that the best way to learn how to swing is to listen to the greats. But that takes months and even years of steady listening. I got the impression, however, that Jennifer does not have that much time; she needs some concrete ideas now. Giving a classically oriented player some basic rhythmic/articulation ideas that will lead to a swing feel makes perfect pedagogical sense.
It's all about learning how to emphasize the weak part of the beat, which is something classical players aren't used to doing. If the teacher can get used to doing this then she'll be in much better shape when it comes to teaching her students.
Post Edited (2011-01-28 13:18)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
