 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-08 14:09
Attachment: MM Equivalency (1).jpg (95k)
Hi,
I have made a bit of a breakthrough on the business of playing slowly to learn to play fast. I wondered if I could tell you? I think this is a post for adult learners mainly or possibly for teachers of beginner players.
I was trying to play Gade's fantastic piece for grade 4, and getting nowhere, because I just can't do the fiddly bit at the end, at anything like the required speed
I was also switch from single lip to double lip, which is quite a big change.
Anyway, I had this good idea to go right back to the start and do the music medal curriculum from ABRSM. It's really good because it's intended for small children, and has a really large range of pieces to choose from at a very low level. The pieces are carefully chosen so that the process of playing them builds up the foundation skills, without introducing anything that is specifically difficult on the clarinet, until higher levels. So it's much better than just playing a zillion Christmas carols, for example, which might involve really tricky break crossing in even very simple tunes.
I can sight read the pieces up to silver medal standard, which point I have to actually start practicing them.
The thing is that by sight reading all these oddles of pieces, I'm finding that it's a really nice way to get fluency in my fingers. It's also good because with the pieces being so easy, I get a chance to actually play FAST and to feel comfortable doing that. It is much better for me than trying to play a difficult grade 4 piece fast, when I am not fully confident at playing it slowly.
I just wondered if I might mention, because I don't think that the music medal curriculum is especially well known, and I'm finding it very helpful.
Each medal level is assessed by the teacher at home, and a video sent to ABRSM. The student gets a certificate and a badge in the post. I will attach the diagram of how the medals related to actual grades.
Jen
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2022-01-08 20:18
Hi Jen:
I'm sure I'm not only not the first to say this, but that it's been said better elsewhere.
Difficult passages are difficult for, IMHO, two reasons. The first is, well, they're difficult. They challenge our motor skills: our abilities to perform patterns and at speeds not regularly or recently seen before. Still more they challenge whatever tired or breath-needing state we already may be in that conflicts with our concentration.
But there's a second mental factor at play as well: our confidence. If we have lack of it we're likely to take some passage of music in a way that's more likely to produce errors, which attacks our confidence and the problem becomes syndromic.
The cycle is broken by taking simpler stuff slower, gradually increasing the difficult, and not giving a hoot if we mess up (as long as we tried at a speed that we have successfully played at or near before), especially within the confines of our practice studio.
There is a fine line of what level of music advances us most rapidly. On the one hand there's little utility in taking on works that are 5 years more advanced than where we are right now. Conversely, "3 blind mice" -- and I am no way saying that that's the simplicity of the level you are working at, builds only confidence, not ability.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-08 21:26
Hi SecondTry.
Yes I see what you mean. I hadn't thought about building confidence and skill as two different things.
I'll try to explain better what I'm doing. I do think it is actually sensible.
I've been working up through the music medal curriculum over the last week and I've settled at a level where the exercises to be done are exactly what is needed to get one of my fundemental skill problems fixed up.
The problem is that I'm having trouble with my left hand position. If I have my index finger knuckles sitting nicely over the G# and A keys, I can't reach the pinkie B key. That really makes everything very difficult, as I can't do the Gade passage without moving my left hand up and down repeatedly, and then losing my bearings when I try to find the keys.
In order to sort out my Gade problem, I need to get that hand position sorted and get my movements so fluid that I don't need to think about them. This silver medal curriculum is helping me by providing passages that I can sight read easily, which means I can really focus on the hand position problem, while everything else is easy.
I think I may need to ask a technician to fit an extension on the B key, but before I commit to that, I really need to do a ton of exercises to be sure. It may be that I just need to move my hand round to the front of the instrument very slightly.
That's what I'm getting from this silver medal set of exercises. I suspect when I solve that problem, I will find another set of problems that are exposed by the Gold medal pieces.
I hope that clarifies what I mean a bit.
Adult learner, Grade 3
Equipment: Yamaha Custom CX Bb, Fobes 10K CF mp,
Legere Bb clarinet European Cut #2.5, Vandoren Optimum German Lig.
Post Edited (2022-01-08 21:28)
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2022-01-08 23:57
I admit to not knowing what the music medal curriculum is.
SecondTry makes some very good points, especially about the "fine line".
I believe that there are certain problems the clarinet itself creates, simply because of the way it's constructed. One example may be using the middle finger right hand hole (B/F#). It is harder to use that finger instead of the first finger (Bb/F) when playing scales or fast passages, or sometimes from going from that note elsewhere that requires more than one finger changing (if that makes sense...).
As well, I think each player may have his/her own set of problems that may differ from others. For me, trilling with my right pinky is harder that with my left pinky.
I spent some time years ago developing specific exercises to address those problems. But these may be better suited for me than for you, who knows.
If you come upon a particularly difficult finger pattern to perfect, maybe make an exercise out of it.
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
Post Edited (2022-01-08 23:59)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-09 00:30
Now please don't throw rotten radishes at me, but there is a reason why every author of clarinet methods from Ivan Muller and F. Berr to Klose to Baermann to Stark to Jettel and beyond has included extensive work on scales and arpeggios.
I will say categorically that anyone who has worked through the Baermann scales and arpeggios (first in Book 2 and later in Book 3 of his method) and/or the 416 Progressive Daily Studies for Clarinet by Kroepsch can easily "sight read" the Gade fantasy pieces and encounter no new note combinations or technical problems. In navigating the permutations of harmonic and melodic combinations in Baerman or Kroepsch, the player has already encountered all the fingering problems presented in the Gade and for that matter in most conventionally written tonal music from the 1600s to the 1890s or so and in most conservatively written tonal music even after that. (An obvious exception would be a work by a composer who is simply ignorant of the limitations of the clarinet and therefore incompetent to write for it).
Paradoxically, the agony of practicing all the Baermann and Kroepsch scale and chord combinations results in the joy of playing huge swathes of conventional tonal music with EASE. It is almost like magic. Now even the wizards at maxing out Baermann may find passages they are not prepared to play at sight. Scales and arpeggios are no panacea for overcoming all technical challenges. Daphnis and Chloe still has to be practiced on its own terms, as do The Firebird, Martino's A Set for Clarinet, Ginastera's Variaciones Concertantes, and many other difficult modern pieces. But the Gade, for someone with Baermann and Kroepsch under their fingers, is a walk in the park. Even just working through Book 2 of the Baermann method would fully equip a player to easily get through the Gade. Books 3 and 4 of Baermann would equip them to tackle the Crusell and Spohr Concertos and all the Weber pieces (with a little additional work on the altissimo for the Spohr).
Some players seem to get similar technical control from practicing finger motion technical studies like those in the Klose Method, Baermann Method Book 2, and in the August Perier 331 Daily Mechanical Studies.
Here's a little master class on the Gade: https://clarinet.org/6061.
And an especially beautiful performance of the first of the pieces by Nicholas Pfeffer (below it is another video of Tommaso Lonquich playing the whole set of fantasy pieces. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gade+fantasy+pieces+clarinet+nicholas+pferrer.
Now, feel free to throw things at me.
Post Edited (2022-01-09 08:45)
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2022-01-09 00:46
If you have Jeanjean’s Vade-Mecum you might like to try this exercise :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs7g5M7NGiY
The video is a bit too long, in my opinion, but you’ll get the idea soon enough. Progressing through simplicity. I watched this yesterday but haven’t tried it myself, but having listened to Jonason’s from memory version of Magnus Lindberg’s Concerto I’m impressed by him and he seems ‘fresh’. Quite a versatile player, ex-pupil of Fröst. Yet another great clarinet player most of the world wouldn’t have heard of if not for the Internet.
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2022-01-09 01:12
Jen...
Short fingers/long fingers, throat tones/full fingered notes
instrument modifications........
I hear you, now hear me.
go here:
https://imslp.org/wiki/Clarinet_Concerto_in_A_major%2C_K.622_(Mozart%2C_Wolfgang_Amadeus)
Scan down a little less than 1/2 down the page.
Click the tab that says "Parts(30)"
View the complete clarinet part in "A"
1) play measure 110 super slow. such that you can't mess it up. Integrate the measures around it.
2) increase the metronome by a click, repeat 1
Post Edited (2022-01-09 01:14)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-09 10:03
Thanks for the tips, and for so much kind encouragement. I really appreciate it and I will try to do the exercises.
I think I'm also partly dropping back because I'm still recovering from long covid (twice now).
I don't think I even see myself how much it's changed me, because I've been living inside that situation for two years, but I think it must be a big part of it.
I used to bash through four grade 4 pieces with gusto (though not precision). Now I look at a grade 1 piece and think "Mmmm, that seems long."
I'm hoping that this is a temporary situation. :-)
If I was going to try Baermann, do I just start at the beginning and work through?
I can do the grade 3 major scales (F, G, A, C, D, Bb, two octaves) easily and fluently from memory, but I have to assemble the arpeggios in my head as I play them. I have forgotten all my minor scales.
On the plus side I've gone from grade 2 to grade 5+ in music theory while having covid, as it doesn't require good breathing, or standing up. Yippee! I have bought a casio keyboard and am loving playing chords from the grade 6 book and finding out how they all sound. :-)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-09 21:37
With Baermann, "do I just start at the beginning and work through?"
Baermann book 1 is all words, no music. When you get to book 2, the fun starts. Both the original German and the English version edited by Gustave Langenus are on line as free PDFs. You're in good hands with Baermann. Like his father, he was a world-class performer and a pretty fair composer as well. Unlike many pedagogues today, he wrote exercises that are musical and not just mechanical, but his understanding of the mechanics of the clarinet is unsurpassed. He knows what every finger needs to do to get the notes out and he will train your fingers to do the same!
In the Langenus edition of books 1 and 2 combined the finger exercises start on page 29 first in throat register and then higher. Practice these both actually playing them on the clarinet and also just singing the rhythm while you silently finger them. You can practice them silently when you don't even have a clarinet in your hand. His instructions are perennial: "As a matter of course, the above exercises must be practiced very slowly at first and gradually faster until they can be played fluently without mistakes in quick tempos." I suspect that Baermann was a bit of a comedian and his comments were addressed to open mouthed students looking with terror upon what he has set for them to play. In book 3 of the method he has a note on a page of terrifying octave and double octave passages to the effect that "one cannot expect to get through this in one sitting. it must be learned gradually, piece by piece."
The little musical interludes that Baermann writes between finger torture segments even have piano accompaniments and can be performed as real musical pieces if you care to track down the piano parts. If you plow through
all 90 some odd pages of book 2, that could take a year or more. But if you can really play everything "fluently without mistakes in quick tempos" you will also be able to TRANSFER that technique that you have gained to many other compositions, for example by Robert Schuman, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, and, yes, Gade as well. And when you read new music, you will often discover that you have already woodshedded many of the passages you encounter. Baermann has concentrated them into his frightful drills so they will be easy to play when you later encounter them in the music of other composers.
Here's a dissertation on Carl Baermann's life: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=ucin1282049217&disposition=inline.
Post Edited (2022-01-09 22:28)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-09 22:52
Attachment: baermann.jpg (45k)
Hi Seabreeze,
Thank you very much for explaining.
Does that mean that I should start on books one and two?
I have the attached edition of Baermann, and it's properly terrifying.
Thank you for the dissertation. I will enjoy reading that.
Thanks!
Jennifer
Adult learner, Grade 3
Equipment: Yamaha Custom CX Bb, Fobes 10K CF mp,
Legere Bb clarinet European Cut #2.5, Vandoren Optimum German Lig.
Post Edited (2022-01-09 23:08)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-09 23:40
Book one is all verbal description isn't it? Start with book 2 and don't spend too much time on the whole notes. Get right into the finger pattern exercises and all the little genre pieces that Baermann loves to write--the marches, the gypsy variations, the tarentelas, the songs, the romances, the dances-he's very good with all that. Play all the scales and arpeggios. Don't skip any of the finger pattern technical exercises. Even though they were written for the German Mueller clarinet and the Baermann improved German clarinet, they are amazingly relevant to the Boehm clarinet as well. Carl Baermann was immersed in music like a fish in water. His father was Weber's favorite clarinetist; Carl's son was a concert pianist who befriended Listz and moved to Boston. Carl was a whiz on the basset horn as well as the clarinet, and the entire family played music. His method is a window to the Romantic century and the many composers in it. In his "Complete Course vols 1-5" Carl was teaching his students to play that music with style and ease. Let him teach you as well.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-10 07:05
I just found the book and I see what you mean. He starts right off with a page of all the transitons that are difficult to do without grace notes and says to do them until my fingers are tired. That's getting straight to the heart of the matter isn't it? That's going to be very useful. :-)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2022-01-10 15:43
I just want to add agreement about scales and arpeggios. You really need to be able to play at least all major scales. At bare minimum you need to play up to four sharps and flats easily. It's really not that hard.
Let me suggest something less intimidating than a huge book of scales. Baermann is certainly worth doing, and you will benefit, and I'm not saying anything against it, but you can get bogged down very easily. It's a "maximalist" approach. In particular it's hard if you aren't very comfortable in the third register. Yes, that's how you get better, but I think it's good to separate learning scales generally from learning extended range, at least at first
I learned my scales without using a book. I worked on them out of a books for a while (Londeix, Albert, Baermann), but it got to be too slow. I stopped worrying about playing every possible pattern over the whole horn. At first it was very slow figuring them out without music, but that didn't last very long. I just started working with the range and patterns I could play (or enjoyed) and focused on that, then improved on it. It won't take long until you are extending your range and making things harder. It becomes a game, so you can fool with whatever pattern you like, and whatever range you like. When you find something you can't do, you work on it. You can also learn patterns that aren't in the scale books.
IMO learning without reading music gives your brain a much better workout, and it also allows you to focus on playing. Reading the page requires attention that can slow your progress. I think it also helps a lot to learn one scale ok-ish, then go on to the next one, then come back to the ones you weren't as good at. For me, learning music is never strictly sequential or "cumulative". I do use a metronome. Right now I'm improvising baroque style in minor keys on my recorder for practice.
I guess my point is that it's great to have a lot of discipline and structure if you are really trying to iron out your technique as a pro. If you really like working out of a book and checking things off, you should do what works for you, but there are other options. You can always go back to Baermann at any time.
- Matthew Simington
Post Edited (2022-01-10 15:54)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2022-01-10 15:49
Of course sight reading tunes is also very helpful!
- Matthew Simington
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Author: brycon
Date: 2022-01-10 21:58
Quote:
I learned my scales without using a book. I worked on them out of a books for a while (Londeix, Albert, Baermann), but it got to be too slow. I stopped worrying about playing every possible pattern over the whole horn. At first it was very slow figuring them out without music, but that didn't last very long. I just started working with the range and patterns I could play (or enjoyed) and focused on that, then improved on it. It won't take long until you are extending your range and making things harder. It becomes a game, so you can fool with whatever pattern you like, and whatever range you like. When you find something you can't do, you work on it. You can also learn patterns that aren't in the scale books.
Thank you for posting this wonderful advice!
The scale books, etude books, etc. you use don't matter. The way you interact with the material, however, matters a great deal.
Students of all ages ask, "What's the best book to learn x, y, and z," and then play through whatever recommendations they receive and expect results. But the books don't teach you: you teach yourself. When you really practice a scale or some other fundamental, by contrast, listen (or perhaps record yourself and listen back) for precision, evenness, intonation, legato, etc. And if something isn't good, try to figure out exactly what's happening (the right-hand pinky, for example, is coming off the C key too quickly) and then create some exercises to remedy the problem. You can go through this process of listening, self-evaluation, and problem solving using any number of books or using your memory. But if you simply passively play through a book, which is what students often do with them, improvement will be negligible.
And I very much agree with Nadia Boulanger, who said that when things are learned by ear, figured out mentally, or memorized, they become a part of us in a way that written out things never can. When you mentally learn a scale and practice it away from a book, you listen in a way that's very different from the way you listen when you read a scale.
At any rate, as you've shown, it's the process rather than whatever book you choose to download that's important.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-11 00:16
Fortunately, progress in musical performance is seldom an exclusionary "one must do either a or b." One can do a judicious mix of both a and b, whichever is most suitable for the situation and the time. You don't turn off your sense of hearing and natural curiosity when you practice out of the Baermann books. You use Baermann suggestions as a touchstone and reference for your own imagination and creativity. If you can't play the high note passages the first time through Baermann, then play the lower ones and come back later to the high ones when your chops are ready for that. Baermann need not be the only book on your music stand. You can have it side by side with Irish jigs, Gregorian chants. New Orleans jazz and New York Be-Bop if the spirit moves you in those directions. As for having tunes to sight read, Baermann is filled with those, and he even composed piano accompaniments for them. The Baermann books are strongly telelogical. They have a definite end purpose in mind--to train your fingers to be at one with the mechanism of the clarinet and to set your attention, memory and mind to play with ease the music of the Romantic composers and secondarily, the classical era composers who preceded them. If you have other goals in mind, then Baermann cannot be held to any promise to accomplish those goals (such as to be an improvising jazz player or a modern composer).
Post Edited (2022-01-11 03:37)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-11 10:56
Thanks so much for all this great advice. I do appreciate it and am keeping notes.
At the moment, I'm just drying to drag myself back from long covid though, so what I'm doing is really physical rehabilitation, coming from quite a difficult place.
I'm really chuffed this week that I now have enough breath and energy to sight read through two full pages of "Learn as you play clarinet" by Peter Wastell. That's a major step up from two weeks ago, but will give you an idea of just how far I am from the place that you are perhaps thinking of. It may get better soon though. We live in hope!
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-11 11:24
Oh the plus side, while I work my way back up slowly, I can also focus on these things:
- Muscle strength in my new double lip embouchure
- sight-reading timing, which has always been tricky for me
- doing difficult note transitions without grace notes
- breathing the right way
I find it easier to focus on all these things, when I'm not working to a grade exam deadline, so I think this period could be really productive in terms of getting my fundemental skills solid.
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The Clarinet Pages
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