Author: Kat
Date: 2002-09-23 14:58
I have one very young student. She started last winter, at the age of 8. She's small for 8, too.
However, for the first few lessons, I had her playing while holding the barrel with her right hand. As I introduced the right hand position, I told her to play with the r.h. in its correct place for a few minutes a day.
When even that became too much for the right thumb, we got her a neckstrap. That seems to help. I'm not sure what problems you refer to with respect to the neckstrap though.
Another thing is that her fingers are somewhat short, so sometimes covering the r.h. holes can be a problem. Hopefully your guys have horns with smaller holes...the Selmers are particularly bad in that respect. My student has a Vito, which has smaller tone holes.
One other thing: As we've gotten into the low chalumeau register lately, we've discovered that it's difficult for her to reach the r.h. low F key while covering the holes completely. My solution: teach her the l.h. fingering first...sometimes you have to make allowances to your normal teaching routine.
Another approach I've taken is to limit the introduction of clarion register. I don't think she's ready to go up there with the problems that small fingers create! So I've got her working from several method books at once. The only challenge is that she really gets the MUSIC aspects naturally and she gets bored easily. It would be great if I could come up with some more difficult music that doesn't go into the clarion...
Anyhow, that's how I'm dealing with the challenges...
Katrina
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The Clarinet BBoard
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