 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Catwinds
Date: 2015-04-11 23:40
So I quite recently discovered that what I had been kind of screwing around with just for fun is what I should be doing all the time, which is not contracting the muscles around my throat when I play. However, the reason I thought this was such a funny thing to do was because it made the pitch drop immensely. I now face this issue when ever I try to relax my throat and I've been told many times that I have to "support" but I'm not quite getting that down. I also sing and I don't sing off pitch so I'm not sure what to do.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-04-12 01:50
Are you actually flat to the others you're playing with? If all you're doing is relaxing your throat, maybe you'v been sharp all along.
If you're too flat with a relaxed throat to tune to your ensemble, you may be slackening something else as well. Or maybe you've chosen equipment that plays lower than necessary to compensate for sharpness caused by a tense throat.
Support is important and can affect pitch, but embouchure control and good air direction (controlled by the shape of the inside of your mouth), are also vital components of pitch. The best thing to do would be to have someone knowledgeable listen to you play and get a first-hand impression of what may be happening. Advice to "support more" is too often given routinely without trying to see beyond to what else may be wrong.
You have to "support" to sing well. If your vocal production is correct, it can be a great help in producing a resonant clarinet tone. What differences do you feel between your approaches to singing and to playing clarinet?
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-04-12 16:31
I need to post an opposing opinion on this idea because it is important for us to get to a better understanding of the mechanics of the clarinet.
Aside from the larynx (voice box), which enables or disables passage of air out of the throat (and can be used consequently for vibrato), there are NO MUSCLES either voluntary or involuntary in the throat (unless you happen to be a giraffe).
What we are all talking about when we talk about throat tightening or relaxing is the back of the tongue (a much larger set of muscles than we give credit).
Now,
What some experience as pitch variance under the above conditions is when you execute this sort of posture with your mouth: EEEEE......YAWWW......EEEEE.....YAWWW.
When SOME do this, it is natural (all the aspects of moving tongue and lips together are tied to using them together for speech almost since birth) for us to relax the jaw and form the lips more like you are saying "O" as in "BOW."
It is the relaxation of the jaw/lips (and quite honestly, the sliding down the reed also associated with this movement) that gives you a "lowering of pitch."
If you REALLY isolated what you do with your face and conscientiously kept your lips/jaw at the same tautness, you can execute calisthenics with your tongue all day long and the pitch and timbre will NOT change one whit.
Of course you CAN lose some efficiency of focus to the air stream delivered to the tip of the mouthpiece/reed system, but that is a much less dramatic affect and not what most in this camp are referring to.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2015-04-12 17:56
I'm a big believe in an "opened" throat which I refere to a relaxes feeling in the throat. Not having tension. When teaching I've often use the example of what happens if you if you bend a water hose, less water comes out and as you "loosen" the bend in the hose the water exists more freely. That may seem like a simple example but it's one everyone has always understood. I can't argue with Paul but my experience in when I've got students to play with the the back of their tongue, the back by their molars, not further in your throat, to be up by or inbetween their back molars it usually helped with the pitch on their throat tones if they were playing them flat compared to the rest of their scare and helped them with their tonguing. It may not be full proof for everything or everyone but it's worth experimenting. Of course the embouchure plays a large part as well. You mention you're a singer, I always tell my students to "voice" as if they're singing to correct their pitch. Often I'd have them "sing" the interval to "feel" what they did with their tongue and throat and "copy" the feeling. It's worked for me in my teaching, give it a try.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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