Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-02-13 07:25
I hear four things:
1. She's moving he entire tongue forward and back. there should be almost no tongue movement. Just the tip of the tongue moves a tiny bit away from the reed.
2. She is loosening her embouchure and perhaps dropping her jaw as she tongues each note. Work with her on keeping her embouchure and jaw motionless. There should also be no motion in her throat. (If she were a guy, the adam's apple would be bobbing up and down.)
3. She's dropping and then pushing the air pressure as she tongues. Have her rest the bell on her knee (or between her knees), put her right hand on her belly her ribs and play tongued C-D-E-D-C. She'll almost certainly feel herself making a puff of air on each note. Have her become aware of producing a steady air stream, with no puffs. Puffing air and constricting the throat reinforce one another, so insist that she play a perfect legato as far as her abdomen, throat, jaw and tongue are concerned.
4. She is "attacking" each note, starting the tone with her tongue. The correct mental image (and physical action) is to set the air pressure at playing level, stop the tone with the tongue tip and then remove the tongue to "release" the tone. The tongue does nothing to start the tone. It just moves away from the reed. The tone is already there. The tongue just lets it be heard.
Have her sing C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C, first legato, then starting each note as a LA and then as a DA, but always keeping the air flowing. Don't let her sing to herself. Sing LOUD. Sing to your mother in the last row of the balcony.
Then go to the clarinet. Play a solid low C and move the tongue tip past the reed, but *miss*. Think luh-luh-luh. Then move the tongue tip toward the reed until it barely brushes the tip. Then do the same on C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C.
Think always of less effort, not more. Play a perfect legato, like a smooth-flowing stream. Articulation is like a leaf or at most a pebble skimming by.
Finally, as everyone else has said, she needs to put a lot more into the process. As Arnold Jacobs said, it's all Wind and Song.
Ken Shaw
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
