The Clarinet BBoard

Re: Which pinky do I slide?

Author: SecondTry  Date:   2026-04-25 20:33 Attachment:  left hand pinky ab eb exercises.jpg (292k) If I were teaching this to a new student I'd first show them how, with a pointer finger, to grab some (I know, yuk) skin grease from behind their ear and place it on the right pinky / and / keys to facilitate sliding off these keys to the ones directly below. Then, I'd have then slide down from the to the : in my opinion the easiest approach here. But I would not stop there. Next, I'd use this as an opportunity to teach mid note pinky swaps, where the same note, be it a /, or a / is held, while the pinky that first played the note was swapped for the other in anticipation of freeing up a pinky to make the next note (say a / where, at least on most clarinets, and left pinky key to do so isn't available. In this case that would involve playing the initially with the left pinky and then mid, note, swapping it for the right pinky to make the playable with the left pinky. As a parenthetic note, I use an electronic reader and have, as per the attached exercises, notations throughout my music with reminders like "slide" "LR" and "RL" the latter two pinky swaps between the left and right, and right and left pinkies mid-note respectively. I've dubbed this "Lori-ing"...the name Lori have an "L" and an "R" in it. While I am of the believe that only the most virtuosic of players can site read the "pinky sequence from hell," knowing either what pinky to take a note with ahead of time in a complex series of notes, or at speeds, knowing and being able to switch pinkies so fast and smoothly, I also hold the belief that there are certain patterns in music, like arpeggios in "Eb" or "Ab" etc. that should train the player that their best efforts are probably met playing a with the left pinky an anticipation of the that comes after it. Clarinets of the past 30 years have been offering left pinky / keys. Vendors have https://tinyurl.com/535p8c4w made available retrofit keys to do so. Drucker, on the other hand, presented with a Festival Buffet, which at the time had the quality wood that the R13 had in its golden age (but not today)--which had this key--had it removed, having learned pinky swaps. Post Edited (2026-04-25 20:35)

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