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Re: Rubank Elementary lesson 11

Author: nellsonic
Date: 2022-12-03 12:56

As a full time clarinet teacher I agree with pretty much everything written here by my colleagues. I am a big believer in getting beginning students to play in the clarion (upper) register, and then the altissimo (notes above high C) as soon as it is practical. This is because those notes require that all the fundamentals of air, embouchure, voicing, and hand position be in place. Not waiting too long helps to very quickly refine and further establish those fundamentals. The upper register is where one really learns to play the instrument.

This assumes a few very important elements: 1) proper equipment - particularly careful attention to reed strength and an appropriate mouthpiece, 2) close supervision by a private instructor, and 3) good practice habits. Without these jumping high too soon is a recipe for establishing some incredibly detrimental habits for most students!

The pacing of when students are ready to take on the upper registers varies widely by individual. In my studio most beginniners who I start from scratch or close to it are regularly playing up to an altissimo F by sometime in their second year - not always quickly and not always articulated but with good tone and decent intonation. Some get to that point in just a few months. Others much later. If a student can slur to to these notes but not tongue them successfully, they also tend to get much more interested in the refining that aspact of their playing as well.

Once ready, learning the clarion notes can be simply a matter of pushing the register key down and exporing all the new sounds for a bit. Learning what they are called and what they look like on the page can come a little later. There's good stuff in Rubank, but it's definitely a sight before sound approach by intention. It was written in an age when, supposedly, more students had significant experience learning, performing, and often reading music in other contexts before picking up a clarinet for the first time. This is what I was told when I was a student, and it does make sense. Really old school band method books I've seen definitely assumed quite a bit of prior knowledge of notation.

Back to the present: I've heard Yehuda Gilad talk about starting beginning students with the altissimo notes and then working down from there. I think he was only half joking!

Anders

Post Edited (2022-12-03 13:28)

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