 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Stephanie
Date: 2001-12-10 03:13
Ok. Our chair tryout music is a few lines of straight eighth notes. Really, it's not ahrd as far as articulation and all, but I'm a bit confused about how to breathe. If I play the piece with no pauses whatsoever, I tend to leave a couple notes out so i can breathe. I order to play all the notes, I have longer spaces (like the equivalent of a quarter rest) where I breathe, which is ever four measures, but this sounds just as awkward as the first. So what do I do?
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Author: Lisa L
Date: 2001-12-10 12:41
Stephanie: What has helped me is breathing a whole measure before you start. Then you're filled with air when you start playing. Have you tried that? I.e, if the first measure of music has four beats, why don't you breathe for the four beats first and then begin to play?
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Author: Pam
Date: 2001-12-10 21:39
I have a similar problem with my breathing and my private instructor tells me that I should try to take smaller quick breaths more frequently instead of waiting till I'm gasping for air and need to skip notes to get enough.
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Author: Stephanie
Date: 2001-12-11 03:11
Uh, i have tried the breathing 4 counts before actually playing, but i still run out of air about midway. And if I take quicker breaths more frequently, which would be like every to measures, it, well.....I dunno. It just doesn't sound right. Thanx tho!
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-12-24 17:50
Stephanie -
No one expects you to play the entire passage without breathing. Even if you could, it wouldn't sound right. Part of playing the audition piece well is knowing the right places to breathe.
The place to breath is between phrases. The place where phrases end is signalled by a change in harmony. That means you need to know and hear the harmony.
If the audition passage is from a band clarinet part, get the full score from the band director and watch the bass line while someone else plays the clarinet part. If that isn't enough, play the audition part and the bass line together on the piano, or get together with a bass clarinetist or bassoonist (or even a tuba player who can play softly).
Even if the audition piece is an unaccompanied etude, the harmony is there by implication, and you need to teach yourself to hear it.
Tonal music is usually written in groups of 4 bars. The place to start out is breathing every 4 bars. If the beginning has a pickup, the next phrase will most likely have one, too. Thus, if there's, say, a 3 note pickup, you breath again 3 notes before the end of the 4th bar, and play those last 3 notes as a pickup to the next phrase.
If you want to play evenly, you'll have to shorten an eighth to a 16th or even a 32nd to leave room to breathe. If there still isn't room, you have two choices -- leave out a note or take extra time. If the tempo is really fast, it's usually best to leave out a note. If it's medium fast, or slower, you need to take a bit of extra time. The problem is how to do it gracefully, and once again, the answer is to slow down a bit at the end of a phrase, take a breath and then resume the tempo.
If the director insists that you keep a steady tempo, then you'll just have to drop a note. It's OK, and helpful, to tell the director that in an actual performance, you and your stand-mate will agree that the two of you will breathe in different places, so all the notes get played.
By the way, what's the audition piece. Someone on the board will have played it and can give you specific guidance.
Good luck.
Ken Shaw
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