 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: marco
Date: 2001-07-25 15:47
what's a good estimate on the maximum amount of time a clarinetist (semi-pro to pro) can play in one breath (not using circular breathing). If using circular breathing, is the tone affected perceptibly?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-07-25 17:39
Marco -
Almost any good player can sustain a single note for 30 seconds. Those with large lungs can get up to a minute, playing triple piano on a soft reed. When actually playing music, anything over 15 or 20 seconds is a stunt. If you find yourself doing it, you're running phrases together where you should be breathing. Your audience gets even more uncomfortable than you do.
There's a passage near the end of the first movement of the Weber Concerto # 2, just before the tongued ascending arpeggios, where you can't take a breath for about 15 seconds, and there are some stretches about the same length in the Nielsen concerto, too.
That's not to say that longer passages aren't written. The band transcription of the overture to Wagner's Tannhauser has several pages of continuous 16th notes, taken from the violin part. When you play it, you alternate breathing with your stand-mate. When I was in college, I played in a student-written musical that had a piece called Breathless Ballad, in which a clarinet trio played for about 35 seconds without a breath.
Flute players use more air than clarinetists, and all of them have to learn the big solo in the Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, which is completely exposed and has no spot to breathe for over 20 seconds.
Listen to the famous 1917 recording by John McCormack of the aria Il Mio Tesoro from Mozart's Don Giovanni, where he sustains full voice over a 20 second phrase. No other singer has ever been able to do it.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mario
Date: 2001-07-25 19:02
When I learned a new piece (with a lot of things to put together - techniques, dynamic, phrasing), I find that I have a short breath and I must breath more often.
As the piece gets mastered, I can skip more and more of these extraneous breathing points.
What I do to help me:
I mark normal breathing with single comas: ,
If I have to take a special breadth for a longer run, I mark it with double comas: ,,
I mark temporary breathing points in brackets: (,)
Often time, the issue is not not enough air, but stable air that need to be exhaled. As everything else, planning helps and I mark points where I need to exhale with reverse comas. Again I use brackets for temporary points.
I find that I can play passages in the 15 to 20 second range without difficulties when my music is under control.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-07-26 00:34
I can go for 25 and would still go if I hadn't used all of my oxygen. But what about things like "The Flight of the Bumblebee" And similar performances? Those that definitely require circular breathing. But still, what if you found someone that could go on for the whole few minutes required to play that song? I know my phrasing makes me sound like a blundering idiot, but you can't add breath marks in between 16th notes. I just want to know if it's POSSIBLE, not PRACTICAL, to play a short performance in one entire breath, say, 45 seconds to a minute.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-07-26 03:00
>Flute players use more air than clarinetists, and all of them have to learn the big solo in the Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, which is completely exposed and has no spot to breathe for over 20 seconds.
There is a very informative article written by Michel Debost.
See 'Playing Long Phrases' in Flute Talks in this URL. His opinion is quite different: people are rather taking too much air. Effective management of breath is much more important.
http://www.oberlin.edu/~mdebost/
Some of flute players learn breath control from singers.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-07-26 03:26
>but you can't add breath marks in between 16th notes.
There are no breath marks in the first movement 'Allemande' of Bach's flute partita. But actually all players are taking breaths. Paganini's moto perpetuoso is another example. They are made only of 16th notes(Good for wall papers). Many flute players do not like circular breathing for these pieces thinking it damages tone quality.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mario
Date: 2001-07-26 20:58
Actually (for me at least), my embouchure tends to tire a bit after several minutes (say 5) of constant playing, irrespective of breathing. I found that I need a few bars of rest to reflax my muscles, resynch my concentration, readjust everything, etc.
I have noted that music composed in conjunction with clarinettists often have slack time now and then to get everything back in order. Music composed for string instruments and adapted for clarinet have segments that are just very long. Even if the music offers easy spots to breath elegantly and a couple of bars of rest here and there, I tire physically.
A good example is the third movement of the arpeggione sonata that I am working on at the moment. The movement is preceeded by a beautiful adagio ending with a short fermenta and getting into the 3rd movement right away. Essentially, it then never stops for 7 full pages. Breathing is obvious, but gosh it takes me to my physical limits. At the end of page 5, I have about 16 bars of rest. It is just about the minimum I need to resume without screwing everything up for the ending. Add to that the beautiful recurring theme of the movement (one page long each time) is made out of many long-tube notes (the most physically demanding area of the instrument to produce a beautiful tone - nice pressure, absolutely no pinching, tongue way back, slight pressure for the top teeth with little from the bottom lip), and you get a movement that is extremely difficult physically (let alone technically and physycally). Even my cello friends (the piece isf often played on the cello) have muscle aches in their left arm after this movement.
I have read somewhere that second violons absolutely hate Mahler because he likes them to play the same note, non stops, for 15 minutes at the time. Boring and harduous...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-07-27 01:56
Artists like Beethoven often wrote peices that were physically difficult on the instrument itself, so I've heard. Not necessarily difficult for the clarinet, but especially for violins and violas. Wagner often wrote peices that hit the highest ranges of the French Horn and piccolo (I think, it's been awhile.).
Just because something is difficult doesn't mean that it shouldn't be played. Sometimes, the harder it is, the more musical options it has.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2001-07-28 00:16
Ken--
Not <i>everything</i> played over 15 or 20 seconds without a breath is a stunt. Occasionally, bass clarinet parts, for instance, have numerous measures of whole notes tied together. If I can play it in one breath while sustaining my tone, dynamic level, etc., I usually try to.
This may be one of the few exceptions to the rule.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Katrina
Date: 2001-07-31 03:14
I've just finished a week of Balkan camp in Maryland where I took my second year of beginning Bulgarian Kaval. I am mainly a clarinetist, but I double on flute. I do have a hard time with playing long phrases on flute, but the kaval (an end-blown flute) takes even more! If you can learn breath control on an instrument like that, you're set for anything!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
