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Re: Eb Clarinet

Author: Alphie
Date: 2009-09-18 20:01

It’s important that you approach the Eb properly from the beginning. I hope for your sake that you will be provided with either a Buffet, LeBlanc, Yamaha or at least a Noblet. During my free lance years I played a Noblet for many years and recorded Shostakovich 5 and “The Golden Age”-ballet (80 pages of pure hell) with a good result so they are fine. Beware of other brands if you want to do this seriously.

As for a mouthpiece: If you don’t know what you want out of the handmade options mentioned above a Vandoren B40 is a good mp for a start. It’s cheap to buy, you will not need ultra hard reeds on this to get a reasonable sound and it’s designed to mute the highest overtones to help you producing a darkish sound. I would recommend that you leave out regular Eb-cl reeds from the start and use Vandoren White Master from the beginning. I’m a pro and using 3-3½ and I think you can try 2-2½ for a start. White Master has a lot more wood at the bottom that is very good for high notes. The width is better suited for Eb than French Bb reeds that are too wide. Cut them off to the same length as of a regular Eb reed. For that purpose I personally use a small vise and a little metal saw.

Do the same kind of practicing you as you would on your Bb with scales and whatever but be careful as you approach the altissimo register. Use more mouthpiece inside your mouth, meaning putting your bottom teeth further down on the reed than you would on the Bb and open up and relax. Pinching on an Eb clarinet is death to your lips. As you go higher in the altissimo, imagine that you “pull” up each note from a point above the note you play instead of pushing them up from a point below. Does that make sense to you? Practice the notes in the altissimo one by one and don’t go higher until you have each note played with a full confident sound. As you go higher you can experiment using some air in your cavity. The air works as a “turbo”- cushion and is very helpful when you get hold of it. WAIT for your embouchure to develop in the high register and remember DON’T PINCH ever! As soon as you get tired, take a break. Don’t push it, you’ll regret it the next day.

Last week I played Eb in Mahler 1, tomorrow we'll do Ravel's Daphnis for the second concert this week. It's a good life being an Eb clarinet player, believe me ;-)

Good luck and have fun,
Alphie
Clarinet/E-flat clarinet RSPO

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Eb Clarinet new

moolatte

2009-09-15 21:54