 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2013-05-08 23:17
I frequently read messages from people who say they can't transpose a step up for the Bb clarinet. See the recent string on Ashokan Farewell. Actually, there's a systematic (and not too difficult) way to learn.
Play a tune you know from childhood, say, "Three Blind Mice." Find a version in Bb, or write it out yourself. Play it, reading the music. Then close your eyes and play it in C. Then open your eyes and play it in C, watching the notes in Bb, but letting your fingers and tune memory play it in C.
Then write it in C and play it in D.
Take away the music and play it in C. Then go up a step (or, if you know your scales, 1/2 step) at a time.
Remember that you already know the tune and how to read music. And your fingers already know the scales. It's just a matter of shifting the fingering a step up.
In fact, you already do it. The chalumeau register is fingered in F and the clarion is fingered in C. You learned to do that without noticing. The same works for transposition up a step.
Go to a site with familiar tunes, say the Stephen Foster songbook http://www.ezfolk.com/library/songbooks/foster/stephen-foster-1/contents/contents.html. Pick songs you know well and play them at pitch and then up a step.
It's difficult at first, and you can do it only for a minute or two, but the "new" transposed fingerings for a step higher click in soon.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Taras12
Date: 2013-05-09 01:14
Thanks, Ken.
24 Scales and Exercises by Albert works patterns the same way. Though I still have problems with C4 sharp. That little pinky key frustrates the h... out of me.
Tristan
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2013-05-09 03:43
This seems a LOT easier than all the addition of steps and thinking of key signatures I try to do when transposing...
Is this method simply subconsciously teaching you a second "set" of fingerings for each note?
US Army Japan Band
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Author: curlyev
Date: 2013-05-09 06:28
I know this sounds weird, but when transposing, it's like I see the music in whatever key I'm switching to (except maybe C# or F#, which I have rarely ever had to do). My Dad is the same way with the piano.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2013-05-09 15:41
Alexi -
Substitution is exactly what you do. You learn to associate a different set of fingerings with the notes on the page.
Recorder players learn this early on. There are recorders in C (soprano, tenor, greatbass) and in F (sopranino, alto, bass). You learn one set of fingerings first (usually C, because kids begin on he soprano) and then switch to F, just as you do in the chalumeau and clarion registers of the clarinet.
It's no more difficult to click your fingerings over from C to D than it is to play the different registers. It's the same process as learning to read bass clef (or alto clef, tenor clef, etc.). It just takes a couple of weeks of serious practice. It drives you crazy at first and wears you out within a few minutes. Once the "vaccination" "takes," you barely notice it.
Ken Shaw
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