Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-02-27 21:55
Again, I hope this is not so long that you start to roll your eyes. What you're asking about is so much at the core of the career you're working toward and there's so much to say about it.
Musicgirl2223 wrote:
> First is how to get her to produce an even, consistent sound.
> It's one thing for me to do it and another for me to explain it
Someone has already said a good teacher learns more from his students than they do from him. This is the source of that learning. To explain anything clearly you need first to understand it clearly yourself. A parrot makes a poor teacher. That process of building your own understanding by analyzing what you yourself do may be the most important part of your growth as a teacher. It also can contribute to your own growth as a player, since in analyzing your own way of playing you may find new, better, more efficient ways to do things you thought you already knew how to do.
In a way, it would almost be a disservice to you to answer your question directly - and I know how curmudgeonly that sounds. "It's one thing for me to do it and another for me to explain it," poses the problem of teaching extraordinarily well. But it skips the most important intermediate step - you have to analyze your own playing to figure out what you're really doing *so that you __can__ explain it.
In general, she needs to provide a steady, sufficient stream of air while supporting the reed with a steady embouchure and a relaxed sense inside her mouth. Tension in the throat, soft palate, or tongue will interfere with resonance. Motion in her embouchure muscles will affect the way it vibrates. Not providing a steady air stream is fatal - it's a "wind" instrument. No wind, no sound. Sometimes with a very timid player who barely puts air into the clarinet, I talk about playing so he can be heard outside across the street (especially if Mom is waiting outside in a car). Once I get something approaching a forte to come out, we can regulate it. There isn't much you can do musically with a dynamic range of pianissimo to mezzo-piano. I also do a lot of modeling at those early stages.
But you almost certainly already knew all of that. Much of what goes into tone production (and breathing itself) is done at a fairly unconscious level and sometimes just imitating without thinking is more effective than detailed conceptual explanations.
> Second is what kinds of exercises would be good to give her.
> I've got her working on scalse (which she doesn't like but
> thankfully knows are good for her) but I'd like to give her
> some music that is more interesting so she doesn't get bored.
This would be easier to answer if we knew something about your student's level. BTW, IMO, you shouldn't be looking for material to keep the scales from being boring. If you're centering *that much* on scales, I'd recommend re-thinking your focus. The "music that is more interesting" should be the main core of each lesson. Scales have their uses - I use them at each lesson I teach - but they are not the meat of meaningful instrument study. But maybe only the wording of your question seems more scale-centric than is the way you actually structure lessons.
Exercises come in two forms - flat-out pattern exercises like the fingering patterns in the Rubank, Klose, early Baermann and Langenus books and some of the band methods, and study pieces like the Lester series, the Rose etudes and Hite series (you're not asking in this context about the more advanced ones in Klose, Langenus, Baermann, etc.). If these are all too advanced, the band methods all have advanced volumes that include tunes, duets and exercises that are shorter and less difficult.
What specifically is she playing at school in her group lessons? What scales does she know and with what degree of cleanness and control?
Karl
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The Clarinet BBoard
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