Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-01-01 23:20
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Hi SecondTry,
Thank you very much for these questions. Here are my answers:
>What might happen if you were to grip (or pretend to grip) a pipe with your left hand, whose diameter is small enough to allow non-thumb fingers and the thumb to touch--at least for those who don't experience your issues?
>What I mean to say is "can you grip such a pipe such that your left thumb would be touching one of your left hand non thumb fingers or would your left thumb naturally position itself to the sky?
I can absolutely do that, yes, but my thumb pad faces down towards the floor and I cannot rotate it to make the thumb pad face towards the knuckles of my fingers. (I have attached photos so you can see. There is no rotation available in my thumb from this position.)
>If you can achieve a position where the left thumb touches a left non thumb finger while gripping such a pipe, is this what produces tinging for you? If so is that tingling instant or does it take a while to manifest?
No there is no pain or tingling when I do that.
>Much as the weight of the clarinet isn't held by the left hand might wearing a neck strap help? Do you in fact wear such a strap?
Yes I wear a Claritie sling like this: https://www.reeds-direct.co.uk/clarinet-support-to-suppliment-the-use-o.html
It's very good and takes the weight of the instrument so completely that I can play with no hands at all.
> Can you lift your left hand up and point all your fingers to the right? If so does it hurt or cause numbness (eventually)?
I can do that and there is no pain or numbness, at all, ever.
>At the risk of telling you that you know or that's already been said, correct thumb position (which you may not be able to achieve) is such that he left thumb faces to the right, covering the hole and touching, but not pressing the register key, such that the thumb can rock up and down or lift away from the instrument to cover both, one or, neither of these keys.
That's what I thought. I think my problem is that I can't rotate my thumb to make the pad face towards the thumb hole. The pad of my thumb faces down towards the floor and I have no way to alter that.
Having said that, since I thought about seabreeze's advice I realised that I can sort of manage a bit better if I don't try to go whole-hog for a single perfect thumb position but allow my thumb to move a bit, so that one angle is okay for thumb-hole-only and another position does for register key situations. I think seabreeze's idea of allowing my thumb to move a bit may be a good answer. I'm not sure because my teacher said that in order to play really fast I do need to find one good position that works for everything, but maybe that is not an option for me. I would be glad to know what you think, going from my photos. Thanks for following my question up. I really appreciate it.
>Stephen Fox is another great contact for players with physical issues that may best be served by mechanical fixes to their instruments.
>He sells a wide range of products and does customizations.
>http://www.sfoxclarinets.com/Accessories.html#clar%20acc
Thanks, that's really good to know. :-)
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