 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Maruja
Date: 2012-02-15 18:05
I am now on my third teacher (no fault of my own!). Initially, I was taught to start and finish notes with the tongue. My new teacher (and incidentally Paul Harris at a master class I went to ) only advocates tonguing notes which are the same and follow each other, to keep them separate. Otherwise, start off a piece with the 'sea shell' sound of just blowing gently into the instrument - and I think something similar at the end of a piece, rather than coming abruptly to an end. Does it depend on the piece? What do people think?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2012-02-15 21:44
The use of the ENDING of a note with the tongue sounds odd to me. If you are playing fast staccato, that IS what is happening, and you can practice S-L-O-W-L-Y in this manner to improve staccato, but I'd NEVER heard of ending a note with the tongue as a 'rule.'
As for beginning the note with the tongue I really like what your new teacher is saying. There is a master class given by Karl Leister available on Northwestern's Pick-Staiger website that has Mr. Leister chiding the student about his starting with the tongue on the first Brahms Sonata. "NOOOOO tongue!," he says several times to get across his point that a lyrical piece MUST sound like a singer's 'attack,' more like "Ahhhhh."
I found it:
http://www.pickstaiger.org/search/node/master%20class%20clarinet
..............Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2012-02-15 21:47)
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2012-02-15 22:11
It doesn't depend on the piece, it depends on the passage, how it begins and how it ends. I think most players agree that the tongue is used to begin a note in some way or other. Either as a "timer" to begin the air or to actually make the entrance. In my playing I almost always begin a note with my tongue but many times it's just to tell me where the air will begin not actually hearing the tongue begin the entrance. If I want to end a note as a fade out or without an end sound, I won't use my tongue, I'll just stop the air and diminish away. It all depends on the passage. ESP eddiesclarirnet.com
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Author: Maruja
Date: 2012-02-16 14:03
What you say about Karl Leister is interesting, as Paul Harris is a protege of KL and has worked a lot with him, so perhaps he adopted this technique from him....
Re. ending the note at the end of a piece - so just let it fade away then? Thanks for taking the trouble to answer my query.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2012-02-16 15:30
You control the stop with your abdominal muscles........a mini-fade EVERY TIME.
Wheh you get the chance, you should watch the entire 2 hour master class, it's amazing.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: Joseph Brenner, Jr.
Date: 2012-02-16 16:58
Paul,
Thank you for recommending Leister's master class--but not only about beginning a phrase. I'd seen much of this a year or so ago and meant to bookmark it. Leister is a master teacher; a musician and artist first, a clarinetist second. He's not always my favorite clarinet player, but he's a superb teacher.
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Author: Buster
Date: 2012-02-16 22:23
Perhaps we should be teaching both methods, air and tongue start/end? And the myriad of combinations that can be found?
I do think that the existence of a blanket-Rule of beginnings/endings of notes cannot be found nor stated, but an important "Rule of Flexibility" does exist. Learning both "ways" and how they can be mixed together is essential to finding this flexibility for me.....
Certain passages call for a particular style of articulation yes, but even those requirements can change depending on the acoustics of the room/hall; or even something as silly as a less than "perfect" reed.
Also, the way a note/phrase is ended can set the stage for how the following note can (or should?) begin... Just as an example: tapering the air down at the end of a note but lightly touching the reed to stop the sound (a more clearly defined "bubble") 'tees up the ball' for the following music. The mixture may vary from day to day, or hall to hall (...a live church may require more delineation from phrase to phrase), but is still ever-present.
Add the varying characteristics/idiosyncrasies of other instruments in an ensemble setting and that need for flexibility is further multiplied.
I don't see any harm that can come from teaching (learning) both "ways", how they can be mixed, and most importantly how all these matters can be applied in a "live performance."
-Jason
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Author: Buster
Date: 2012-02-16 22:39
One more thought struck me,
What are we actually doing when we begin and end the sound?
It isn't as simple as saying we start or stop it, we have to mechanically initiate the vibration of the reed and stop its motion.
Exploring the way our physical actions (or "To tongue or not to tongue!?") affect the resultant sound is an essential investigation.
The wonderful security that can be found of actually doing what we want to in a timely fashion (or less eloquently- "playing in time") is a nice side-effect of this type of practice.
-Jason
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2012-02-17 10:59
As I 'play' with the "NO TONGUE" concept more and more, it is clear that I can come much closer to being able to mimic the human voice. No singer starts a note with consonant (unless that is the starting sound of the word), nor ends ends a note that way (unless the word terminates in a consonant) on purpose. Since we ARE 'wordless singers,' we may want to consider less 'TAH' and 'ACK' sounds in our singing.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2012-02-17 21:57
"No singer starts a note with consonant"
That has to be one of the least intelligent statements on this BBoard.
As Ed says, "it depends on the passage". And as Buster says, there are no blanket rules. There aren't even blanket rules within one style. Listen to a Mozart opera and you'll see how singers start phrases with a vast selection of attacks, from explosive consonants to sneaking-in vowels.
To start and end every phrase in only one way is like skateboarding in a straight line--- boring!
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Author: Buster
Date: 2012-02-18 00:26
I'll submit to the fact we are 'wordless singers' for semantics purposes, but the question arises: Should we always be emulating what a vocalist does?
Coming at it from the other direction, should a vocalist ever emulate what a clarinetist can do?
Certainly no harm, and much good I do agree, can come from exploring the effects a good vocalist can elicit, and how to musically apply them to our "clarinet-ing." However, the way we achieve these effects may differ greatly from what a vocalist does on the internal, physical level. (I do believe I can play some "sneak-in" attacks incorporating my tongue into the mix in some quantity.)
Yet, there are entrances clarinetists must make at times that a vocalist would have difficulty emulating...
Explore all the options.
-Jason
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