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Re: Improving grip in keys - sticky stuff?

Author: SecondTry
Date: 2022-12-08 20:05

Tom:

You reminded me. I really have to get back in the habit, when doing my (daily?) Bearmann III to not just use the pinky that makes play easiest, but to use that time to develop better motor skills with some pinky experimentation.

For example, [C#5]

is easier for me to do when the [C#5]

is taken with the right pinky.

Perhaps that is exactly why I should use the left pinky now and then do work on better inter-hand coordination.

A few years back I installed one of these on my R13: https://www.clarinetworks.com/product/bolt-on-alternate-e-flat-key/

....a retrofit left pinky Eb/D#/Ab/G# lever.

I'm glad I have it but mostly for things like the opening passage of Messager's Solo De Concurs Candenza, where the speed of the notes make mid not pinky swaps hard.

But the key does open up the possibility to take and practice certain note patterns more varied. For example, a decent clarinetist sees the notes [B4]

, and

as a group and knows to take the [B4]

with the right pinky.

But this pinky order need not be the case with the key. Still more with one of Stephen Fox's R1 C#/G# Touchpieces http://www.sfoxclarinets.com/Accessories.html#clar%20acc responsiblity for that C#/Db/G#/Ab note's play can also fall on either hand.

Sigh..Drucker had his left pinky Eb/D#/Ab/G# lever removed. As the story goes, he would have been content with an R13, bur Francois Kloc sold him on getting a Festival because at the time the wood on the Festival was taken from billets that years ago would have been used for an R13 that given the good African Blackwood shortages, less quality wood than in year's past was now being used on R13s

The Festival had that key and Drucker felt it just got in the way, having learned to live without it from years of play where such features were simply never offered on clarinets.

..the good old days where there were 3 ligatures choices....How on earth did we survive?