Author: Dutchy
Date: 2009-05-12 13:50
I do mine for a long count of 16, mainly because I do them all up and down the entire scale, and I've found that if I try to hold each note until my breath gives out, my brain explodes from sheer boredom after about eight notes. I've tried reading a book while I do them (seriously), with it propped on the music stand, but then I don't feel like I'm really focusing on the process and am not getting the benefit.
So, I hold each note for a long count of 16. It takes me about 10 minutes, start to finish from Bb1 to F3, and that's as far as my attention span will take me. ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
The benefit is that it greatly improves your overall stamina. I always notice a distinct difference in my ability to practice for longer periods when I've been doing long tones for about a week consistently. Holding a note forces the embouchure muscles to just grab the note and hang onto it, which gives them a real workout. When I do practices where I just run through the usual scales/arpeggios/etudes/pieces, and omit the long tone practice, I can always tell after about a week, because I start needing to stop and rest more often.
It also adds something that I've always thought of "reed command", that is, the feeling that you're in command of the reed, that you're not just sticking it in your mouth and trying to get a non-squawking sound out of it. I suppose a teacher would have a more technical term for this.
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