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Re: keeping fingers moving exactly in time

Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2019-07-14 00:26

Hi Karl,

Yes I see what you mean. I will try that. My instrument tends to stay fairly still because I have a clarite sling like this:

https://www.reeds-direct.co.uk/clarinet-support-to-suppliment-the-use-o.html

But I do grip the reed harder for the upper note, and my teacher says I also grip the clarinet at the same time. I will work on that.

I've been finding this week that I need to breathe a completely different way to make the crossing and I think it is all a lot to do with getting that right.

I don't know how to explain the difference exactly, but I used to take a kind of forced breath in and then force the air out while playing, and my breath used to stutter without my being able to smoothly control it. I was articulating with my diaphragm instead of my tongue, which I know is not right, and I couldn't turn the articularion off, even when I was meant to play legato. I think my breathing was too tense, so last week I did whole lot of heavy digging in the garden and played my violin a lot to get rid of tension, and then my breathing changed completely. I think the new breathing is better.

This week I have discovered that if I just relax my abdomen, then my lungs kind of naturally inflate like a great balloon with a feeling as though my whole body was filled with air right down to my pelvis. Then instead of holding my breath, I just let the force of the air lean against the reed, so that a kind of counterbalancing relationship develops between the air pressure and the reed, that I am not involved in. I then find that I can start and stop it with my tongue, but I don't need to do much else, except notice when the air is running out, and stop to relax the system again so that my lungs self-inflate.

I've been trying the suggestion up-thread of treating my air for the legato pair of notes as though they were a single note and that is clearly a much better idea. It takes a big change in mindset to do it, but I think that that is a big part of what I need to work on. I then need to get my fingers all co-ordinated to move at once, which is a whole other problem.

Thank you for letting me witter like this. It's an interesting problem to solve. and lovely to have like-minded people around to talk to about it.

Best wishes,

Sunny

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