This was a good lesson for me - it seems like I am finally finding the tone. I spent much of the previous week simply trying to find the right way to do this. Even though Kirt has been very clear (and persistent!) in his instructions, tone is a very subtle thing, and the mechanism to produce it even more so.
I was actuallly sounding pretty good, at one point Kirt said that's the best C scale I've played in my whole life. Of course I felt good about that, but can I do it consistently? No way, not now. We discussed the whole mouth position thing again at some length. I won't bore you with the whole discussion but cut to the bit of insight:
Kirt had spoken many times to me about the shape of the mouth and the placement of the tounge - especially the tounge should be high in the back of the mouth, low in the front against the teeth.
We had talked about saying the word "sure" to accomplish this. However, this wasn't working for me. What does work, however, was to mouth the word as "shure" - just like the microphone manufacturer. So, you make your embrosure off the horn, say shure and then transfer to the horn.
What this does, when I do it correctly, is to put my tounge in the correct place, and all other things being equal, I get GOOD tone. Not only that, it doesn't feel like I am forcing my tounge to do anything that strains it, nothing unnatural. The idea I think, is to get this position so ingrained that it is the default position for the mouth/tounge.
Of course, none of this will do no good unless you are pumping the air thru the horn from your abdomen - never high up in the lungs, and the pressure must be constant.
OK, so I can't do this consistenly, but I know what it sounds like and feels like. Kirt asked me to describe what this sounds like to me, the good centered tone. I was struck that when the tone is good, its like when the sun is eclipsed by the moon: the good tone is in the dark center, and if you can see in your minds eye, the sloar flares on the outside are the bad, unfocused tones, the junk if you will.
To this end I have started a new wrinkle in my practice. For all the studies, whatever the first note is, I get that one correct first before I play any of the other notes fo the exercise. I figure, if I can't get that one, whats the point of playing the rest? In many cases, I will play the first note and hang on it until I get a really good tone, before playing any other notes. Sure this slows me down, but eventually all the tones should be, in theory, good, right?
We also did a bit more correcting of my finger position. Two things to note: I can now hold the paper between my thumb and index finger a bit more easily, but still its not quite relaxed; progress at least. Second, I am now being more careful that both my right and left pinkies rest on the farthest away side keys, even when I am not actually playing those notes.
The reason is easy to see: if I am anchored there, I am closer to the horn, always good, plus it should never be a problem in reaching for any of the side keys when I need to. Recall only the pinkies are held flat, and unlike the other fingers, you slap these into place when keying the notes.
One other note for the right hand, I was not holding the hand close enough to the body of the horn. Kirts idea to to make sure that the right index finger is in contact with the upper side keys. If you take you horn, you can see what I mean, its almost like the keys were meant to do this, where the flat of the finger contacts the two lower side keys and the side of the finger lays nicely against the lower of the two upper side keys.
I am still grinding away on the same exercises, and they aren't really boring me since I can't play them to the level I want yet. Two more small exercies added: in additon to the E and F above the staff long tones, I am now also playing the G. One of the things that is fascinating and frustrating about the clarinet is the amazing variance of the tone of the notes, far more prevalent than on my saxophone. I have to wonder if this is even more pronounced on horns with the Albert system since there is one less ring. Maybe someone on the list could enlighten me on that?
That is it for this time, I hope I am not being too repetitive on these posts, but its what I am going thru and I guess as they say your milage will vary with your own studies. I will be on vacation for a couple of weeks, see you after that.
Things have certainly taken a good turn in the instrument department. Maybe its too soon, since I have only played clarinet for a year, but I thought that perhapsI could score a good Buffet cheap off eBay. Once in a while you get lucky, ya know?
My teacher Kirt kind of got me started on this, as he would show me, from time to time, good deals on old Buffets. Now I am no clarinet expert, but with most instruments I would rather have an old one rather than a new once, since you can't do any magic to wood to make it age that I know of - execpt to be forturnate to find an old axe in good condition. Also to me, older instruments have a charm that can't be duplicated - you wonder how many fingers have danced on the keys, where the horn might have lived and if it has outlived any of its owners. Maybe we only rent these things......
What I was looking for was basically the vintage that Kirt plays - 40,000 series, made in the late 1940s to 1950s.
One thing you must do if you are looking for anything is say, how much am I willing to spend to make me feel like I got a deal? Once you do that, then if you miss out on something, you can just say, hey, it was out of my budget and leave it at that. I missed a few horns this way but it turned out fine in the end.
To make a long strory short, I found one and for some reason not too many other people were interested in buying it so it came to my way at a nice price. Maybe they were turned off by the fact that the upper joint had a crack that was reparied. From what I was told, this is not at all uncommon, and if the repair was done right, its not a problem at all.
Kirt did advise me to ask the seller if the horn had been played regualary to keep the wood in shape. Kirts horn had set for some time without use, and it cracked almost as soon as he started playing it all the time. OK, so he got it repaired, and it sounds beautiful.
Of course the main problem buying on line is that you can't possibly hear how the instrument sounds, or even if its tune with itself.
So I was a bit worried about this as I first assembled the horn and began to play. Well, it sounded great to me, and certainly plays a lot easier than my Noblet. At least it didn't seem to leak, and there was no obvious damage; in fact I had a hard time seeing where the crack had been repaired. The keys are a bit clatty but nothing major I didn't think.
Of course, I am no expert on clarinets, so I took it down to my friendly and trusted repariman Fred at Portland Music.
Fred typically has some loud rock and roll music blaring away as he reparis the woodwinds, and that day was no exception. He took the horn in had, sighted up the barrel to look for I don't know what exactly, put on his own mouthpice and played exactly one note, and said, in a quiet voice "oh". I said, what, is something wrong? He didn't speak but turned off the stereo and began to play a lovely stream of notes (Fred is a great player, if only I had those chops....).
Anyway, after a few minutes of lovely tone, he said, this is a good horn. You can imagine my relief! I asked him what needed to be done to it, and he told me nothing. Bring it back in a year and I will rebuild it for you, but for now - just play it!
You can imagine my relief! I went home feeling like I just hit the lottery.
Only one other test left, to see what Kirt had to say about it.
At the lesson I show Kirt the tiny, battered case that the horn came in. Same one he has! I did go out and buy another case, there was no room for anything except the horn itself. How can you not carry a bunch of reeds and cork grease?
Anyway, his and my horns are mighty similar. Kirt does a bit of research, seems my horn was most likley made in 1950, a couple of years older than his. He does a bit of examination, and starts playing the heck out of it. Man, does it sing! As Kirt says, all horns are like fingerprints, no two alike eihter in sound or playing. I think the action on his horn is a bit nicer than mine, and the tone is different, but I would say different not necessarily better. Of course, he is in a whole other leauge of playing than I am, but if you take that away - well, lets just say that if there are any bad noises coming out of this horn, the problem is me, not the horn.
We took some time in the lesson, just checking out the new horn, discussing all things concerning my new stick, but its not like that is all we did.
This entire lesson was about tone, tone, tone. I am still struggling trying to get my tounge to cooperate with the method that Kirt has been patiently trying to teach me. Yes, I know I have written about this before....suffice it to say, its about getting the tounge up in the mouth in back and down against the front teeth in front.
The idea is to focus the breath before it gets to the reed. I had been getting good results from concentrating on the back of my throat, were it acts as a valve to open/close the air passage.
This is only part of the equation however. As Kirt points out, what we need to really accomplish is to have the control in the mid mouth, so that the column of air is shaped before it hits the reed. This has been very very frustrating to me, since I don't seem to be able to force the back of my tounge up in my mouth, no matter what. We spent quite a bit of time on this, and just at the end of the lesson, I was actually able to force the tounge up enough in back to feel my upper teeth. Its not exactly perfect by any means, but this was more than I was able to do all the time before then, so I considered it a minor breakthru.
That was basically it for the lesson. In the subsquent practices I have been trying to train my tounge to rise up in the mouth after I make contact with the horn. I don't seem to be able, at least yet, to form the embrosure off the horn and then just play. No, I have to get set and then by effort of will move the tounge. My assumption is that at some point this will all seem natural, and I will finally have overcome my tendency to play the clarinet like the sax. On the sax, a huge column of air is just fine, but it won't do here, so its practice practice practice.
I have mentioned before about the left hand postion, where Kirt wants me to play with a slip of paper held between the thumb and first finger. I am getting better at this, as long as I play slowly and carefully. I also finally realized that having a large numbe of strips of paper, rather than just one, helps me when I invariably drop them.
As with the tounge positon, Its my hope that at some point this will all be automatic, and not stressful. Certainly, when I watch Kirt play, his left hand looks totally relaxed, and the thumb in particula\r moves hardly at all on/off the register key. Minimum motion, that is the key if the goal is effiency which eventually equals speed.