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Re: Routine extreme altissimo?

Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-02-07 11:29

Vache does play well in the altissimo, and his wife, Vanessa, is a good classical clarinetist and teacher, by the way. Since this thread is continuing, I 'd like to add a few more thoughts on high register playing. To know how playing up there is accomplished, you have to listen to players who do it expertly and as natural as breathing. So much of clarinet playing is really "monkey listen, monkey do," that no matter how many books of altissimo fingerings you collect, nothing will replace copying the good sounds you hear in other players.

Most clarinetists avoid the upper altissimo whenever possible or think of it as the occasional note that occurs in climax phrases in Rossini, Weber, or even the end of the Shaw Concerto. Or the climax high notes in the Copland Concerto. Unfortunately, this usually creates the mind set of "tense up and play it, and let's hope the high notes don't come back too soon!" The real masters of high notes do not feel this way. They think of high notes as always welcome and play them simply as frequent intervals from lower notes.

To hear this, search on Youtube for "Jorge Montilla Registro De Pajarillo." Montilla plays very wide intervals jumping all over the little Eb clarinet's range without breaking into a sweat and maintains a flexible embouchure and sound. It does not seem to matter to him if the next note is at the top of the clarinet's range or the bottom or somewhere in between. The sound quality is the same. Also youtube to "Wuaraira Concerto Jorge Montilla"
and listen to him play all over the place on a larger clarinet. He plays the top notes as easily as a flutist--no big deal. Flexibility is the key. He can even gliss down from high notes if he has to--just like Artie Shaw but in a Rain Forest folkloric style instead (think exotic bamboo flutes.)

Another classical player who aces the high register is Benito Meza (now teaching at MIT?) Youtube search to "Benito Meza plays Chopin etude" and listen to him spill out this multi-noted composition--almost all in the altissimo-at a furious pace, still maintaining good liquidity and substance in the tone. No big deal for him either. No pinching and tensing into shrillness--just playing in one of the many registers that come with the clarinet and keeping the embouchure flexible

How to develop this flexibility? Listen finally to the fine lecture demonstration on legato technique by Mark Hattner. Hattner shows how to work through the Baerman III book on scales, intervals, and chords while playing a supple legato. Getting into the altissimo is mostly a matter of getting the lips, air stream, and fingers to produce a fine legato and then extending the legato higher and higher to include the highest notes. Baermann himself must have had great chops to play the exercises in his book. Listen and copy and be as patient as Hattner says you must be. He says listen to yourself after playing through Baerman exactly as he prescribes, bridging every interval accurately, in perfect meter, and with developing lip flexibility for a year.

At the end of the year, you should play more securely and evenly all over the instrument, including in the altissimo. To listen to Hattner's six-part lecture, youtube search to "Mark Hattner: Clarinet Legato."

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Routine extreme altissimo OK new

fskelley

2014-02-06 07:09