 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: as9934
Date: 2014-02-11 08:17
I am the second chair clarinet player in my schools band and I love playing jazz on my clarinet but this year our director eliminated the jazz program at our school. Are there any good jazz books for clarinet? Does anyone know of a good clarinet teacher who plays jazz in the western nc area? How else can I improve my jazz playing. Should I get any new equipment?
Currently playing on a Buffet e13 with both a vandoren 5rv and a vandoren b45 mouthpiece with a cloth rovner ligature. I use standard vandoren reeds strength 3.5. I have been playing the clarinet for five and a half years and been playing in a jazz band for three. In jazz band i also played the tenor sax and bass clarinet. I have also taken a class on improvisation. I currently own the essential elements tenor sax jazz book.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-02-11 04:51
In addition to the Shaw and Goodman books, try Bill Smith's Book "Jazz Clarinet." http://www.parksidepublications.com/jazzclarinet.html.
Bill Smith was better known as William O. Smith, a frequent member of several of Dave Brubeck's jazz groups, including the early Dave Brubeck Octet.
Bill Smith wrote, performed, and recorded his own Concerto for Clarinet for Jazz Combo. Mike McGinnis on YouTube gives a more recent rendition of this composition, which deserves to be better-known and played more often.
Smith's book is recommended by both Buddy DeFranco and Eddie Daniels.
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Author: Wes
Date: 2014-02-11 06:26
1. Buy the "Band in a Box" software for your computer, perhaps about $60. You can put in the chord changes for tunes you like from the "Bb Real Book #1" and play along with them from your copy of the "Real Book", about $25 at Amazon.com. The "Bb Real Book" is often used for jazz jam sessions all over the USA, as it has many standard jazz tunes.
2. Get the "Omnibook" by Charlie Parker to read and learn jazz phrasing, also at Amazon.com. It was originally copied for Eb alto saxophone and later transcribed for Bb instruments. The Eb version lays better for any saxophone, as the Bb version sometimes goes to low for the tenor saxophone. The Bb version is not too low for the clarinet, however.
3.Try the "key of the day" exercise where you play without music in one key per day, with scales and chords in that key plus exercises in that key that you make up. To play jazz, one must be fluent in all keys without music because that is needed. If you follow this, you can go through all the major keys in 12 days, then start over. You apparently have already learned the scales and chords in all keys.
4. Play along with CDs of your favorite jazz soloists. You may be able to follow along with a lead sheet of the tune from the "Real Book". It may help you if you use earphones and don't play too loud or cover up what you are listening to and trying to play with.
5. Try to find a guitar or piano player to play along with the "Real Book" tunes with you, using the C book for them.
6. Good luck and have a lot of fun. You could print these suggestions if you wish.
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Author: ned
Date: 2014-02-11 13:24
Listen closely and copy note-for-note, melodies and solos from the desired group of jazz musos you wish to emulate. Throw away the sheet music - it will get you nowhere in jazz - it's your ear you want to develop!
If New Orleans based jazz is your bag start with J Dodds, J Noone, O Simeon, B Bigard....there are heaps more...search this forum for countless other posts similar to yours.
good luck
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2014-02-11 13:27
Hey Ari,
If you're into jazz clarinet, you might want to check out the various post on my blog (in my signature below).
I highly recommend immersing yourself in jazz clarinet recordings (for me the two most important were always Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw), transcribing their solos, and finding someone to run changes with.
Keep swinging!
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: cyclopathic
Date: 2014-02-11 19:50
MarlboroughMan wrote:
> I highly recommend immersing yourself in jazz clarinet
> recordings (for me the two most important were always Benny
> Goodman and Artie Shaw), transcribing their solos, and finding
> someone to run changes with.
>
there are tons of recordings on Pandora just put names of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Kenny Davern, Eddie Daniels, Sidney Bechet, George Lewis..
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Author: as9934
Date: 2014-02-11 20:09
Thank you for all your replies, they have really helped. What about new equipment? Can I just use the b45 on my e13 or should a get a jazz mouthpiece? What about barrels, ligatures, and reeds?
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Author: brycon
Date: 2014-02-11 20:14
Rather than posting my normal reply to this topic, which amounts to:
Books and new equipment = waste of time and money
Recordings and playing with people = time and money well spent
I have this wonderfully snarky article to share:
http://jazzadvice.com/how-to-be-mediocre/
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Author: 42cheese
Date: 2014-02-13 10:47
That is a fantastic article brycon, thanks for sharing!
as9934: I'm sorry your jazz program got cut! It's awful how the most important parts of the school system are always the first ones to go.
I'm also a jazz clarinetist. I live in Massachusetts and don't know any teachers outside of New England, but if you have a band that you play with regularly, that's plenty to keep you going. But obviously a good jazz teacher is a tremendous help. Take jazz piano lessons too, if you can—it really helps to solidify music theory.
As many members have already said, jazz is about listening and playing together. Other than the Real Book and the Omnibooks which are great, books have never done anything for me. Improving your sight-reading can't hurt, but the art of jazz cannot be learned via dots on a page. Listen to as much jazz as you can and play together as often as possible!!! And listen to all jazzers, not just clarinetists (especially seeing as there are relatively few of them). And listening to other genres and fusion genres can give you great inspiration too. I listen to a lot of progressive metal, for instance.
When I finally started seriously listening to jazz, and again when I joined a serious group, it was a total DUH. Everything I was playing suddenly made perfect sense and I have kicked myself every day since then for not starting both sooner. Musical ideas start swirling through your head and as you get better at giving voice to them through your horn, you come to realize jazz.
Once you have jazz deeply in your soul (and of course have your basic clarinet technique down), it's time to work on technical improvisational mastery:
1. take a riff (could be just an interval, or a long run)
2. play it up, down, sideways, backwards, inside out, etc. through the entire range of the clarinet
3. in all pentatonic, heptatonic, octatonic, hexatonic scales, the chromatic scale, etc.
4. and symmetrically (set intervals, changing keys)
1. then take another riff and do the same. The possibilities are limitless!
Equipment-wise, if your clarinet and m'piece feel right and give you a nice, big, colorful sound, you've got all that you need. Save your money for that $15,000 custom clarinet you can get once you're famous.
---Sean
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-02-13 16:12
Listen to Bill Smith's Concerto for Clarinet and Combo. Bluesy cool. Makes you wonder why Gil Evans never wrote anything for clarinet and jazz ensemble.
The original recording by Smith is still accessible on Internet too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfvR4UFUw24 for the new live recording session. Jeff Hermanson plays some great trumpet.
The concerto, along with Nelson Riddle's Cross Country Suite (for Buddy DeFranco) both deserve to be brought back and played by today's clarinetists.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-02-13 21:37
The score for Smith's Concerto (including performance comments by him) is available from Parkside Publications.
http://www.parksidepublications.com/concerto.html.
Smith should not be written out of the history of jazz clarinet; he should be written into it, listened to, and his book should be read for the transcriptions of jazz clarinet performances he provides and for what he has to say about improvisation.
In his biography, New Orleans jazz clarinetist and Duke Ellington stalwart Barney Bigard recalls with fondness that all the New Orleans jazz clarinetists looked up to Lorenzo Tio because Tio could read music so well along with improvising it by ear, and he was literate enough to talk sensitively and accurately about it. All these qualities combined to make him a good teacher.
Buddy DeFranco and Eddie Daniels recommend Smith's book because Smith has some of those same qualities.
Post Edited (2014-02-13 16:38)
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