Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2017-06-04 19:40
Karl, people use the word 'support' here in a very casual way, as though everyone is agreed as to what it means. (You yourself have it be synonymous with what you call 'abdominal support'.) There is a fog of misconception about the whole matter, and I see no reason not to try to dispel this fog.
The fog becomes evident when I tell people that it is possible to play some passages very well WITHOUT SUPPORT: you just blow, using your abdominal/back muscles.
Now, someone who understands the matter will immediately agree. Someone who doesn't understand may well say, but, you need abdominal support to play AT ALL – what on earth do you mean?
The difficulty is that 'support' is a RELATIONSHIP between two muscular presences, (1) the abdomen/back muscles, and (2) the diaphragm. Everyone should understand why that's unavoidably confusing experientially when you tell them that you can't FEEL number (2) directly.
But you do have to tell them, so that they have a handle on their confusion. (Otherwise, they're just, well, confused:-) But once they know, then support becomes a perfectly simple, if strange, idea. The magic of the 'magic diminuendo' has the DELIGHT of magic too.
To try to bring out the simplicity, I once made the analogy with painting. Say I'm a sign painter on a ladder, painting someone's name above their shop. I stencil the letters, and then start filling them in, painting normally. I don't need to be too precise about the filling in – I can use fairly crude brushstrokes, using just my painting hand.
But when I come to paint the EDGES of the letters, I have to be more careful.
Suppose I'm right-handed. I rest my left elbow on something, and SUPPORT my painting hand with my left arm, by holding my right wrist with my left hand. Now I'm painting WITH SUPPORT, using the combination of the push of my right hand towards the sign and the opposite push of my left hand away from the sign. It gives me better control, you see.
Painting with support is a special case of painting, just as blowing with support is a special case of blowing. And on the clarinet, this support has other uses than precise control, it turns out.
My view is that we need to represent this view when the subject of support comes up. And, I have to say, you very often don't, here, and I don't understand why.
Every time you ignore one half of the situation, you give more space to MISunderstanding.
Tony
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
