Keepers

Keepers The C4 standard

New Topic | Go to Top | Go to Topic | Search | Help/Rules | Smileys/Notes | Log In

Re: Blowing terminology

Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-09-19 20:44

First of all, I hope that there are a few people in addition to yourself and myself who are following this thread. Perhaps I am unusual in wanting to understand how the fundamentals of my playing work, as well as being able to play; but there must be others who have the same aspiration.

I always found it embarrassing not to be able to explain properly to my students how support works. So when I found out (a) how it does work; and (b) that it was what I and other good players had been doing all along without realising, it struck me with revelatory force.

And, thank you for being willing to go on engaging with this. When I didn't understand your final batch of questions last night, and replied with gobbledegook, it was just that I was tired and couldn't face trying to imagine what you could possibly mean.

But that, of course, is the job: to persist until we find out what assumptions we are making about the situation that prevent us from understanding each other.

You write:

>> Tony says:

Quote:

"You can play perfectly well at any dynamic without using support, the model being what you do when you play fff. To do it at a lower dynamic, you just blow less."

>> This seems very close to saying "you don't need to support" when playing the clarinet; just blow...to deny that you consciously or unconsciously use support when playing doesn't make sense.>>

Well, let's look at WHY it doesn't make sense to you.

What I say is that playing the clarinet uses all sorts of techniques, and that 'support' is one of them. It may very well be true that I use support more of the time in my playing than I don't use support; but I still maintain that there are passages where support isn't NECESSARY.

It may even be true that MOST good clarinet players use support more of the time in their playing than they don't use support; but I STILL maintain that there are passages where support isn't necessary. In fact, just the notion that we can use a variety of degrees of support to advantage in different passages implies that very little support (or no support) is at least a possibility.

When you fully understand that support is diaphragmatic resistance to blowing, then that becomes a commonplace statement of fact.

>> I am dividing things into two parts....conscious of the technique or oblivious/unconscious of the technique.>>

First of all, we have to separate the words 'oblivious' and 'unconscious'.

For at least the first third of my professional career I was both oblivious and unconscious of support.

I was oblivious of it because I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS. I heard the word 'support' used, and even used the word 'support', but I really didn't understand what it meant. I think that that's the case for many very able clarinet players. THEY don't really understand the word 'support' either. You can tell that from the things that even the best of them write in books. But don't get me wrong -- that doesn't mean that they don't USE support, and even use it very elegantly, in many cases probably more elegantly than me.

So I, like them, was using support without understanding it.

Then, I came to understand it, and so was no longer OBLIVIOUS of it. But my understanding of it revealed that, in a very surprising way, 'support' can be said to be 'unconscious'. That's so because the diaphragm, unlike most of the muscles that we can use INTENTIONALLY, has no sensory nerves in it; so that we can't tell directly that we're using it. (I won't go on about that here, because I've described it already three or four times, but especially clearly I think, in (AGAIN!!):

http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2008/01/000124.txt)

So then I understood in what sense it is unconscious. That understanding made it possible for me to choose to play passages with varying degrees of support. No longer was I using it at random.

I found that the understanding simplified playing for me. If you like, it was one mystery less.

>> There is no question....we use support when we play the clarinet.....I assume you are not denying it but it does seem that way.>>

So, what I'm saying is, YES, there is a question. The question is, "How much support shall we use here? None, a little, or a lot?"

Get it??-)

>> Moreover if "You can play perfectly well at any dynamic without using support" there must be something else that replaces support.>>

Actually, no.

>> 5+3=8 You cannot replace the 3 with 0 and still get 8 for the answer.>>

But the appropriate two equations here are:

8 (blow) - 3 (support) = 5 (effect) [because the support REDUCES the blowing]

Replace the 3 with 0, and blow less:

5 (blow) = 5 (effect)

Tony

Avail. Forums | Flat View

Newer Topic | Older Topic

Topics

Author

Date

Blowing terminology new

Arnoldstang

2008-09-18 15:10