Author: claire70
Date: 2008-11-14 15:23
Thanks for all the thoughts. Here's a progress report:
Kid 1 (the 10 year old) made a *lot* of progress with a week's practice, and has more or less got the hang of it now. There are still issues of course, but I'm confident he's on the right track now.
Kid 2 (the 13 year old) - still *really* struggling. I scraped her reeds down massively today (not having a plastic one to hand!), and suggested several of the things that you've suggested above. Still not much better. She basically seems incredibly tense, and is blowing much too hard - so the note either gets strangled, or comes out at a higher octave. (She can squeak the reed with no problem, though.) I kept telling her to relax, and she very occasionally managed it for about a second, but then the tension usually came right back again! Any helpful hints?
She also has a big problem with tonguing - she just doesn't seem to be able to move her tongue back and forth! So even if I manage to get her to do a reasonably long note for, say, 3 seconds, as soon as I try to get her to repeat it with tonguing either nothing happens (ie. it stays as one long note), or the tension comes back and the notes get strangled again.
I'm wondering if blowing into water through a straw, or something along those lines, might help, or whether it could just end up confusing her...
Post Edited (2008-11-14 15:24)
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