 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BGBG
Date: 2017-10-03 01:40
Wondering if anyone has a procedure for suggested practice routine. I have about 25 songs I would play, and practice for around 45 minutes. I know I should be doing long notes, scales, maybe individual notes, etc but would like to find a suggested routine sequence to follow if one exists.
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Author: zhangray4
Date: 2017-10-03 03:10
I am no professional. I am a student. But a few weeks ago I had the chance to have a lesson with Michelle Zukovsky. We didn't really manage time well, so we talked a lot about routines/warmups and tested eachothers instruments. Here's what she wrote for me to use as a practice routine:
1. Monster Warm-up (She promised to email this to me, but I think she forgot, so I'll ask her if she can send it to me)
2. Long tones. To be specific, doing two types of long tones. First type is holding out the note but making crescendos and diminuendos, as symmetric as possible so that the crescendos are about the same length as the diminuendos. The second is starting from the lowest E on the clarinet, playing it as a whole note, and slurring up as many octaves as you can. Goal is to do this as slow as possible, c. beat = 60. Then you move up chromatically, so after doing octave leaps of E, move onto octave leaps of F, F#, G, etc.
3. Baermann Scales and last pages of the 3rd book
4. Baermann thirds of the third book
BREAK (10-15 minutes)
5. Other exercises in Baermann 3 and 4
6. Rose Etudes
BREAK
7. Concerti and Sonatas
BREAK
8. Orchestra Repetoire
Now this all sounds good if I could practice 3-4 hours a day. But unfortunately I don't so I take some shortcuts. Or I alternate on which ones I do each day (e.g. Baermann scales one day and thirds the next)
Hope this helps. Just wanted to share what I learned from Ms. Zukovsky
-- Ray Zhang
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Author: BGBG
Date: 2017-10-03 08:21
It helps to have suggestions. I had just been trying to play the songs but realized I should be doing more but simply did not know how to go about it.
I am just a hobbyist, not professional, student or even in a band or orchestra. But I still want to learn and improve even though doing it just for fun.
Now I need ot practice notes for feorgetting how to form some of the seldom used ones.
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Author: tacet
Date: 2017-10-03 12:07
If practice time is limited, one strategy I have found useful is to indeed continue using Baermann as a source of "Basic Vocabulary", but _not_ try to go through all keys on a given day. E.g. you could cycle through Steve Lacy's "Magic Order" of kyes (Bb-E-C-F#-D-Ab-B-F-Db-G-Eb-A) one key a day, with something like
(a) Long Tones on the root note -- as long as possible in mp, then "first type" as described above, all octaves.
(b) Core articulation à la Reiner Wehle on the major scale (||: daaaaaaaaa-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-:|| (step up) daaaaaa...)
(c) Scales (major and harmonic minor), articulated and legato, p and f
(d) Triads (major and minor), dito
all with a metronome set at a very moderate speed and carefully listening to yourself. This would give you a relatively short "workout" routine that covers basics, gets you through all keys within two weeks and still leaves you a good part of your 45' to practice other material.
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Author: jthole
Date: 2017-10-03 13:49
I also have about 45 minutes a day only, most of the time (except in the weekends, when I can double it).
My schedule more or less is:
5 minutes warm-up and long tones / overtones
10 minutes scales and arpeggios
30 minutes whatever pieces I am working on
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2017-10-04 11:45
Ray,
I hope you'll get back to us on that "Monster Warm-up". Michelle is certainly a monster player. If there's a warm-up that moves me further in that direction, I want to know about it! The other things she suggested are all great of course.
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Author: Roxann
Date: 2017-10-04 19:15
My teachers have always had me start with long tones. Some weeks I play them all at the same volume and other weeks I play them with a crescendo or decrescendo...or both, just to break up the routine. Then on to throat flexibility exercises (page 67 of Klug). Next comes tonguing exercises. I have a variety of them from different books. Then comes "24 Varied Scales adn Exercises For the Clarinet in all the Major and Minor Keys" by J.B. Albert. Then major and minor triads. Then comes a break. After and hour or so, I work on a solo and on a duet that I play with my teacher.
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Author: zhangray4
Date: 2017-10-06 00:30
Hi nellsonic and others who were wondering about the monster warm up... Here it is. Ms. Zukovsky sent it to me just now.
-- Ray Zhang
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-10-06 02:04
Just a note on the source for this three-page warm up routine:
This warm up is photocopied from the Pirolo English edition of the Italian Labanchi Clarinet Method, pages 130-132.
(My copy of the Labanchi is Gaetano Labanchi Progressive Method for the Clarinet Part II, revised and edited by Soccorso Pirolo. Carl Fisher, NY 1961. Evidently there were earlier editions with the same pagination).
In the Pirolo edition(s), this warm up was No. 2 in a sequence of 26 "Daily Studies" given near the end of the method, pp. 126-171.
I haven't checked the more recent editions of selections from the Labanchi method made by David Weber and David Hite, respectively, to see if these warm-ups might also be included there.
Post Edited (2017-10-09 20:46)
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2017-10-06 08:08
Cool. Thanks for the follow up, Ray - and the additional information, seabreeze.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-10-06 23:38
zhangray4 wrote:
> Didn't attatch for some reason... Let me try again
>
These pages are obviously from a large volume - pp. 130-132 (study #2) of something. Does anyone recognize it? It might be interesting to buy the source volume.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-10-06 23:43
I should have tried Googling 17819 (publisher's catalog # at the bottom of the scanned pages) first - it's Labanchi's Progressive Method for the Clarinet, Carl Fischer ©1914.
Karl
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-10-07 01:24
So, was that the first edition of the Labanchi before Pirolo's 1961 revision (pubished in English by Carl Fisher)? See my post above. I've always wondered exactly in what ways Pirolo revised the method. Some more recent editions pick up only the etudes and omit the daily studies.
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Author: BGBG
Date: 2017-10-07 03:47
Where could I get or view these materials free or with charge as I am not familiar with them??? Or should I simply Google?
Baermann Scales and last pages of the 3rd book
4. Baermann thirds of the third book
5. Other exercises in Baermann 3 and 4
6. Rose Etudes
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Author: BGBG
Date: 2017-10-07 04:00
I mostly just play songs I like and are fairly easy to play. I do not try to play by ear or memory but after awhile I can remember how to play all or parts of some of them, but usually play from sheet music I have re-written to my desires. I posted this thought because I thought I should be devoting time to practicing technique in order to improve.
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Author: BobW
Date: 2017-10-09 14:50
Attachment: 1.jpg (470k)
Attachment: 2.jpg (464k)
Attachment: 3.jpg (505k)
sorry pdf file was too large to post
here are the individual pages resized
to print out
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2017-10-09 18:45
The pages from the Labanchi method probably are good as a warmup or other practice, but as far as I can see there's little unique or special about them. There's dozens or hundreds of similar looking pages in other methods and exercise books. - Not meaning to put the Labanchi excerpts down; I could see someone using them on a regular basis and getting results.
At times I use a slow-medium-fast speed progression like the Labanch depicts on music or passages I'm trying to improve. Slow, to focus on improving the basic clarinet sound of it; medium, for reinforcement of correct agility; and fast, to reach for the next level.
On the copied pages, I'm curious what the handwritten note at the top, "same note shape" might mean. I'd normally incorporate articulation practice in exercises like this, but that's probably not what the note is about.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-10-21 07:02
Most of the lines in the Labanchi warmup consist of the same phrases repeated three separate times. Why three times? Because traditionally they were practiced at three different tempi--slow, medium, and fast. Labanchi makes that clear on some other pages of the method.
Post Edited (2017-10-21 07:03)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2017-10-21 08:05
Kinda a waste of paper. Why not write the lick once with the note "play slow, medium, fast and in all 12 keys"? Am I missing what's special about it? Seems very meh.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-10-21 10:39
Ah, the sociology of clarinet pedagogy! Who can say why certain books and exercises are assigned? Maybe it's just a question of which important clarinetists like a particular work or routine. Bonade liked the Rose etudes, so multitudes of students long after his death study them. Gino Cioffi was crazy about the Labanchi method and evidently Michelle Zukovsky finds great value in a few of the mechanical exercises towards the end of the Labanchi book as a warm-up routine.
Musically, the Labanchi method is interesting for its difficult and dramatic Bel Canto style etudes in all the keys. Learning to play these etudes, which lie much less idiomatically under the fingers than the Cavallini caprices, will give a player a considerable amount of transcendental technique and confidence in subdividing the beat.
Post Edited (2017-10-22 06:56)
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Author: kj2008
Date: 2017-10-22 01:27
BobW - Thanks for your great BB community service of sharing the new pdf. I am sure it would have taken considerable amount of time to produce.
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