When I have a truly great practice day it feels so good! I am exhausted because I’ve been playing all day. But so many things kept coming together; I didn’t want to stop.
I managed to get out for a walk about half way through the day, and it was freezing out. But I had dressed well and kept walking, and I eventually warmed up.
My iPod (my PalmPre) was on shuffle for all the classical music I have on it, including that fabulous Schoenberg album with Michel Arrignon playing. There’s also another great clarinet player on a collection of Poulenc, his Les Animaux Modeles, Les Bisches, some piano piece. Lovely clarinet playing.
I had all these great tones in my ear, and as soon as I returned home I went to my practice room and started playing again.
I had in the past briefly connected a certain tone in my ear with how to achieve it on clarinet, the type of support involved, the voicing, the pitfalls. But the connection was always brief, or difficult to repeat.
Today it came together again, and I was just familiar enough with what had happened from previous attempts to analyse it, and to grasp it one step deeper.
I recorded a description of the physical nature of the experience, subjective as it may be, on my digital voice recorder for later review. I find that recording descriptions of how things feel helps trigger a body memory of it next time.
I could write about it now, but I won’t. First, I’m starving. I’m getting some Chinese carry out to eat. Second, I don’t want to blab about something so complex until I’m sure of how to describe it in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m too nutty a professor, off in my own little paradise. I want the technique to be secure and reliably repeatable.
Happy New Year Fun. Got this from ArsGeek. “Zach Galifiankais of The Hangover fame has made a loyal internet following with Cha-Ching Pictures with their series of videos. This most recent collaboration features a star-studded cast of Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, Vinnie Jones, Henry Rollins, Chuck Liddell and Olivia Wilde as they lovingly lampoon the old school G.I. Joe.”
At about 2′50″ there’s a fun, suggestive scene with clarinet playing.
During my deeper explorations of clarinet playing, I stumble upon tiny techniques which have huge effects on playing. One of these is the importance of a firmly supported lower lip. (The upper lip has a different function, which I will address in another post.)
Since the lower lip is the only contact with the vibrating reed, its importance is obvious. It is especially critical to control of the reed in technical passages, when the reed must jump around with precision.
Any serious player has thought about this. Yet it is often forgotten when a clarinetist has achieved a certain level of competence. And while students may have been instructed in various embouchure formations, the importance of the lower lip may have been lost in other efforts.
I tell my students that the reed is like a puppy needing to be trained. And the embouchure, particularly the lower lip, is the leash to control it. If it’s too loose, the puppy runs wild. Too tight and you choke it.
Let me clarify what is NOT involved in the use of the lower lip. Jaw pressure is NOT to be increased as the lower lip is tightened. Throat muscles are NEVER tightened.
I’ll start with the assumption that you know how to form a basic clarinet embouchure: chin flat, corners pulled in towards each other, cheeks pulled in against the teeth and gums.
If you say the word “Ewww”, with pursed lips, your lower lip should bunch up. Pull that bunched up lower lip into your mouth and form and embouchure. Say “Ewww” again, more emphatically. Tighten that lower lip in and together as much as you can, and a little more. Keep your chin pulled down.
The critical part of this musculature is the tension between the pulled down chin and the pulled up lip. Think of two arrows pointing up toward the reed as the direction of the lower lip. See the following illustration.
clarinet embouchure with direction of tension of lower lip
While doing the above exercise, check in with jaw and throat to be sure they didn’t come along for the ride. It’s harder than it seems to tighten your lower lip muscles without engaging those others unnecessarily. For that reason, I suggest the following exercise.
Form the embouchure as suggested above, place the clarinet in your mouth in ready position. Close the embouchure around the mouthpiece. Take a breath and DON’T play. Exhale through your nose. Keep the embouchure formed, concentrate on the lower lip pulling in and up. Relax your jaw and throat exaggeratedly.
Do this several times. Each time take note to relax the following in addition to jaw and throat: behind the eyes, forehead, sinuses, neck, shoulders, hips, knees, feet. You may enjoy this exercise and wish to continue for many breaths. Be careful not to hyper-ventilate.
Now play some slow scales, taking care to maintain the above achievements as you play.
The Musician’s Way blog by Gerald Klickstein, Guitarist, author, educator, Professor of Music at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He blogs about the helpful topics from his book, The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness (Oxford, 2009).
He “explores issues of music practice and performance, creativity, music careers, collaboration, wellness, and the myriad aspects of living a musician’s life.” Definitely worth checking out.
Third Stream Music Education Third-Stream is “about music education, usually about student performing ensembles, and specifically about bringing cutting-edge modernism to the high school wind ensemble rehearsal.”
“Third-Stream is written by Cary Stewart. Cary is the Director of Bands and Middle School Fine Arts Team Leader at a medium-sized American international school in Asia.”
Good stuff. I particularly like his post on Yoga of Wind Orchestra. Sounds like something I would write. All musicians should learn yoga and Alexander Technique. I vote yes.
The following audio tracks are from a live performance at the Ohio State University in February, 2009.
Felix Mendelssohn Concert Pieces, Opp. 113 and 114, composed in 1832, were originally for clarinet and Basset Horn. Written as bravura pieces, each one is a self-contained mini concerto with three movements. Together, they make a nice matching pair. In this arrangement for two clarinets, Columbus Symphony Orchestra colleague Robert ‘Woody’ Jones played as many licks as possible down an octave to give the tonal weight of the Basset Horn.
Caroline Hong, piano, organized this wonderful tribute to Mendelssohn for his 200th. It was a great collaboration between The Ohio State University and the Columbus Symphony, which I hope will happen more often.
Here is some informative and entertaining background to the pieces, which I quote from Presto Classical.
Heinrich Baermann and his son Carl were two of the great clarinet virtuosos of the 19th century, their artistry celebrated the length and breadth of Europe.To their friendship with Felix Mendelssohn we owe the latter’s two Concert Pieces opp. 113 and 114, works associated with an amusing anecdote retold by Carl Baermann, who reports that the alternative title of the first piece, ‘grand duet for sweet yeast dumpling and cream puff, clarinet and basset-horn’, stems from a culinary duel fought between him and Mendelssohn in Berlin at the end of 1832. By preparing yeast dumplings and cream puffs, Baermann apparently persuaded Mendelssohn to respond to a commission that his father had given him some time earlier, encouraging him to slave away at his ‘piano stove’, while he himself busied himself in the kitchen. It cannot be said that either of these two works simmers at a low heat or that the second of them should be “thrown into the fire”, as Mendelssohn himself insisted.
Enjoy!
Felix Mendelssohn Concert Piece 1-
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Felix Mendelssohn Concert Piece 2-
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Here are the two finalists of Toney Grail mouthpiece tests, Lelandais and Hawkins R, played on A clarinet.
These clips are recorded in a larger room, which has some natural acoustic, unlike my tiny and dead practice room where the first set of clips were recorded.
These mouthpieces are quite different in their voicing needs. However, I did the test cold without adjusting to the mouthpiece, and it shows a bit, especially in articulation.
Clip 1
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Clip 2
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