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Re: HS Audition Fundamentals

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-12-08 07:23

Does All South Jersey require a specific edition with the articulations in that edition? Pennsylvania adjudications do, and judges are supposed to take points off the score of a student who does different articulations from the specified edition.

I agree that a little under tempo with accurate articulation is likely to produce a better score than either "up to speed or even faster with everything slurred" or "dirt slow and nail every note." In fact, "even faster" may lose points even if you articulate it - there's a point at which it becomes unmusical and, usually, sloppy if you put a premium on speed with no attention to much else.

Problems syncing your tongue and your hands are caused either by uneven fingering that won't sound right even slurred, or an approach to tonguing that isn't under control - often you have only one fast tongue speed and if it doesn't fit the music, you're in trouble. The long-term solution is to learn how to tongue with control and make sure your fingers are moving efficiently so the passage work is even. In the short term, you're best off finding a tempo that works, whether it's the one you think will impress the most or not, and play as cleanly as you can.

As for tonguing into the tip opening, it's a good way to shred the tip of your tongue. The tip of the reed is quite thin. Getting your clarinet to feel like a sax is probably not a useful goal. They're different instruments in too many ways. It may be a little like trying to make English and French sound more like each other - you'll end up with heavy accents in both languages and you won't sound like a native speaker in either. If you try to make a sax - especially a tenor or (worse) a bari - feel like a clarinet, you'll end up with neither having a characteristic or attractive sound.

Karl

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