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Re: Returning after a long break

Author: SecondTry
Date: 2021-09-24 21:04

Jen:

I hope the next fortune cookie I open reads

"Long clarinet breaks are best addressed with long tones."

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=long+tones+clarinet

I was not initially a long tone player. To me they were the "stretching at the gym that all the old fogies did that I couldn't be bothered with when in my 20s."

(Now I'm that old fogie, keen on stretching to prevent injury.)

For all the benefits these exercises provide in making for a consistent embouchure that holds up to the duration of playing a long music work, I think their benefit is compounded exponentially in your rehabilitative case.

First--they'll exercise the muscles of your mouth and lungs in ways you need. Secondly, you can keep track of the length for which you can do these tasks over time as a metric for how much capacity you have regained.