Author: shmuelyosef
Date: 2019-01-10 00:50
60 notes per minute is not bad for a beginner (assuming that you are...), but that will not get you much traction in professional settings.
In professional orchestral settings, jazz/rock big band, and pit orchestras, my experience has been that the minimum acceptable is to be able to read modestly complex patterns in sustained eighth notes at 100-120 BPM (Beats Per Minute), with occasional bursts of 16th notes (particularly in big band where clarinet is a double); for first shot sight-reading, this needs to be at 90% accuracy (I can barely manage this, but do OK), or you will have a hard time with the director. I am just barely at this level, but play in sections where the leads can sight-read much faster than this on saxophone, clarinet and flute.
I play the 1st clarinet part in a well-regarded community band, and much of the classical repertoire as well as the more modern material has similar demands, although the parts are more repetitive...the big-band parts are all over the map.
With a session or two of practice (at home) I can nail these parts and perhaps up to 160 BPM...above that, I just have difficulty with my fingers tripping up...I do much better on saxophone than on clarinet, as I came to the clarinet late.
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