 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Moonrabbit
Date: 2016-11-09 22:48
I am an adult student of the clarinet. I travel a fair amount for my job and have found it difficult to practice while travelling. The clarinet is too load to play in a hotel room, and I am not always able to secure a secluded location that will allow me to practice. I have considered the possibility of getting an EWI assuming I could control the volume. I understand that Yamaha and Akai manufacture popular models with the yamaha model having more realistic keywork and akai making a budget friendly model. Is it possible to program either of these instruments so that the fingering is similar to the clarinet? Are there any other EWIs that are well suited to someone who plays the clarinet? Any thoughts on these or other EWIs would be appreciated.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ruben
Date: 2016-11-10 01:05
Dear Moonrabbit, I advise just using visualisation techniques. You'd be surprised at how well they work. Take out an imaginary clarinet, wet an imaginary reed, etc. Play an imaginary piece of music. You'll find yourself slipping up in exactly the same places as you would if you had a real clarinet in your hands. And you can practice the passages you flub, as if the clarinet were physically in your hands.
The scientific validity of this practice has been proved. Basketball players practiced taking imaginary free shots (is that the term?), and they did as well as those that actually used a physical ball to practice, after a few weeks.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony M
Date: 2016-11-10 03:06
I recently bought an Akai ewi usb. They're not expensive but they do need the laptop to make them function.
As for quiet, they are perfect with headphones. They work easily, pretty much plug and play. So I find that I do use it.
The problem is the fingerings, they have a variety but I use the saxophone fingerings. Other makes and models have a range of fingerings and Roland have just put out the AE-10 which has palm keys to emulate sax fingerings.
You have to decided what you want to use it for because it will never replace an actual clarinet. The fingering is pretty close to the clarion register but even then there are differences.
I use it to learn popular melodies and riffs and find that they transfer very easily when I go back to the clarinet. And it keeps me thinking within the environment of a wind instrument when I can't play an acoustic instrument.
If you don't want to carry a laptop on your travels, there are youtube clips of people using powered hubs to plug the ewi into their tablets and phones.
It took me a while to decide to try one but I'm glad that I did.
Tony
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ed
Date: 2016-11-10 16:34
Quote:
Take out an imaginary clarinet, wet an imaginary reed, etc.........
Yeah, that is about as close to practicing as many of my student get!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ruben
Date: 2016-11-10 18:10
Good line! But the trouble is that they don't get this far. If they did, that would be a start.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2016-11-11 03:52
Attachment: Caccia.JPG (34k)
What has worked for me was fingering the imaginary bass clarinet. In Menotti's Overture and Caccia there is spot (see attached) which was pesky in two ways. The first was that the figure was extremely small and a bit awkward. The second was that it was solo since we did not have a contra and there was little else going on at that point in the rest of the band; talk about hanging out. Oh, the tempo was quite brisk at that point as well and it is staccato.
So, I used Finale to copy the two measure and played it over and over with just my fingers. I would also find myself mentally playing figure at night if I woke up. Once my wife said "what are you doing with your fingers, and you're humming..."
This practice worked and I got a nice smile from the director in last Sunday's concert after the piece.
I don't think I'll ever forget those two measures.
HRL
Post Edited (2016-11-11 03:55)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2016-11-13 17:04
I play a lot of clarinet, hours a day. I also play EWI, and the Yamaha WX5. If you are sitting in a hotel at one in the morning and you feel like practicing there is nothing better then an EWI4000s. Any time that you spend on it will be valuable. If you spend enough time with it to where you are really playing it well. You will notice improvement in your clarinet technique. I wish the 4000s would have been availible when I was in the U.S Army field Band, that thing would have been in my pie hole every 5 hour bus ride.
Tom Puwaslki
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
