The Clarinet BBoard

The Clarinet BBoard The C4 standard

New Topic | Go to Top | Go to Topic | Search | Help/Rules | Smileys/Notes | Log In

Previous Message | Next Message

Re: Advice on tone

Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-10-23 14:11

You have a good basic sound. I really liked the sound in the first clips. The only thing I picked up in those is that as your dynamic level drops the resonance of the notes drops too. I'd say you need to maintain more of the air pressure behind the note then you do at lower dynamics.

I have advocated a long tone exercise that I got from Clark Brody many years ago (principal clarinet under Reiner through Solti in the Chicago Symphony):

Start a low "E" from nothing. You do this by starting with your embouchure actually too soft and bring it in until you just catch the note, a mere whisper. THEN you crescendo at a SLOW tempo (about 50 beats per minute) evenly one beat at a time until you reach the loudest you can play (literally) at the count of EIGHT. THEN you diminuendo evenly on each count down from there from eight back down to zero............and you do all that (from just grabbing the note) IN ONE BREATH. So that's 16 counts from nothing, to LOUDEST and back to nothing in one breath.

Pitch may be wonky but that's not the point. The point is to have a centered, rich resonant sound throughout the intoned sound.

The full exercise is to do that twice on "E," twice on "F," twice on "F#" and twice on "G." Once you've completed that, you should feel like you've run around the block. You should also notice more control over your sound and feel ready to tackle a day of practice.

Try that out for a week and see if that helps.

................Paul Aviles

Reply To Message | Avail. Forums | Flat View

Newer Topic | Older Topic

Topics