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.