Author: mnhnhyouh
Date: 2014-07-18 09:57
A history...
I played clarinet for a year and a half about 9 years ago, but had a fairly demanding job and struggled to do 7 hours a week.
I played for 2 months during an extended holiday in Istanbul using the Klose books and a very cheap instrument.
I have been playing for something like the last 8 months, on a very cheap instrument at first, then I changed to a Yamaha 200DR, still not good but better than the last one.
I use the supplied Yamaha 4C mouthpiece, a Vandoren leather ligature, and Vandoren reeds from the blue box. Started out on 2.5 but have been using 3 for a while now, though there is still one 2.5 in my reed rotation. I skip it if I am going into the altisimo range.
I have been averaging about 2 hours a day (I keep fairly good track of this). I am usually (80 - 90% of the time) playing with a metronome, otherwise I have a backing track on.
I am unable to find a teacher who has enough English to teach me, and my Chinese is not adequate (I currently live in China).
My first hour each day is scales practice. I recently started a new exercise to put them all down in my mind. I do this first thing for every session.
This is my scale exercise:
EM, up and down the scale, 2 octaves. Then the lower octave, up 13579, down the scale, up the scale, down 97531, 135797531. Do the same for the upper octave.
I do this exercise for FM and F#/Gb M as well. I will add a new scale every 5 days. The idea is to get all 12 majors, dorian minors, minor pentatonics and blues scales over the next 8 months.
Though I have the scales for all of these on paper, I only allow myself to look at the Major scales on paper, I work the rest out, which does make it a bit slower, but once I have them, it is ok.
Then I move onto the scale of the day. I have been through the majors, dorian minors and am now working my way down (up?) the pentatonic minors. So today I am on G#/Ab. I do the scale exercise for AbM, Ab Dorian, Ab minor pentatonic, working on each section until I can play 1/8 notes at 80 bpm cleanly and reliably.
Then I put on a backing track in Ab and play the dorian minor and pentatonic minor exercises with the track, and then improvise. Sometimes the improvising lasts for only 5 minutes, sometimes 30, depending on how I feel.
Tomorrow is A pentatonic minor but will do the A Major and A Dorian minor as well.
For the next hour or 3 of my playing for the day I have a few things I am working on. I recently started playing Rose Etude No. 2 (from the 32), I am working on Jamey Aebersold's Summertime and Watermelon Man from his Volume 54. I practice the scales and chords from this, as well as the melody and have fun with the backing track.
I spent a fair bit of time transcribing Summertime from Artie Shaw on Summertime, but those passages are too quick for me to play along with him, but it was interesting to see what he did. I plan to do more of this.
I am also at times working on the Jamey Aebersold book How To Play Jazz and Improvise. I enjoy this a fair bit.
So some questions at last.
I am thinking about buying myself a new mouthpiece. I can easily get Vandoren mouthpieces, but can also get some of the Pomarico crystal mouthpieces. Recommendations?
Any more recommendations about other things I should do, or stop doing?
m
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The Clarinet BBoard
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