The Clarinet BBoard

Re: First lessons

Author: greenslater  Date:   2015-01-20 12:33 Have a look at the Abracadabra Clarinet book. Lots of tunes based on a good sequence of notes as the range is extended. No advice about technique etc - that's your job

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Re: First lessons

Author: kdk  Date:   2015-01-20 18:05 maxopf wrote: > focus their initial lessons on the fundamentals of clarinet > playing - good embouchure, proper hand positioning, good air > support and articulation, and so forth - before getting too > involved in music or method books. These are important and I would only add that while focusing on them don't obsess over them. Your goal at the very beginning is to guide your student toward a way of playing that avoids destructive habits, not so much one that does everything perfectly from the start. She won't do everything (perhaps anything) the perfect, right way. It's important that she doesn't get used to doing things that will predictably make it hard to play well as she develops. Her embouchure, her finger control, her articulation and her control of air will all take time to build and refine. Initially the need is to make sure that ongoing refinement is possible without having later to make drastic changes. She has already been involved with written music, so that train has left the station. Until you have a sense of her natural musical ability, her level physical control and her interest in the clarinet, you may, as you suggest, want to just support the school program for a couple of lessons. Review what she's supposed to be practicing for her teacher at school. Maybe invent some short scale exercises using the notes she already knows - probably not a full octave. You can do some echo "games." Play a rhythm on a single pitch and have her echo it back to you. If she's talented with a good ear, after she's used to it you may be able to "trick" her by changing notes and see if she can match you by ear. Tell her as much as necessary about what you're doing, but if she can hear patterns of steps up and down on her own, all the better. At this point, too, your modeling is at least as important as her accuracy in echoing you. She needs to hear good playing. One thing you can do independent of the school program is to teach her to articulate with her tongue if the teacher in school isn't working on it. Some teachers avoid tongued articulation for a long time. It's easier to teach one-on-one than it is in a group lesson, and it isn't practical to get past very basic slow rhythms until the tongue comes into use. You can use echoing to reinforce tonguing once you've taught her to do it. Just a few thoughts. Just keep in mind (I hate slogans, but here's one that seems apt) "Rome wasn't built in a day." With any luck and a lot of experience, you'll be really good at this in about 30 years. Have fun and enjoy the process. Karl

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