 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: donald
Date: 2021-07-12 05:03
If you don't have the capacity or self control to adopt an ergonomic hand/finger position then there are huge number of other clarinet skills you won't have the capacity or self control for..... So this is a waste of money. You're not able to keep your fingers low etc? How hard can it be?
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2021-07-12 05:20
My first reaction to it is that it would drive me nuts and distract me from thinking about anything else. I think it would have been the same for me 50 or 60 years ago. But if you're willing and able to risk $49+shipping to find out if it helps or hinders, it can't hurt anything (except maybe your sanity).
Eventually, you'll have to wean off of it anyway - it's meant to be a learning tool, not a performing crutch.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-07-12 05:36
Of course I don't really think that closeness is in itself a necessity for good technical skill. If you watch enough great clarinetists, there are examples of those with fingers that almost seem not to move and those that you wonder how they are even hitting the right notes with their fingers flailing about.
I believe it was Tony Pay that pointed out that when moving rapidly from note to note your individual fingers are not actually not moving that fast, it is a matter of coordination and velocity. Is it easier to play accurately with less movement? Maybe. Is it essential? Not really.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2021-07-12 05:44
donald wrote:
> If you don't have the capacity or self control to adopt an
> ergonomic hand/finger position then there are huge number of
> other clarinet skills you won't have the capacity or self
> control for..... So this is a waste of money. You're not able
> to keep your fingers low etc? How hard can it be?
So how do you feel about the metronome?
I have one of these devices. Once in a long while I'll dig it out and send it home with a student for a week or two. Most don't need it but sometimes a new student comes to lessons after several years of playing in band with no lessons and they have a habit of throwing their fingers up in all directions. I certainly don't tell them they don't have the capacity to play. Instead I help them fix the problem, sometimes using this tool as a temporary aid.
Anders
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2021-07-12 06:00
Yes you will obviously have to wean yourself off it at some point. And, and adult or even a 15 year old should be able to get their fingers in the right position.
But as a band director for 19 years, I can attest that some young people have a really hard time with fingers sticking up way too far- sometimes in very strange directions as well.
I just gave advice on one of the facebook clarinet groups to a young lady whose fingers were way too far away from the holes.
It could be considered an "equipment" solution for a mental problem. I read a lot about those on the Scuba diving forums.
But, I don't really see how this device can hurt.
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Post Edited (2021-07-12 06:03)
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Author: Ed
Date: 2021-07-12 06:31
One of my teachers told me that he would attach two lyres and run a string between them to make students aware of using close fingers. That would be a pretty cheap way to accomplish this.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2021-07-12 06:45
Quote:
But, I don't really see how this device can hurt.
Because they tend to do a lot of crazy things with their playing, beginners might not be hurt by using this device. But once a player develops even a moderate amount of facility, he or she would be greatly limited with further use.
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Author: gwie
Date: 2021-07-12 07:42
I bought one of these.
It has actually been VERY useful in lessons when my students aren't all that aware of how high they are lifting their fingers. I put it on while they are working on their scale or etude and take it off ten minutes later--and it can totally change their perception of how they are using their hands.
I've had other teachers ask me why I would waste money on something that seems like an easy thing to address, and my response is: teaching is difficult because what might seem second-nature for you might not be so for someone else. We should be grateful for the existence of additional tools that might help students with challenges we don't personally experience.
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Author: DougR
Date: 2021-07-12 14:27
I didn't study with Kal Opperman (referenced above), but I studied with a guy who did, and he gave me this exercise: (can't swear it was Kal's, but take it for what it's worth):
It starts with a series of VERY slow trills, starting with the lowest note on the horn. Play a low E, and VERRRRRRRY slowly lift the key until you hear the adjacent F. (It should sound schmear-y at first.) Your finger stays on the key the whole time. VERRRRY slowly you depress the key down to E again. Gradually you increase the trill speed until you're trilling as fast as you can, BUT the finger depressing the lever stays on the key the whole time. Then F to F sharp, then F sharp to G, etc., always keeping the finger ON the key, always lifting ONLY as far as needed to get the note above to speak.
On ring keys and the chalumeau c-d trill, you only lift the finger far enough for the note above to speak. You do it like a Zen exercise; while you're trilling, notice EVERYTHING: the spring tension of each key, the finger placement of each note, any awkward stretches, any uncomfortable key combinations (e.g. chalumeau C sharp to e flat, f sharp to A).
The point of the exercise is to encourage one to ONLY raise a finger enough to get the note above to speak: anything else is wasted horsepower; supposedly this also enables faster finger movement.
To me, the benefit of the exercise is all of the above, PLUS: if I'm picking up an unfamiliar horn, doing this exercise at the outset helps it feel familiar, since you're scoping out all the quirks of the new horn (e.g. moving from a Selmer alto to a Conn alto, moving from full Boehm clarinet to standard, moving from Bb to Eb clarinet).
Maybe everybody already knows this exercise from student days, but it's one I use pretty frequently--offered for what it's worth.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-07-12 14:36
Never heard THAT one but S-L-O-W practice will ALWAYS break down an issue and reinforce accuracy.
Thanks for sharing DougR!
...................Paul Aviles
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2021-07-12 17:48
DougR, that sounds like a really useful exercise. Thanks for explaining it. I'm working on keeping my finger movements small right now, so I will try that.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2021-07-12 18:11
Personally, as the speed and complexity of what I practice increases, I'm more concerned with not moving my wrists, particularly the left wrist, because miniscule changes in angle or height of that can lead to attached fingers missing targets or hitting wrong targets. Or slight mistimings. Hard to imagine a device that would limit wrist movement, but then I'm not a mechanical engineer.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2021-07-12 19:50
Quote:
Personally, as the speed and complexity of what I practice increases, I'm more concerned with not moving my wrists, particularly the left wrist, because miniscule changes in angle or height of that can lead to attached fingers missing targets or hitting wrong targets.
Rather than fighting against your body's natural tendency to move the wrist, why not practice the movement so that you can perform it and the finger motions simultaneously and accurately? You should be moving from the wrist to play the right-hand side keys, the left-hand throat-tone keys, and many trills. Locking your wrist in place--just like the terrible advice of keeping your fingers unnecessarily close to the clarinet--will only increase unwanted tension in your playing.
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Author: Ed
Date: 2021-07-12 20:34
In addition to what DougR mentioned above, one can use the Jean Jean Vade Mecum in the same fashion.
While there are lots of opinions, it always seemed that it was best for me if my fingers were close to the instrument. If there was less distance to travel it was more efficient and faster.
For many of these discussions about technique or embouchure, it always seems that there will be arguments where someone will point to player X or Y and argue that they do it completely differently and are successful. I would always suggest trying different things and see what works *for you*.
Dizzy Gillespie was a fantastic trumpet player and musician and played brilliantly for his entire career while blowing his cheeks out. Would he have played even better if he did not do it that way? Who knows. It worked for him, but at the same time if I were teaching a young trumpet player I would not suggest they follow that model.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2021-07-12 23:15
Hi brycon. I agree about the necessity to move the right wrist for side key trills. Not so much about the left wrist. I recognize the thinking behind what you're saying.
If my left wrist/hand gets floating around playing throat tones I seem to lose reference to its pinky keys, slightly but too much. Also a bit of vice versa in other contexts. Those things appear when I'm trying to get pretty hard stuff up to speed (Jettel Accomplished or harder.)
Adding better awareness of a stable "home" wrist-to-clarinet reference seems to have aided my facility, but I'm going to keep your suggestion in mind. Right now, in fact - it's practice time.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2021-07-13 21:47
Quote:
Hi brycon. I agree about the necessity to move the right wrist for side key trills. Not so much about the left wrist. I recognize the thinking behind what you're saying.
Try playing F#-G#-A-G# over and over again at a quick pace and see how easy it is to do with the wrist locked in place. Similarly, you could try the index-finger F# to the thumb E#, which many people use in a scale context. I find both of these patterns far easier when I keep my fingers relatively set and move more from the wrist (though your mileage may vary).
Maybe because I grew up playing a bit of piano, I always had very clean finger technique. My fingers stayed relatively close to the keys, and, as Tony's old thread shows, because I had heard so many people talk about technique in terms of fingers close to the keys, I thought it must be why mine was good. But when I started getting more students, I noticed that many of them had rather bad technique but nevertheless kept their fingers remarkably close to the instrument. Clearly, then, the fingers staying close to the keys was an accidental result of good technique, not the cause of it (and only a doofus would continue suggesting something to students that clearly isn't working!).
So when I reverse engineered what I was actually doing, I began focusing on the fingers' motion (from the large knuckle and with a sense of strength, not unlike a pianist's finger motion) and their rhythm. Just for a quick example of rhythm: In the first bar of Mozart's concerto, the right-hand index and middle fingers close on E on beat 3. Rather than keeping my fingers poised immediately above the keys and dropping them quickly on 3, I think to myself: "G and close." That "and" (beat 2) is filled with finger motion, even a slight lifting of the fingers like a conductor's preparatory beat, and therefore provides a physicality to my "counting." Having this sort of rhythmicity and moving the fingers from the large knuckles are, in my experience, much more important for technique than keeping the fingers close to the instrument.
Sometimes it's imperative to keep your fingers close--a trill from throat-tone E to F, for example. And other times, the opening G of Mozart, when the right hand isn't in use, it isn't imperative. So why not let the music decide the physical approach rather than dictating a single "at home" approach regardless of context?
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Author: nellsonic
Date: 2021-07-14 00:33
Like so many things this, to me, is a matter of awareness and the particulars of the situation. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' always applies. I don't think this device would be that useful for most older students. It's had its utility for me with younger children who have been too busy just trying to get through band class to worry about ergonomics. For most adults it may be obvious when the hand position and finger movements simply aren't working to meet technical demands. For children this is not always the case. They often think that they just need to try harder, which often only makes things worse.
Anders
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