The Clarinet BBoard

Re: Octave jumps

Author: mrn  Date:   2009-08-13 03:28 You're talking about Rose Etude #8 (in e minor), measures 35-36, right? For the low G to open G and low A to throat A, I keep my right hand fingers down during the slur and change the right hand from the G to the A during the open G. Practice this slowly and gradually speed it up and that will make measure 35 a lot easier. For the second half of measure 35 and measure 36, the thing that I think is tricky is that you have to alternately press and release the register key while holding your thumb on the thumb hole. That's very hard to do quickly. The "pipeish" noise you are describing (if it's what I think it is) is caused by the fact that your fingers on top of the instrument are changing fingerings faster than your thumb is pressing the register key--the result is that you get a brief low-register note before the high-register note comes out. I don't know how to fix this problem other than to practice slowly and gradually speed up--maybe somebody has an exercise or a teaching metaphor that might help with this. If so, I'm interested in hearing about it. To eliminate the squeaking, you have to get used to switching between high resistance notes (like the low Gs and the high Bs) and low resistance notes (like open G). To do this, you have to keep your embouchure constant and play with good air support. (You also need to make sure you don't have any hidden leaks in your instrument, because that will mess you up, too.) High resistance notes take more air pressure to get the same amount of air flow, so in going from high resistance to low resistance (like low G to open G) you have to make sure you don't overblow the open G (which will cause a squeak). On the other hand, when you go across the break, you have the opposite problem--you have to put a little more energy into the low-register notes and carry that energy through across the break, because if you don't have enough air pressure when you hit the note(s) across the break, they won't speak properly. Post Edited (2009-08-13 04:03)

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