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Re: Support

Author: graham
Date: 2005-05-23 08:35

Yes this is really good stuff.

Just to expand the discussion a bit further: Using the word "support" in the sense of a source of helpful resistance, another significant source of support is the resistance offered by the mouthpiece reed interface. That is fixed (or is it? because certain reeds seem to change resistance depending on the dynamic being played, and not in the way logic might dictate). In a sense this resistance "assists" the diaphragm in its role as supporter of the stomach muscles. Players who prefer more resitant set ups would therefore appear to require less effort or even refinement of performance on the part of the diaphragm. Softer set ups require more subtlety of diaphragm response.

Thus much I was told by my last teacher more than 20 years ago. But what does that tell us also about instruments that, whatever the apparent resistance in the set up tend in any case to consume more air? For example, I find playing the bass clarinet more difficult to "support" since even though I can (if I choose) play on a hard set up, it does have the tendency to use much more air that a B flat, and that seems to mean that the support needs to be that much more carefully done. This means that I am more careful with this instrument to use such techniques as building up pressure behind the tongue and then releasing to start the note (rather than attacking the note in one manoevre), than I am with a B flat. I then find that, when I seem not to have sufficient time to prepare in this way, I can too easily come to grief. But on an E flat (on which I am much less experienced than the bass), I feel almost able to discard the notion of support (not that it is wise to do that), because the very slow usage of air seems to lend a more natural support form the instrument.

I hope these comments make some sense.

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Tony Pay

2005-05-21 14:58