 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tyler
Date: 2005-12-29 02:32
I got Ridenour's Educator's Guide to Clarinet Playing book for Christmas, read it in two days, and tried applying some of the concepts with varying degrees of success.
I have heard Tom Ridenour play in a masterclass, and I believe, based on his amazingly fluid tone, that what he teaches must be, although perhaps not perfect (of course), very close to 'correct'.
First, I am getting close to understanding breathing, but if anyone can provide other imagery besides "pushing the air down and out", "making the lower abdomen feel distended", or "aerosol can air", I may be able to understand support better, and what doing it correctly should FEEL like.
Secondly, Ridenour says that the teeth should be aligned vertically, as when blowing on the tip of one's nose. Although I only have a very minor overbite (as, AFAIK, many people do), keeping my teeth aligned in this way when playing seems to produce too much tension in my jaw. Is this vertical alignment completely necessary for efficient tone production? Is there another way to think about doing it so my jaw doesn't become so tense??
Thank you so much for any helpful replies!
-Tyler
PS: Does anyone find the suggestions of David Pino as far as tongue position (low/forward) to be superior in tone production to the more widely accepted (high/back or "eeh") position?
Post Edited (2005-12-29 03:31)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2005-12-29 13:40
Stick the mouthpiece in your mouth without even thinking about teeth alignment or tongue position. Try to tighten your lips around the mouthpiece and blow. You are doing too much thinking about what you are reading......Ridenour's mouth is probably different from yours.
Bob Draznik
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Author: hans
Date: 2005-12-29 14:14
Tyler,
BobD wrote "You are doing too much thinking about what you are reading..." and that's what I thought too, as I read your post.
Hans
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2005-12-29 18:00
No offense to anyone. I think Tyler is really asking for some advice. He may be overthinking a little, but he asked some very good questions in general. I answered via email, so that's not why my reply is here. So, a I agree is just a waste of internet space.
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Author: george
Date: 2005-12-29 18:23
...and we certainly don't want to waste "internet space."
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Author: bob49t
Date: 2005-12-29 18:28
From a dentist's standpoint, prolonged unnatural protusion of the lower jaw can lead to cramping, tension headaches, and possible future problems leading to the umbrella term TMJDS, Temperomandibular joint dysfunction syndrome. All of which will detract form the player's ability to perform happily. In fact, for selected cases (young people in growth spurts), the orthodontist WILL use forward positioning functional appliances to actively change muscle length and to alter the shape of the articulating part of the lower jaw, so that a more normal appearance and function will be gained.
There is a large cache of written material relating to reed players and
(mal)occlusion ......crudely, the way our teeth naturally come together.
Forcing a person with a certain type of "bite" to become another, is at best risky and should not be encouraged outwith the oral surgeon's or the orthodontist's arena. Best to simply alter the angle of the clarinet to the vertical, to facilitate as naturally as possible the "normal" relationship between the m/p and reed and the oral structures.
From a player's point of view, I have recently taken charge of a tenor sax and find that I occasionally DO protrude to effect good control over low notes. This does not happen on sop or alto saxes, so I put it down to the curve of the sax neck. It is fatiguing even for a short while. I'm hunting for a new neck !
RT
BobT
Post Edited (2005-12-29 18:36)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-12-29 18:30
Tyler wrote:
>>I am getting close to understanding breathing, but if anyone can provide other imagery besides "pushing the air down and out", "making the lower abdomen feel distended", or "aerosol can air", I may be able to understand support better...>>
A good picture -- one that explains why, in blowing 'correctly', you don't want to pull in your lower abdomen -- is to imagine your diaphragm as a dome-shaped muscle that flattens into a horizontal disc as you inhale, and returns to its dome shape as you exhale or blow.
Then, rather obviously, pulling in your abdomen complicates the action of that muscle, because it distorts the simple geometry of the dome/disc.
I tried to explain 'support', which is an idea distinct from that of blowing 'correctly', in a post I made here in May:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=181794&t=181794
Other people joined in, but these ideas are always worth revisiting, as different people have different problems with them.
>>...and what doing it correctly should FEEL like.>>
The good news is that doing it correctly shouldn't FEEL like doing anything:-)
Tony
Post Edited (2005-12-29 18:32)
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Author: Tyler
Date: 2005-12-30 00:03
Thank you; I think I agree about the jaw motion being too much. I thought perhaps I could just adjust the clarinet angle.
As far as breathing, I e-mailed Mr. Ridenour and he said to maybe think of how you feel when you take a deep breath and then try to lift something heavy. I'm going to go practice and see if that works for me.
Thanks for any additional replies!
-Tyler
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-12-30 13:17
Tyler wrote:
>> As far as breathing, I e-mailed Mr. Ridenour and he said to maybe think of how you feel when you take a deep breath and then try to lift something heavy. >>
This is one way, although I find that it tends to encourage a degree of support that is too strong for most purposes. (Remember that support is something that admits of degrees.)
I prefer the 'small person as a boxer' metaphor, to begin with. Imagine that your three-year old nephew has been given a tiny pair of boxing gloves as a Christmas present, and wants to punch you. You stick your belly out for him like a punchbag, and slightly flex your abdominal muscles -- because, although he's only little, he might get lucky....:-) That's the sort of position you're in when you play with a small degree of support.
It's worth noticing that you can organise this flexion either before or after you take a breath. Both methods have their advantages. In the previous post I cited earlier in the thread, I wrote in part:
"Robert has rightly got hold of the idea that if you flex your abdominal muscles -- as though someone small was going to punch you in the middle for fun, and you need to protect yourself:-) -- you can still breathe in. This actually feels very like yawning, and it's what I quite often do to begin a phrase.
"Clarinetwife spoke of the opposition between diaphragm and abdominal muscles, saying that the latter "seem to flex to a different degree depending on how much air is taken in, and how deep or shallow the breath is." I want to suggest, on the contrary, that the flexion of the abdominal muscles is something that we can actually *choose*, rather than something that is determined by the breath.
"Look at it like this: you flex your abdominal muscles to some small degree, and then breathe (yawn) in against that resistance. You are now prepared to play with minimal support.
"Then, you flex your abdominal muscles to a greater degree, and breathe (yawn) in against that resistance. You are now prepared to play with significant support.
"Finally, you flex your abdominal muscles really strongly, and breathe (yawn) in against *that* resistance. Notice that this requires quite hard work. You are now prepared to play with maximum support."
Tony
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2005-12-31 01:22
I recently bought Tom's book, and I've learned a bunch from it. I would recomend, without hestitation trying anything that is in his book, and see if it really helps you. Some of his fluidity is due to his playing double lip, I have found that some single lip players achieve this fuidity, but in my OPINION, a higher percentage of double lippers find it. But I find the common denominator is the amount of mouthpiece that one puts in the mouth.
Try this:
A. Turn the mouthpiece sideways and look at the opening of the reed and mouthpiece curve.
B. Take your thumb and press the reed closed at the tip. Notice the ease at which you can accomplish this
C. Start moving your thumb down the reed applying the same pressure. Notice when you get close to the point where the reed leaves the mouthpiece table, it’s really hard to close the reed off at the tip.
D. If your bottom lip is on the tip side of the fulcrum point, where the reed leaves the mouthpiece, you are stifling the reed’s vibration. Most likely you are using a mouthpiece that’s more open than it needs to be or you are using a reed that’s too hard also. You can't vibrate the reed with the embouchure all you can do is stiffle it.
Get enough mouthpiece in your mouth, get a well balanced reed (Tom's ATG kicks tush!) and breath correctly you will get a bouyant sound, and long intervals will seem really close.
After Tom's book, I would go to Tony Pay's web site and watch all the video clips that are there. I would pay good money for a DVD of Pay's videos. Tony are they availible? He sounds fluid and has chops on every kind of clarinet ever made!
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with Lox&Vodka, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in Clarinet performance
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2005-12-31 03:30
Tony Pay wrote:
It's worth noticing that you can organise this flexion either before or after you take a breath. Both methods have their advantages.
I haven't thought of that before. I think in my clarinet playing I have typically thought of "organis(ing) this flexion" after the intake of air. What are some situations where it might be helpful to proceed the other way?
I have had both vocal and clarinet teachers mention to me that Americans tend to breathe shallow and high. Perhaps a medical doctor could correct my way of expressing this, but I wonder if, in automatic breathing (as opposed to breathing in the context of playing the instrument), there is some sort of equilibrium reached between diaphragm and abdominals at the maximum point of inhalation. This natural phenomenon would be a departure point for a discussion of the conscious use of breathing. For example, I was taught and agree that it is more difficult to effectively use abdominal support when the inhalation is shallow and the air stays mostly in the top portion of the lung.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-12-31 05:17
Tom Puwalski wrote, in part:
>> If your bottom lip is on the tip side of the fulcrum point, where the reed leaves the mouthpiece, you are stifling the reed’s vibration.>>
That's true; but the degree to which your flexed lip muscle slightly overlaps the fulcrum point is a measure of the extent to which your embouchure controls the upper partials in the sound.
I think that that's one reason double-lippers tend to produce good sounds. The double lip discourages you from putting too much mouthpiece in your mouth -- so that the lower lip is around the fulcrum point -- but also encourages the lower lip muscle to be flexed, so that the area of contact tip-side of the fulcrum is both very small and subject to (mostly unconscious) modulation, according to what note on the clarinet you're playing and what's required by the music. That means you can learn how to make very subtle adjustments without knowing exactly what you're doing -- without, indeed, knowing that you're doing anything at all.
Fortunately for people like me (I have a short upper lip) this all works with a single lip embouchure if you ensure that the lower lip is flexed and in the optimum position. Understanding the basic principle avoids having to get involved in 'school of playing' wars, as in so many aspects of the clarinet.
>> After Tom's book, I would go to Tony Pay's web site and watch all the video clips that are there.>>
That's kind of you Tom, but I think that as of a few months ago that's no longer possible, gmn having gone up the spout a couple of years ago and finally having got around to taking them down. I don't own the rights to the videos, either, and have no way of making them available.
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-12-31 05:41
clarinetwife wrote:
>> Tony Pay wrote: "It's worth noticing that you can organise this flexion either before or after you take a breath. Both methods have their advantages."
I haven't thought of that before. I think in my clarinet playing I have typically thought of "organis(ing) this flexion" after the intake of air...>>
Yes, me too.
>> ...what are some situations where it might be helpful to proceed the other way?>>
It's particularly helpful when you have to come in both quietly and precisely. The high D entry in Death and Transfiguration springs to mind.
If you inhale against a flexion, you can organise that the slow incoming breath 'turns around' at the moment of entry, so that the note begins both precisely and quietly.
(It also gives you something constructive to do in the second or two before the entry;-)
>> I wonder if, in automatic breathing (as opposed to breathing in the context of playing the instrument), there is some sort of equilibrium reached between diaphragm and abdominals at the maximum point of inhalation.>>
Introspection leads me to conclude that in my case it's just the elasticity of the viscera that returns the diaphragm to equilibrium as it relaxes -- like the rubbish in a bin, which comes back up again when you try to push it down and squeeze in some more:-)
>> This natural phenomenon would be a departure point for a discussion of the conscious use of breathing. For example, I was taught and agree that it is more difficult to effectively use abdominal support when the inhalation is shallow and the air stays mostly in the top portion of the lung.>>
I agree, but I don't find very much difference. As long as I breathe in beginning with abdominal expansion rather than beginning with chest expansion, it still seems to work.
Tony
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Author: Scotti
Date: 2005-12-31 06:08
Here's an idea:
Take a deep breath. If you don't think that gives you the support you need, try slightly altering your breathing until you find what works.
Bet you spend more time actually finding what works instead of pondering the infinite uses of flexion, dome-shaped muscles, and other way-too-specific terms.
Unless you're talking about yawning.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-12-31 14:06
Scotti wrote:
>> Here's an idea:
Take a deep breath. If you don't think that gives you the support you need, try slightly altering your breathing until you find what works.
Bet you spend more time actually finding what works instead of pondering the infinite uses of flexion, dome-shaped muscles, and other way-too-specific terms.
Unless you're talking about yawning.>>
I like the last bit, because inhaling against abdominal flexion is what you do when you yawn, as I pointed out in the other thread I cited. (It almost makes you think he bothered to read what I wrote in detail;-)
But actually, I have more sympathy with the attitude exemplified by his post than you might think -- even though the actual post shows signs of having been written in rather too much of a hurry.
That's because for many years, I refused to talk about breathing to students. I felt that I didn't have anything useful to say about it, and I didn't understand how what other people had said about it was helpful. Still, I had a good physical rapport with the instrument (I was principal clarinet of the London Sinfonietta, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, so I must have been doing something right), and demonstrated and described what it felt like when I played whilst encouraging the students to find their own way.
But, I continued to try to find the basic principles involved. It seemed to me that many students needed to explore different ways of blowing not just in general, but in a smaller area that was more likely to yield success. I felt that I'd been lucky to find out what worked, but was unable to pass on that luck in a useful way, or explain it properly to myself.
It is surprising how confused the literature is: for example what Russianoff says about breathing in his Clarinet Method (book I) implies that the diaphragm is passive rather than active in inhalation: "...the air sucked in goes deep, filliing and expanding your lungs like a balloon. This action presses your diaphragm downward and causes your abdominal and back regions to expand as well."
Instead, it's the action of the diaphragm that sucks the air in, and understanding that allows you to make sense of the idea that the diaphragm can oppose the abdominal (blowing) muscles.
The most important thing struck me with the force of revelation in the course of a class I was giving in Italy, around 20 years ago.
I knew that I could blow 'harder than I played', in the sense that my abdominal muscles could be more flexed in a piano passage than normal. The idea occurred to me to try consciously to keep the abdominal flexion absolutely constant, and look at my experience while I made a diminuendo to nothing.
I found that, not only did my diminuendo occur as elegantly as I'd ever done it, but that during it the only perceptible change was the one that came in through my ears. Nothing in my body seemed to alter.
Then, I realised that that meant something else had to be true: something else that I'd never seen explicitly anywhere in the literature, before or since. It meant that the only information that we can have about changes in the action of the diaphragm whilst we are blowing has to be indirect information, derived from the relationship between how hard we are blowing and the dynamic of the note that comes out. And in fact, I then quickly found that the scientific consensus is that we don't have sensory nerves in the diaphragm.
Now, I'm sorry if that seems too complicated for anyone. (But consider, understanding why planets move in ellipses is much more complicated, and the details have proved worth knowing. This is about on the level of Archimedes' principle, I'd say.) It immediately takes all the mystery out of the half-explanations, and leaves us with the notion that we don't have to do anything complicated to modulate our dynamic level by playing with support. We just keep our abdominal flexion constant, and listen.
So now, I can look through the literature with a clear head. I can say, that description is plain wrong, that one's confusing, that's pretty nearly right (The Clarinet Doctor falls into this category, and Russianoff redeems himself a couple of paragraphs on, even though it's still confusing to me), and so on. I think that for many students, there's too much out there, and they tie themselves up in knots trying to understand what's not really understandable.
It needs to be simpler -- and it is. But you do need to understand the principle.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-12-31 15:42)
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2005-12-31 14:07
Tony Pay wrote:
It's particularly helpful when you have to come in both quietly and precisely.
Actually that is good timing on that point as I am performing the Weber Concertino in March --I will experiment with that on that initial entrance. I want it to be just right..
.
Scotti, so many people out there have been taught in ways that do not reflect the physical reality ("push with the diapphragm", "take a bite out of the mouthpiece", etc.), I think it is important to be clear what is really going on. I think our master teachers and clinicians have a job to do in helping both students and teachers in these areas
Post Edited (2005-12-31 14:17)
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2005-12-31 14:08
Tony Pay wrote:
>That's true; but the degree to which your flexed lip muscle slightly overlaps the fulcrum point is a measure of the extent to which your embouchure controls the upper partials in the sound.<
I agree, do you think that at or near the fulcrum point is where get, for lack of a better word, maximum tonal content? Or at least a good fundemenal so your flexed lip can have more high partials to filter?
I think finding this spot is one of the most important things in producing an "expressive" tone. I hesitate to use the Bright-dark words there becuase
I think when you find that control point, your sound gets Brighter and darker at the same time.
The questions I have for Tony are these:
Do you have any specific routines to help your students find "the spot?"
The different different types of clarinets that you play use different styles and facing curves of mouthpieces, do you approuch finding the spot the same on each style mouthpiece?
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with Lox&Vodka, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in Clarinet performance
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-12-31 15:39
Tom Puwalski wrote:
>> Tony Pay wrote: "That's true; but the degree to which your flexed lip muscle slightly overlaps the fulcrum point is a measure of the extent to which your embouchure controls the upper partials in the sound."
I agree, do you think that at or near the fulcrum point is where get, for lack of a better word, maximum tonal content? Or at least a good fundemenal so your flexed lip can have more high partials to filter?>>
Something like that. But when you play, I think the fulcrum point changes a bit as you change notes -- though to find out how much would need a proper experiment. And I think my embouchure pressure and, to a lesser extent, flexion (and even position) follows that unconsciously too.
>> I think finding this spot is one of the most important things in producing an "expressive" tone. I hesitate to use the Bright-dark words there becuase I think when you find that control point, your sound gets Brighter and darker at the same time. >>
Yes, it's difficult to describe, isn't it? It's as though the upper partials are just that -- parts of a complete sound that you want to say is 'rich'.
>> The questions I have for Tony are these:
Do you have any specific routines to help your students find "the spot?">>
I think it's not just 'the spot' -- it's the pressure and degree of flexion too. (Greater flexion means smaller area of contact, like the tyre of a racing bicycle's area of contact with the ground, compared to that of a tyre of ours, when it's flat.)
One thing I do is have them put their finger on a piano string around where it leaves the bridge (or whatever it's called) and hear the different sounds produced by different positions and areas of contact of their finger when the appropriate key is pressed. That gets over the idea that the lip not only presses against the reed to alter the effective length of the reed-pendulum, but has a damping effect, as you said, that isn't necessarily counterproductive. Then they try that on the clarinet.
Then, they have to use their ears to optimise their sound quality. That's not easy, because some reeds will never make a good sound. It's a long process.
>>The different different types of clarinets that you play use different styles and facing curves of mouthpieces, do you approuch finding the spot the same on each style mouthpiece?>>
Yes. I sort of try everything until it sounds better to me:-)
Tony
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Author: Dee
Date: 2005-12-31 16:32
One description that I saw somewhere regarding breathing was to expand the abdomen like you were trying to keep your pants up after the belt had broken!
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-12-31 17:03
Dee wrote:
>> One description that I saw somewhere regarding breathing was to expand the abdomen like you were trying to keep your pants up after the belt had broken!>>
Yes, a great description that I've often stolen for my own use: it's from Paul Harvey's The Clarinettist's Bedside Book.
Tony
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2006-01-01 00:34
I had a revolutionary experience while swimming some 20 years ago. I noticed that the way you breathe when you swim is the ultimate technique. What you do when exhaling under the water is the perfect fundamental breathing technique for any wind instrument, the same when you inhale.
Alphie
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Author: Aaron
Date: 2006-01-01 00:40
mr. pay-
i found your comments on lower lip placement very interesting, but what are your opinions on placement of the upper lip/top teeth? i think that the teeth should be kept parallel, but this still allows room for error in the placement of the top teeth by changing the angle of the horn.
thanks
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Author: Tyler
Date: 2006-01-01 21:40
keep writing! I'm reading! this thread has taken off well.
Thank you Aaron for restating my question of jaw placement/tooth alignment.
I tried David Pino's idea of low/forward tongue position (so that more air is supposedly allowed to pass) while warming up before church service this morning, and the results were disastrous. Clarinetgirl06 uses a low tongue position and doesn't seem to have problems with focus or clarity in the upper register, but then, she has rather large tonsils. I've seen them, lol.
Another thing I found interesting in Pino's book was that after describing embouchure with his low and forward tongue position, he goes on to describe his "tuttle-uttle-uh" method of double tonguing which he 'developed' so to speak because of his own single-tonguing speed limits. To me, that takes away from his credibility on tongue position. I don't know what kind of tongue position Keith Stein (Pino's teacher) used or what the results were in his single-tonguing, but low and forward definitely isn't for me.
Thank you Tony and Tom--I think I do need to re-address the amount of mouthpiece in mouth issue; haven't experimented for a while.
BTW, I do use the ATG system and it is pretty neat. Haven't perfected it yet, but I don't need to use it a lot because it works so well! (if that makes any sense)
-Tyler
Post Edited (2006-01-01 21:44)
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2006-01-01 22:00
Yeah, so I am totally confused on the whole tongue position thing. Yes, I do have huge tonsils (Doctors are amazed when they see them, although they aren't so huge that it's like a tumor or anything horribly nasty).
So, I hear that the high tongue position is supposed to be "the best". Well, when I try it I feel like I'm going to choke. I can do a high tongue position w/o a mouthpiece just fine, but when I put the mouthpiece in my mouth it's suddenly choke city. So, I must resort to a low and forward tongue position. Is this bad? I know that a high tongue position is supposed to make the air cooler and focus it better. Although, I am wondering if a low, forward tongue position is OK for me because my tonsils are big and not much air can go in between them (well, less than the average person). So, are my tonsils helping me focus the air? Maybe I could somehow record myself with both tongue positions and see if anyone could tell a difference. It's just so hard for me to do a high tongue position. Maybe it's more in the middle and forward. Not horribly low, but not high either.
Help!?!?!?! Advice please!!!!!
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Author: Tyler
Date: 2006-01-01 23:43
Carrie--I don't know, but maybe simply 'relaxed' is the best. In David Pino's book, the top two most important things in clarinet playing, in this order, are: relaxation and air. When trying to use a high tongue position, do you think of saying "eeh"? I have had poor results with that; my throat constricts. Ridenour says to think of saying "key" or simply preparing to say the "k" consonant. Julie DeRoche, here: http://www.keynotesmagazine.com/monthly_updates/april05/clarinet_basics.shtml
says to think of saying "shh". This, (the 'shh' way), at least for now, is working the best for me, but all this mess is getting me a little frustrated. I feel like I'm always going back to basics, correcting bad habits, trying to decide between pedagogical theories, etc. Seems like I'm 'stuck' sometimes.
Maybe if I go eat some chocolate my tone will be darker and sweeter 
-Tyler
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2006-01-02 01:18
Thanks Tyler. I practiced some and I think I'm OK with what I'm doing now. It's somewhat between middle and high tongue position. I think sometimes I try to have a high tongue position and then have an open throat and it makes me want to puke. I experienced this some when I was practicing today. I'll work on it some, but I won't freak out about it.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2006-01-04 12:28
Some very interesting stuff here. A couple of personal observations -
- I learnt 'support' by having to play a cheap plastic bass. Support is... well, it you've got it, the notes come out. If you don't, they don't! Bass is a whole-body experience. I like the idea of 'preparing to lift a heavy weight' as a description of the feeling. Try it standing up; try it sitting down; then think about why posture might be important. When I returned to the soprano instrument after a course on bass it was so much easier.
- Tongue position... how I bend notes, I think. If you start high and forward, like just before saying 'k', then slide back, you can get the note to follow you. But in general I think my tongue position depends on what I'm trying to play, how the tone is sounding.
- Mouthpiece in mouth: wherever the tone and the intonation are right. Too much and you've got a fat tuneless honk; too little and the sound strangles. Hopefully somewhere in between there's a 'sweet spot' where you can also do rapid tonguing. There's an element of style in this, too - I was taught to err on the side of too little mouthpiece. Others, I'm sure, will have been taught the opposite.
- Describing this stuff is really difficult. This might all make no sense at all to you guys.
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Author: vitoclarinet
Date: 2006-03-20 15:03
after reading this thread, i just got more confused about tongue position. I've tried both the high and low positions, and i've realized that neither of them really works for me. My clarinet teacher keeps telling me to arch the back of my tongue, keep it high, but whenever i do that, i hurt my throat. So then i tried the low-forward tongue position(Pino), and that didn't work so well either. Can someone please help me out?
and also(sorry if i'm being bothersome), i've also realized that high notes are harder to tongue. is there a different tongue position for the high notes? If so, how should i position my tongue?
Post Edited (2006-03-20 15:08)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2006-03-20 17:39
Vito....My personal opinion is still as more or less stated very early in this thread....which more or less is quit thinking about your tongue and just concentrate on making a nice sound. Someday in the future you will discover tongue placement on your own.....it's very difficult to describe....
Bob Draznik
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2006-03-20 23:16
I'd been told about proper airstream a hundred times, and I perfectly understood it, in theory. I even thought I was doing it fairly well. But it never quite sat right.
Then, one day (quite recently), I was practicing a fiendishly hard passage (2nd part in Hemispheres by Joseph Turrin, if you must know) repeatedly, with a metronome, very very gradually increasing the metronome speed.
The part is disjunct, jumping all over 2 and a half octaves in rapidly-shifting keys, quick, nasty, and with varying articulations.
After an hour straight of this, about the tenth hour I'd spent on these same 12 @#$% bars in the past few months, I gave up. Or, rather, my mouth gave up. It said "screw you, notes, I'm not going to help." However, my fingers, tongue, and air didn't get the message in time that I wanted to take a break.
So I played the passage, with a light, friendly tongue, great time, and solid airstream. Surprised, I said to myself, "oh, is that all?"
And it was.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Tyler
Date: 2006-03-21 00:47
After several more months of experience and intellectual growth, I've come to understand that a mixture of relaxation and muscular control is what is necessary for good tone production. Currently, I find that a very lightly placed "eeh" with the back of the tongue (with the front part still very relaxed) is what works best for me. Also, I'm getting better at using virtually no jaw pressure (using only Ridenour's friction-style embouchure). It has taken me a long time to understand Ridenour. He has thought everything through so well, that I, as a reader, don't need to do very much more analyzing when it comes to tone production technique. In trying to adjust a multitude of tiny details of embouchure, I often ended up producing a lot of tension. One practice session, after reading some Ridenour, I remember, I felt like I really couldn't even play ONE GOOD NOTE. Now, however, I have begun to integrate the ideas of Keith Stein, David Pino, Thomas Ridenour, and Carmine Campione into my whole concept of clarinet playing. Through all of these readings though, Pino was right about relaxation and control of muscle tension: it is ESSENTIAL and should be the TOP priority of every clarinetist.
Best wishes to all
-Tyler
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2006-03-21 06:54
>Secondly, Ridenour says that the teeth should be aligned vertically, as when blowing on the tip of one's nose.
Same thing is written in Keith Stein's book. It means you should not place the mouthpiece like a round candy bar. You should give longer reed vibration space. For example (in my case) I place upper teeth some 8mm from the tip of mouthpiece and the lower tip 17mm or more. I was surprised to know how reeds vibtate more easily.
>As far as breathing, I e-mailed Mr. Ridenour and he said to maybe think of how you feel when you take a deep breath and then try to lift something heavy. I'm going to go practice and see if that works for me.
What he says is to obtain the feeling of using your glottis. 'Open your throat' is not enough. Some people, like good singers, can use glottis without learning. This is said in Urban's trumpet book. This is the true meaning of 'sing like a singer'. He says.
In flute playing, sometimes we need breath attack, i.e. attacking without tongue. It needs glottis control.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2006-03-21 17:08
I found a very hot comment on glottis control by a famous jazz trumpeter Leon Merian.
FYI
http://abel.hive.no/trumpet/tpin/THE_GLOTTIS.html
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The Clarinet Pages
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