 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: willow129q
Date: 2015-05-06 17:32
Hi!
Just curious! How old were you when you started playing clarinet? Did you start playing through your school band program or elsewhere?
I teach band (and general music and other musical things) at an elementary school. It's my first year teaching band outside of student teaching. Anyways, we start out kids in 4th grade, so they are 9ish years old.
Sort of another subject but I'm so glad I play clarinet, the teacher before me was a GREAT teacher and really good with all the other instruments but the clarinet section I inherited from her has some scary problems...!! And a little bit the same with the saxophones. Mainly scary tonguing and embouchure stuff. I think it can be hard to "get it" on single reed instruments sometimes, when you're starting playing them in college and then have to teach kids right away...I saw this at my old district too. Do you remember your first band teacher? Did you start off with scary problems too?
Thanks!
Willow
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Author: faltpihl ★2017
Date: 2015-05-06 18:06
Fun thread.
I started less than a year ago, I was then 27.
My first year has been very intense, since I got a place in a local orchestra and have had to do everything that I can to teach myself to play "well enough" to be able to perform my 3rd chair decently enough.
It's been a blast and I'm really lucky that I found the clarinet and that I had such a motivation through my wonderful orchestra that I had to practice a lot and actually improve.
Clarinet is now my favorite instrument, even though I've come to enjoy most woodwinds quite much lately.
Regards
Peter
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Author: GeorgeL ★2017
Date: 2015-05-06 19:13
I started alto sax in the 4th grade. As I recall, the music teacher circulated among several schools, so we only met 2 or 3 times a week. I also started private lessons about that time. During that time I got to play in a band for elementary school students from many schools that met in a local high school on weekends.
My older brother played clarinet for a little while, so we had one at home. I started 2 yrs of clarinet lessons in the 11th grade. I have not had a clarinet lesson since then.
I played both sax and clarinet in college bands. I never took a music class other than band.
After a 15 yr break from playing, I started playing mostly clarinet in a community band (they needed clarinets more than saxes), and have been playing clarinet or sax in community bands for 35 years.
If the parent's of your students question the value of learning to play a musical instrument, tell them it is something their kid will be able to do long after the school jocks are moaning about how that injury in high school limits their activities. It is not unusual for someone in their 80's to still play a musical instrument quite well.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-05-06 19:17
I started in the school band program during the summer between 4th and 5th grade. I had moved into the school district during my 4th grade year and couldn't start mid-year. But I had been taking music lessons of various kinds (rhythm classes, tonette, recorder) from the age of about 4, so I already read music and had some understanding of fingerings on a woodwind.
I think you find "scary" things in any school instrumental program. Teachers are dealing with instruments ranging from their own specialties to ones that they've basically learned as a foreign language in college. Articulation seems to be an area in which highly skilled players seem to have highly differentiated approaches based on what their own principal instrument is.
I've sat through workshops, a couple quite recently given by a nationally recognized band arranger and "authority" on band teaching technique whose instructions about tonguing would not please most, perhaps anyone here. But what he said exactly mirrors what I heard one of my son's trumpet teachers describe to him as the correct technique to articulate notes on a trumpet.
Players of different instruments take different approaches to "support" - a concept that tends to vary with the actual amount of air volume it takes to "fill" the specific instrument.
My first clarinet teacher for a few weeks was a reed doubler - he taught a "smile" embouchure technique. My next teacher during the school year was a trombonist. I don't remember that he really gave explicit instructions about embouchure or articulation except that dots meant short and slurs meant don't tongue at all. He was, though, one of my greatest early inspirations as a personality and a musician. That "smile" embouchure, by the way, was one of the first things my first private teacher (a couple of years later) had me change.
We all do the best we can. You no doubt have first-hand knowledge on which to base whatever help you give to your single reed classes about tonguing and embouchure. Chances are that what you teach them about trumpet embouchures or percussion stick techniques will be more influenced by you've learned quickly in your college work, and it will take years before you have enough experience to know what's important and what's traditional time-honored received dogma that may not be as important as the "authorities" (and your college instructors) make them.
The great thing about teaching, if you're conscientious about trying to do it well, is that you often find yourself learning more that you teach. Every kid's individual problems force you, ideally, to think through appropriate solutions to offer, and that process (even in your major instrument) can lead as much to increased self-awareness as to the student's improvement.
Best of luck in your new career.
Karl
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-05-06 20:01
I started clarinet about 4.5 years ago in 7th grade, after already having played violin for a few years. I wanted to join my middle school's band, but they didn't allow strings, so I ended up choosing clarinet. I was disappointed that I couldn't play violin at the time, but it ended up being one of the best decisions I've ever made.
My high school still has people with scary embouchure/articulation problems. Most people in the band don't take private lessons, and our woodwind coach is only here once a week, and sometimes it's weeks at a time before a section will work with her. We also don't have sectionals very often, so I don't really have any opportunities to work with people in my section to improve their technique.
I just discovered a while back that our 2nd clarinetist plays double-lip full time because she was never taught proper embouchure formation and just assumed that double lip was correct... She gets a good sound though. I used to play with a "bunched up chin" embouchure before I started taking private lessons a few years ago. One of our tenor sax players sounds like he slap-tongues everything.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2015-05-06 20:02
I started at age 7 (second grade). School band started in 4th grade. My elementary band director was a clarinetist, my middle school director was a cellist, and my High School director was a percussionist. To their everlasting credit, none of them EVER mentioned embouchure. Would that all clarinet professors were so intelligent.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: TomS
Date: 2015-05-06 21:20
Eleven (1963) ... 4th clarinet lesson was at age 28.
Tom
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-05-06 22:04
maxopf wrote:
> I just discovered a while back that our 2nd clarinetist plays
> double-lip full time because she was never taught proper
> embouchure formation
Umm...
A lot of us play double lip. There's nothing improper about it. Did you really mean what you wrote?
Karl
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2015-05-06 22:08
I began in 4th grade. My band teacher's father was a clarinet professor at a local university, and agreed to give me private lessons, so I had a solid beginning. When I was teaching in public schools I liked starting kids in 4th grade, although I think that is no longer done as often at least in my part of the country, school finances being what they are. I thought 4th graders were very receptive and capable, although there were sometimes challenges with small fingers that had to grow a bit to handle their instruments.
As to embouchure/tonguing problems, some kids take to it right away and others require a more lengthy process of guiding them to proper ways of doing things. Just take each child as they come and keep moving them in the right direction.
Enjoy your teaching, Willow....beginners can be a most fulfilling group to teach.
John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-05-06 22:37
@kdk: I phrased that poorly... All I meant was that she was never taught the "standard" single-lip embouchure and thus, in the process of guessing how to form an embouchure, went straight to double-lip. I didn't mean that double-lip was improper, rather that it's usually not taught to beginners.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-05-06 23:03
maxopf wrote:
> I didn't mean that double-lip was
> improper, rather that it's usually not taught to beginners.
I didn't think you meant it the way it looked.
BTW, I think you're right that it isn't taught to beginners *in typical school band programs.* But I have known clarinetists who taught their beginning private students to use double lip from the start.
Karl
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Author: bbrandha
Date: 2015-05-07 02:50
I started clarinet in 5th grade with a school band instructor whose main instrument was clarinet. I do not remember anything about learning to play other than how hard it was to watch music, fingers, and director all at once.
In 6th grade I moved to a school that only had elementary strings, so I played cello briefly. In 7th I went back to clarinet. I flirted with oboe a year in HS then went to the bass clarinet in college. Like someone else said, I have never had music classes other than at school. I have also never had lessons.
After college, I joined a horseback band. We are now in our 31st year. I have also started playing with our local youth symphony.
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Author: oian
Date: 2015-05-07 02:53
To be totally truthful, I started in Jr. High School. In reality I didn't do anything. I lasted about a week before they noticed that there was no recognizable sounds coming out my instrument (Trumpet). Fast foreword a few years..... I'm now 70 and playing with the High School band at the local Church academy (Fresno Adventist Academy) and loving every minute. The school band teacher announced at church that anyone that would like to learn to play an instrument was welcome to join in. I have a Le Blanc Paris bass clarinet that I got on E-Bay (lucky find) and loving every minute. By the way I play double lip embouchure after watching a "YouTube" video from by Tom
Ridenour on the subject (It works great for me). It's never too late, pick an instrument and go for it, you won't be disappointed.
John
Post Edited (2015-05-07 02:56)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-05-07 05:20
I started at age 12, in the 7th grade. I wish I had started maybe three years earlier, at the age when kids can pick up things easily. William Kincaid said wrote that only students who started really early had the effortless, rippling technique you needed as a pro. I was pretty good, but I never had the finger-blur fast technique.
Stanley Drucker began with Leon Russianoff at age 10, was principal in Indianapolis at 16 and joined the NY Philharmonic at 19 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Drucker.
Ken Shaw
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Author: CarlT
Date: 2015-05-07 05:33
My post likely won't mean a lot to the OP, but I attempted to play the tuba in 7th grade band. The tuba was the last instrument to be given out, and I was the smallest boy in 7th grade. I didn't continue band in 8th grade, because I hated the tuba.
I never had band in high school.
At any rate, at age 70 (7 years ago), I started learning the clarinet. Took several lessons to get me started. I still would take lessons if I had a local teacher.
I've played 2nd clarinet (sometimes 3rd) in a community band for 5 years, and it's one of the best things I've ever done for myself. I practice almost every day because when I don't, my embouchure goes to pot very quickly.
CarlT
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Author: MSK
Date: 2015-05-07 05:38
I started clarinet in school band as a fifth grader in the 1970s. I was fortunate enough to have a band director in 5th and 6th grades who was a primary clarinet player. We had clarinet class twice a week and full band once a week, in 5th and 6th grades, and daily full band 7th grade up. I began private lessons on clarinet the summer after 6th grade and continued them through college. I had already taken piano lessons for three years when I started clarinet and read music pretty well. Our school offered recorder lessons in 4th grade and the strings program started in 4th grade. The rationale of starting strings a year sooner is that stringed instruments are available in smaller sizes than band instruments. I also played violin for six years. I am now a middle aged adult. Clarinet is my primary instrument (community orchestra) and piano my secondary instrument (just for fun).
My son also started clarinet playing in 5th grade band. It met once a week in 5th grade and twice a week in 6th grades, full band only meeting immediately before concerts. His first band director is a brass player and never taught toungueing. I gave my son private lessons at home for two years then enrolled him in paid private lessons. The students who lacked a parent to help them really suffered. His 7th & 8th grade band program is 5 days a week by all woodwind / all brass / all percussion sectionals. Full band meets a couple of times before concerts. The school administration gives the band director a difficult time about getting full band together and the lack of rehearsal time really shows at their concerts. The current band director is a sax player and has done a much better job teaching technique. Our high school band program is daily, full band. During concert season they are placed into a higher or lower band based on audition, but they all march together.
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-05-07 06:20
kdk: I guess what I meant is that it isn't proper by what my band director might consider "proper," even though obviously a lot of people actually do play that way. I actually use double lip myself during some practice sessions (not usually for longer periods of time though.)
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-05-07 08:13
I came to the clarinet through the side door. I started saxophone in 4th grade, and in college the department chair forbade me to study clarinet because he thought it would be too easy for me. I became a flute major for a while, and did not start clarinet until I was doing practice teaching, and the grade school teacher I worked with who was a clarinet player suggested it would be good for me to learn it. God bless that woman! Once out of college I realized that I needed to be a good clarinet player with a good instrument in order to get good paying gigs playing shows since I was earning my living playing music. I found a good private teacher, a great instrument, and lots of practicing got me on my way. The biggest thing I learned from that private teacher was when you put down your sax and pick up a clarinet you have to think clarinet, and not let your brain still stay in sax mode. Kind of like loading a different program into a computer. I have to say clarinet is much more demanding to learn than sax, but it improved my sax playing, and I learned to enjoy playing clarinet in the classical realm.
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-05-07 09:33
At age 14, I bought a simple system clarinet for $7 in a pawn shop, with money earned by loading trucks at night at a Fargo, ND bottling works. With no lessons, I soon organized a five piece German band, and we played at some banquets, probably very badly. I did not play in the high school band with the clarinet.
In college at the U of MN, I had a metal clarinet which I played poorly, but at 17, started lessons with Earl Handlon, Robert Marcellus's early teacher, a serious and dedicated musician. In a couple of years, with a new Noblet wood clarinet (doubled F/C pads), he had me playing Klose, the Mozart Concerto, Rabaud's Solo de Concours, and some of the French 15 Grandes Solos for the college exams. He didn't say that they were difficult. At 20, I even went around to several churches playing solos with a pianist. At one of those concerts, I got very nervous and my leg shook badly, getting me some later compliments on my vibrato, which I didn't have.
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Author: JonTheReeds
Date: 2015-05-07 11:08
Just over 4 years ago
--------------------------------------
The older I get, the better I was
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Author: Pastor Rob
Date: 2015-05-07 14:51
I started at the tender age of 45.
Pastor Rob Oetman
Leblanc LL (today)
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Author: Luuk ★2017
Date: 2015-05-07 18:11
20. Practiced each day at least an hour and a half during the first two years (except on Christmas Day!), and quickly came to an acceptable amateur level (top wind band at 26).
Never played any instrument before, and never acquired real fast fingers, though.
Regards,
Luuk
Philips Symphonic Band
The Netherlands
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Author: William
Date: 2015-05-07 19:37
Too young to know better.......should'a chose an instrument without reeds.
Seriously, started in the summer (picked the clarinet because it looked shinny and "interesting" with all its keys) of going into 4th grade but didn't start real practice until I entered high school. After doing well as a freshman at the solo and ensemble festival in class C, I got a private teacher and progressed rapidly earning a class A first division award at State from adjudicator Himie Voxman as a sop. After high school, on to college as a music education major and out into the real world as a band director by day and musician by night. Along the way I picked up the saxophone and flute to play dance and theatre gigs but really concentrated only on classical clarinetistry. Marriage and family happened, retirement finally arrived and now I'm known as grandpa, but I've never given up that musical journey with my clarinet. It's taken me abroad and among the well-to-do in places I could never have ever afforded on my own. Yes, that chance encounter with band director Lee Perranto in 4th grade set the course for a lifetime of pleasure, stress, agony and adventure as a musical addict. Wouldn't have wanted it any other way--thank you school band program.
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Author: Kel
Date: 2015-05-07 20:35
Started clarinet at 12, tenor sax at 14, alto sax 17, quit all at 19, restarted at 57, added bari at 60. All those years off took a toll, particularly on clarinet.
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Author: Philip DeVries
Date: 2015-05-07 21:16
I played sax starting in 5th grade through high school. I played just well enough to not get kicked out of band.
Picked up the clarinet when I was 40. It took less than a year for me to be better at it than I ever was on sax.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2015-05-07 21:43
Started alto sax in 7th grade 1965 age 12. Voluntarily switched to clarinet when I got to high school 10th grade age 15. Stayed on clarinet 2 years, worked my way from 2nd to 1st section with lessons from Bellaire TX band director John Montgomery (bless his soul), did well at solo/ensemble contests. Graduated at end of 11th grade. Played in Bill Moffitt's University of Houston marching band sophomore semester fall 1971 age 18.
Abandoned clarinet, concentrated on my piano and later synth / sequencer keyboard work, but for decades longed to get back to clarinet. Picked up my daughter's tenor sax a couple of times but nothing magic there... LOL. Finally in 2010 age 57, after 38+ years off, I bought a clarinet and started up again. Haven't looked back.
=========
And now that I'm thinking about that old alto sax, I'd like to learn more about it. My older brother Ken played it in the late 1950's. The brand was "Pereille" or something like that- Paris- supposedly pronounced PA-RAY. And I was told it was something special- that occasionally someone would notice and compliment it when Ken had it (I don't think that ever happened to me). I'm not finding anything by Google searching for it- anybody here know anything? I could start a new thread, but this is a clarinet not sax board. ---- FOUND "Pierret" on Sax on the Web- that's almost certainly it.
Wow- found a review of a late 1950's Pierret alto. Probably not the same model I had, but from the same factory I'm sure, and similar design. No wonder it got good comments. I never got very far when I played it, and who knows what condition it was in. But reading this makes me wish I had it in my hands again... who knows what it might inspire? http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk/Reviews/Saxes/Alto/Pierret_Competition_alto.htm
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2015-05-07 23:39)
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Author: fernie51296
Date: 2015-05-09 23:12
I started 9 years ago in 5th grade. Joined because there was a pretty girl who wanted to play clarinet. I fell in love with the clarinet instantly and hardly ever skip a day to practice.
Fernando
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Author: Mirko996
Date: 2015-05-10 00:40
I have been play clarinet since i was 12 years old.
Now i have 18 years old...
the first time, in really, my first choose was the flute because i thinked was equal the scolar flute... after i changed with the clarinet because it was very similar too the scolar flute.. I had a orrible clarinet... My god... a Comet that i sell luckly... after i tried to enter in classic conservatory but i fail... i try some lessons for perfectionate my ability in classic but i leave this teacher for a lot of problem and i start to became a Jazzist... only 6 years i play clarinet i have improved myself individually without help: I hope to enter in jazz conservatory: It's the only way for me because the teacher in conservatory especially in classic are thieves who , like the rest of all the people who have the classic snobbish, Patethics...
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Author: Barry Vincent
Date: 2015-05-10 04:03
27 (Descant & Alto Recorder) then later moved onto Flute and Clarinet. Then much later, Oboe, Bassoon, 'French Horn' (compensating) Also Cornet , Trumpet and Eb Alto Saxhorn. Only have the Clarinet , Flute and Oboe now but still pick up the Recorder occasionally.
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