 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Dan Oberlin ★2017
Date: 2005-11-30 11:50
In his book, The Clarinet and Clarinet Playing, David Pino identifies
relaxation, which he defines as the absence of unnecessary muscular
tension, as "the most fundamental aspect of playing clarinet". I'm
interested in hearing from those who play for a living (or have done so in
the past) or are in college as clarinet majors or principals about:
(1) the degree to which they are concerned with monitoring unnecessary
tension in their daily playing,
(2) if this tension is something to which they pay attention, the extent
to which they consider themselves successful in eliminating it, and
(3) if they consider that they have been successful in minimizing this
tension, what strategies have worked for them.
Dan
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2005-11-30 12:51
For fast passages, it's important to keep your fingers loose and not move them too far for each change in note. For good tone, some effort may be necessary - but it's easier if you're 'relaxed' about it, not tied in knots inside. And of course, it's bad form to 'bite' the mouthpiece.
I've heard that the origin of these principles is that 'tension' in the body is caused by paired muscles working against each other. It causes wasted effort and hesitancy - but is a natural reaction to mental stress, a sort of defensive posture, I guess. Which is why you mustn't panic when the stave starts to turn black with demisemiquavers. It takes great mental discipline, but they really never go as fast as you think... :-)
Me? I'm rubbish at it. :-D
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2005-11-30 15:43
I think playing from a relaxed state is a real key. I can't uniformly achieve it, but when I can the playing and the musicality is much better.
Recently on this board someone quoted Lester as saying (probably not exact quote, but this is what I remember): "The key is clarinet playing is silence." When I read it I wondered if the use of 'silence' was just a poor translation from the German. Perhaps a better translation would have been "from a still center", ie not tense, relaxed, one with the music? I don't know German, and don't have the original quote, but it makes sense in this interpretation.
I tend to achieve a relaxed state by physically relaxing the muscles, and with mantras such as "I and the clarinet are one," or "I sing through the clarinet", or "Just play it."
For example--one probably everyone has--the Klose 20 Studies, #20, certainly looks intimidating, but it is really very easy from a relaxed state, and frightfully difficult tensed up. With that one, I use the mantra, "Just play it"
I also find iextended tonguing tends to "tighten me up", adversely affecting tone quality, and playing in general. So I'm concentrating these days on rapid tonguing and maintaining a relaxed state.
The book "Inner Game of Music" addresses alertness and relaxation, expanding on Pino's discussions.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-11-30 16:06
I've had about four ideological "oh, how about that" moments over the past year and a half that have cut down my playing stress by about 80%.
They are, in the order they happened:
- People want to like to hear you play.
- The most painful thing to me as an audience member is not hearing missed notes, but rather hearing someone miss a note, and because of that, becoming flustered and losing all musicality thereafter.
- Music may very well be one of the few true adventures left in the world.
Two techniques that help as well:
- If you spend enough time becoming intimately familiar with the ins and outs of a piece -- not only learning which notes there are, but where each note is going, how each one is pulling, and even how they would work if the piece was arranged a bit differently (I made a big post on this recently) -- you are likely to have enough to hold on to that you can avoid focusing on nerves. Knowing the notes alone isn't enough, because it can become automatic, and when the notes are automatic, playing becomes passive, allowing you to think about such things as "wow, my hands are jittery."
- Put the music about six inches to a foot further away from you than it normally is. This still allows you to see the music for reference, but mainly by large phrases... it's far enough away that your focus can never get stuck on a single note. Of course, you need to have it under your fingers before this works.
Brute-force techniques personified by the phrases vjoet describes (e.g. "just play it") and similar just don't work for me with any consistency. They require a person to let out a bit of a scream inside and try to feign some sort of mystical connection with the music that you may not have a solid basis for.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2005-11-30 19:07
Alex, I've tried your "music further away" technique and also find it very effective.
If my "Just play it" suggested to you brute-force, that is opposite of what I meant by it or do with it. To me it means get myself out of the way and let the music sing. I don't see anything mystical about that, just a useful way of thinking of it. This gets at what Green/Gallwey suggest in the "Inner Game": Your concentration centers on the sounds you are making and the feel of making those sounds, not on the mechanics of achieving them. To me that's "Just play it."
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2005-12-01 07:22
opkectp - I've had friends swear by Alexander technique and Chiropractice for physical issues - but I haven't tried them myself.
vjoet, EEBaum -
I can relate to your posts. I like the 'music further away' idea - it's not just about each note and the next, it's about what they mean as a whole - grasp that, and some of the panic goes away. It's not easy, though. Some composers are easier for me than others - but when you begin to understand what they meant, the music seems to get simpler and more obvious. Ever noticed how some composers seem to understand the instrument better than others? Personally I'm thinking of e.g. Crusell and Weber - unusual names outside clarinet circles. But it's only in recent years that Crusell has felt like this - the piece I did for my Grade 5 exam nearly finished me. Even now, twelve-tone holds many mysteries for me - but they're looking less frightening since my experience with Walton.
As for sudden moments of insight, which I think must come from within - you can't force them on a student -
the day I realised the clarinet wasn't a seperate object but an extension of my own voice was the day I got a decent tone.
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Author: bass9396
Date: 2005-12-02 23:44
It's all mental folks. I pound my students with the idea that they're smarter than me and can do anything. Which is true.
When you realize that everybody screws up (Harry Sparnaay, Larry Combs, Richard Stolzman, Michael Lowenstern, Eddie Daniels, whoever) you become immediately liberated to play anything, do anything, not care how tough it is. I have a student right now who is an excellent player(she made All-State in 8th grade, that says it all).....but the second she figures out she can do anything she will catapult over some excellent players in front of her simply due to her attitude.
We make the Clarinet seem so hard. We allow "academia" to mystify the instrument. Why? To what end? Why do we attack our students with exercises and methods that they could care less about when we could teach them a method that works for them? So we can have a discussion on the BBoard about tension? That's where it comes from folks......all those hours playing Klose page 123 when it wasn't doing anything for you.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2005-12-05 08:54
Like it, bass9396! 'Confidence' is ... finding yourself one day having a drink with three other clarinetists and a conductor/pianist who also find Emma Johnson's tone quite insufferable... :-D ... Nothing personal! - it's about realising there's a place for you in a world dominated by the recorded sound of others.
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Author: aberkow
Date: 2005-12-05 12:31
I think most of the time I don't think about whether I'm tense or not anymore.
So, I think I've had at least some success. One trick was not praciticing when I was hurting myself (esp. hands/mouth). This is especially important. I've also had some of the mental realizations other board members have had regarding the audience/mistakes and confidence. I think that part of this is a mental state of disinterest. This doesn't mean that I don't care how I play. After all what can you do about mistakes in music? Nothing. Of course you should practice to make sure that similar mistakes don't happen in other pieces. But, just like the rest of your performance it's gone as soon as you make it.
Adam B
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