Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2022-08-15 23:28
The purpose of a warming up is to loosen muscles and tendons that will be needed in a playing session and get blood flowing to them to energize them. You can just charge into whatever you're planning to do or do an explicit warmup first. It really depends on how much sloppiness and marginal control you want to put up with until those soft tissues start to work efficiently.
I almost never do long tones unless there is some recent change I've made that affects (for good or ill) my ability to sustain a tone. I use them, when I play them at all, to test a reed I've just chosen or adjusted to see how easily it produces a controlled sound.
I need some warmup time to get my fingers to stretch out to the tone holes and keys - something that has become much more of an issue as I've aged. I generally start with scales in some form - diatonic, thirds, or arpeggios, starting them at a comfortably slow tempo and, as my hands feel looser, increasing speed. Not for too long - maybe as little as half the circle of fifths (usually both major and minor, as in Klosé Daily Studies) or, if I'm especially stiff, the entire circle. I concentrate on smoothness of both fingers and tone. My next step is to get something that I want to work on - an orchestra part, an etude, a solo piece - and play a page or so of it slowly (again, comfortably, not so that it's painful). Pick a tempo you wish the conductors you play for would take or slightly slower. By that time I'm ready to go to work.
Karl
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The Clarinet BBoard
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