 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: musiklover
Date: 2024-05-15 12:08
Hello everyone,
I would like to ask if there's anyone like me who stopped playing the clarinet for years and then want to take lessons again.
I used to play the clarinet when I was a kid, and stopped for almost 5 years. Two years ago, I picked up my clarinet again and had some lessons with a teacher. However, the lesson seems a little bit without goals and randomly. For example, my teacher sometimes asks me what she can do for me at the beginning of the course. Sometimes I have questions, but sometimes I don't. Then she randomly picked up some etudes (from Baermann) or relative easy duets. I did improve during the few months of lesson, but it all seems really randomly. Since I have mostly learned all the basics of clarinet, I am not sure if it is normal to feel like this.
The reason I want to go back to lessons is that I think there's absolutely something I can still learn, e.g. better staccato, better tone quality. I want to also learn some solo pieces, but it hard to know which level of the piece fits me.
I hope to get some advices from others. Thank you!
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Author: m1964
Date: 2024-05-15 12:32
Hi,
I may be in a position to help you, as I was in a similar situation a few years ago.
I was training to become a professional musician, so I had some serious training.
However, I quit and went to a totally different field. Sold my clarinets and did not play for about 26 years.
About 5 years ago, I decided to restart playing. Bought a used Buffet E12. After 2-3 weeks of practicing, I joined a local band where the 1st clarinet is a retired pro and is wonderful jazz/band musician.
I kept practicing (long notes, attack, etc.) but was not progressing and felt that I was just stagnating.
By a chance, I met a wonderful well-known clarinet player and teacher who agreed to start lessons with me.
AFTER A FEW MONTHS, I started to see/hear improvements. I had many bad habits like biting, anchored tongue, etc. so it is taking time to correct them.
FOR YOU, I would suggest this:
It feels like you are not completely satisfied with your current teacher.
I would try to research if there are college level clarinet teachers in your area and possibly arrange for a lesson or two. See if another teacher does something differently.
Then you can make a decision if you want to stay with your current teacher.
I believe that a student needs to trust their teacher 100%.
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Author: Julian ibiza
Date: 2024-05-15 17:47
My wife also returned to playing about five years ago after about 25 years since she studied music. She's progressed in leaps and bounds from where she left off, although I'm not sure her teacher is really that great. His thing seems to be giving her something rather advanced for her level to practice, and commenting that he doesn't really expect she can do it, and she comes home grumbling about it, but determined to prove him wrong. I don't think his method is the product of any particular cunning, but it happens to work because of their respective personalities. My point is that a good teacher is a teacher that works for you for whatever reason and conversely, a bad teacher for you is one that doesn't work for you for whatever reason. But I think that any teacher should be reasonably able to explain to you why they have you doing whatever they have you doing if you should ask, and if they can't, then I think that it's rather doubtful that they know what they're doing.
Never be afraid to ask questions and express any doubts to your teacher, because your understanding is an important part of your learning process and their ability to clarify and justify their methods is an important indicator of their competence as teachers.
Julian Griffiths
Tel. 34 696 798 853
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Author: kdk
Date: 2024-05-15 22:19
A few thoughts:
I worked with adult students occasionally over my career. It always seemed important to me to figure out with the adult learner what his or her goals were. Just wanting to "improve" depended heavily on what the student wanted to do musically.
Adults are not children in grown-up bodies. They have careers and jobs, they have family and social needs and obligations, and they have any number of other demands made regularly on their time, so practice time may be limited and needs to be more goal-focused than that of a younger student. As the teacher, the best I can do is provide a framework, a set of experiences within which the student can approach his or her own goals. I can't (and wouldn't presume to) set the goals myself.
Part of this teaching-learning process includes discussion about the student's interests and how the teacher's experiences can support them. It depends on the teacher's receptiveness to questions and the student's willingness to ask about the things that seem like important things to improve. And, of course, if the teacher notices a specific technical need or deficit, the student's openness to suggestions about filling those needs is important. If the result seems random, I think that's less important than whether or not there is improvement, linear or not.
"There's absolutely something I can still learn, e.g. better staccato, better tone quality," goes without saying for any of us. Even highly skilled players continue to learn.
As for solo repertoire, once you have mutual trust between yourself and a teacher, the teacher can guide you. Or you can ask about pieces you find by trolling around YouTube or online sheet-music outlets. There needs to be some mutual understanding about your expectation. Jazz? "Classical?" Folk? Klezmer? (I had one student for whom this was his only interest.) Music to play at home? Chamber music to play with friends?
Karl
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Author: m1964
Date: 2024-05-17 03:04
Karl,
I find your reply very thoughtful.
As a teacher, do you expect your students to trust you 100% ?
I think that since OP is doubting the teacher, he/she may think that the teacher is picking up the material randomly.
The teacher, however, may have a good idea about the needs of the OP.
What would you do in a situation like that?
Thank you
*** I trust my teacher 100% .
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Author: kdk
Date: 2024-05-17 17:24
m1964 wrote:
> Karl,
> I find your reply very thoughtful.
> As a teacher, do you expect your students to trust you 100% ?
>
Not at first. Until we've worked together for awhile, the process is more transactional - you tell me what you want to be able to do or do better, and I tell you if I think I can help.
> I think that since OP is doubting the teacher, he/she may think
> that the teacher is picking up the material randomly.
> The teacher, however, may have a good idea about the needs of
> the OP.
>
> What would you do in a situation like that?
The OP and the teacher should have had some conversation about the OP's goals. There's no road map possible without knowing where you're trying to go. Then the teacher suggests some possible routes (materials, musical genres/styles the student finds interesting, practice techniques). There should be some level of agreement almost from the outset of an adult teacher-learner relationship. There shouldn't (IMO) be any kind of "black box" portion of the process. Both should have an idea of where the process is meant to lead and how it is meant to get there. There shouldn't be an authority-submissive element involved, even (IMO) in an adult teacher-child learner relationship, much less an all grown-up one.
The student can't come to a teacher and productively say "Please make my staccato better." The question really needs to be, "What do *I* need to change to make my staccato better?" The student/learner has to make (be open to making) the conscious changes. The teacher provides guidance and support. Both have a responsibility for making the changes possible.
In the OP's case, a serious (non-adversarial) conversation would still be worth having. If the teacher really has no plan and is unable to suggest any, then it may be time to look for another teacher. I think it's important for both to be consciously on the same path.
Karl
Post Edited (2024-05-17 20:20)
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Author: Julian ibiza
Date: 2024-05-17 20:07
I agree with Karl that the OP, or anyone in that position, really just needs to overcome their shyness, or any sense that it is inappropriate for them to express openly with their teacher regarding feelings, objectives and any doubts and questions they may have regarding their lessons and assignments. Failing that, naturally one tends to doubt and speculate..... sometimes that's never a good builder in any relationship.
Julian Griffiths
Tel. 34 696 798 853
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Author: David Eichler
Date: 2024-05-18 01:20
"I worked with adult students occasionally over my career. It always seemed important to me to figure out with the adult learner what his or her goals were."
Bingo. I started out as a guitar player. I didn't start learning clarinet and sax until around age 30. I started first on clarinet because I just liked the sound of the instrument, and then starting working on sax shortly after, because my teacher played both and I also liked the sax. I didn't know what my goal was exactly at the very beginning. I just wanted to play, and to play well, if I was going to put in the effort and expense. My goal quickly became to play jazz at a level where I could at least sit in with pros for a few tunes and know what I was doing, even if I might not be able to do everything they could do technically and expressively, and maybe to do some gigs with people closer to my own level who can at least play competently, which I think I more or less achieved. I felt that some classical training would help with developing technique. Plus I just like playing classical music too.
Post Edited (2024-05-18 02:24)
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Author: Dan Shusta
Date: 2024-05-18 01:44
musiklover,
Since no one else mentioned it above, Welcome to the Woodwind Clarinet Bulletin Board!
I regard this forum as truly outstanding because of the number of seasoned players and teachers who post here and respond to questions of all kinds.
Welcome back to playing the clarinet again and I hope that you are able to resolve the issues you have with your current teacher.
I hope that you visit here often in the future.
Post Edited (2024-05-18 01:56)
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Author: musiklover
Date: 2024-05-18 10:49
Thank you all for the generous replies, and thank Dan Shusta for the welcome
Regarding the staccato, I did ask precisely that question as Karl mentioned, "What do I need to change to make it better?". I also explicitly asked whether there are some exercises I can do. My teacher did provide me an exercise. But then as I said, the course materials are still the same and does not focus on my deficiencies.
Although I recognise the improvement (the more you practice, the more you improve), it just feels like any student who walk in that classroom might receive the same assignment. But for me, private lessons should be more tailored.
I do know the importance of trusting teachers. That's actually why I posted here to make sure if it is a normal feeling to have since there are no more fixed curriculum for student like me. But like many of you mentioned, maybe I should have a deeper conversation with my teacher.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2024-05-18 17:41
musiklover wrote:
> Thank you all for the generous replies, and thank Dan Shusta
> for the welcome
>
I second the welcome!
> Regarding the staccato, I did ask precisely that question as
> Karl mentioned, "What do I need to change to make it better?".
> I also explicitly asked whether there are some exercises I can
> do. My teacher did provide me an exercise. But then as I said,
> the course materials are still the same and does not focus on
> my deficiencies.
What was the teacher's response? Was there any discussion? Or just, "here's an exercise to practice"?
>
> Although I recognise the improvement (the more you practice,
> the more you improve), it just feels like any student who walk
> in that classroom might receive the same assignment. But for
> me, private lessons should be more tailored.
>
There are definitely teachers who take a one-process-for-all approach to teaching. If you do everything I ask/tell you to do, you will become a higly skilled player.
Or not, for any number of reasons.
An exercise by itself can't really improve much of anything if you practice it with inefficient or counterproductive (deficient?) technique without knowing what it's supposed to fix. At some point, IMO, there needs to be some analysis done by the teacher *and shared with the student* (no black boxes) of the physical/technical changes that are needed to produce an improvement. Teaching is largely a diagnostic activity - listening to the student's playing to hear what needs to change - followed by suggestions of specific ways to make the change. The suggestions can take any number of forms, from simple modeling by the teacher to longer verbal explanations of the physical processes involved. The same exercise may be given to two students but with very different analyses and different suggestions to address each student's individual needs.
> I do know the importance of trusting teachers. That's actually
> why I posted here to make sure if it is a normal feeling to
> have since there are no more fixed curriculum for student like
> me. But like many of you mentioned, maybe I should have a
> deeper conversation with my teacher.
>
Absolutely. It's the only way to know if there's method in the teacher's approach, or if it's a purely, unthinkingly mechanical one.
Enjoy the process and the playing.
Karl
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Author: Slowoldman
Date: 2024-05-18 18:55
When I returned to playing as an adult (12 years ago, at age 61), I realized that as a youngster, I had been instructed to do certain exercises ("Play scales", for instance), but was never told why I was doing them, what I was supposed to learn, nor how to do them correctly. Another example was "Use a metronome"--No discussion of why or how, so as a teenager, I assumed it was simply to make me go faster (with obvious negative effects on any technique I had!).
So I think the important questions for any assignment include: What is the purpose of doing this? What is the correct way to do it so that I learn what is intended? If your teacher is unable or unwilling to guide you in this way, I would say it's a problem.
Amateur musician, retired physician
Delaware Valley Wind Symphony, clarinet 1
Bucks County Symphony Orchestra, clarinet 2 (sub)
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Author: m1964
Date: 2024-05-19 02:42
I just want to underscore that the OP improved, in just a few months.
So, something was done right by his/her teacher.
I started to feel improvement only after a few months of taking lessons. And those improvement came very slowly. The age, physical limitations, practice time are factors that need to be considered.
We do not know how often the OP sees the teacher and how long are his/her lesson.
I feel that for an amateur musician it may be difficult to judge skills of the teacher, and there comes importance of trusting the teacher, IMO.
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Author: David Eichler
Date: 2024-05-19 06:41
m1964 wrote:
>
> I feel that for an amateur musician it may be difficult to
> judge skills of the teacher, and there comes importance of
> trusting the teacher, IMO.
>
I think this can be crucial. A teacher's experience as both a performer and a teacher can be very helpful to know, though not all great players are great teachers, and some teachers that have not done much professional playing can still be fine teachers. I was not that picky when I chose my first teacher, but he (Michael Davenport, in Seattle) turned out to be a very experienced and capable player and teacher, and I got a good start with him. As I moved to different places, I subsequently sought out and studied with the primary clarinetists of the Hartford Symphony, and a very experienced NYC/LA studio woodwind player (Victor Morosco) for further study.
Knowing whom the teacher studied with can be very useful to know. Among the teachers my teachers studied with were Leon Russianoff, Joe Allard, Daniel Bonade, Vincent Abato, and Mitchell Lurie. That is a lot of really high level training among the various teachers, so I felt I was in good hands.
In the end, I felt I needed to concentrate on saxophone, since I felt that better suited me for playing jazz, but I really value the experience I got studying clarinet.
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Author: Chris Sereque
Date: 2024-05-20 07:06
Along with having a good teacher who understands the mechanics of playing, it is also important to have a good idea of what good playing is, by listening to fine playing. Just listening to what a good staccato sounds like can provide insights into how it is done. Also, playing “slow motion” staccato can be interesting: i.e. tongue on reed, air behind tongue, slooow releeease of tongue, etc. Good luck!
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Author: musiklover
Date: 2024-05-20 19:05
For the staccato, she presented an exercise to me. It was to play a scale with the same note for four quarter notes, then eighth notes, then sixteenth notes. Then move on to the new note with same pattern. She told me to think as if in-between the notes are rests, so each notes are shorter. She emphasised that this takes time to get better, and of course I believe that. However, other than that, there were nothing else regarding the staccato.
I thought, once she saw my deficiency on staccato, she would pick some etudes or exercises for me to practice.
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Author: m1964
Date: 2024-05-20 19:58
musiklover wrote:
> For the staccato, she presented an exercise to me. It was to
> play a scale with the same note for four quarter notes, then
> eighth notes, then sixteenth notes. Then move on to the new
> note with same pattern. She told me to think as if in-between
> the notes are rests, so each notes are shorter. She emphasised
> that this takes time to get better, and of course I believe
> that. However, other than that, there were nothing else
> regarding the staccato.
>
> I thought, once she saw my deficiency on staccato, she would
> pick some etudes or exercises for me to practice.
>
I have problems playing staccato in faster tempo too. My improgements came very very slowly.
Before attempting to play fast, the attack/ tongue movement needs to be established, with good air pressure/support behind the attack.
I hope someone will reply and describe how to improve/establish proper attack and strategies to improve staccato. Except, it would not be taylored to you or me - that's where the teacher comes in.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2024-05-20 20:44
musiklover wrote:
> I thought, once she saw my deficiency on staccato, she would
> pick some etudes or exercises for me to practice.
>
For me, exercises and etudes to practice are beside the point without a preceding discussion and understanding about what you hear as your staccato deficiencies and what the teacher hears from listening to you play. Exercises are useless if you don't know what needs to change. You'll just keep articulating (or doing anything else) the same way.
Without hearing you play, I don't know if there's a real problem or it's just that what you hear is not what anyone else hears (we never hear ourselves as others do). *If* something needs to change, you need to know what it is. Then, an exercise or etude can help focus your attention on what you're trying to do. Part of the teacher's job is to explain the needed changes in whatever ways work best.
Karl
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