I had almost a month off between the first of these lessons and the last one, and it certainly showed. I also made the mistake, which I won't do again, of not warming up before my lesson.
Did I play badly? I blew, just horribly. It was as if I had not practiced at all in the month off, which was certainly not the case. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, I was able to play every day for many days in a row, and I thought I was doing pretty well.
One of the things I had been practicing was the chromatic scale, and that should have been a no-brainer. The problem was that I did not pay enough attention to the chromatic fingerings, and as a result got pretty flustered when Kirt was asking me, why are you playing the notes like that? Some of the fingerings make sense to me, others not so compelling. Another question I had was about using these fingerings all the time, and I was told that this was certainly the case for playing scales, but not necessarily all the time. OK, so its practical and once more, getting out of bad hablts is harder than getting into them. Of course, there are few things in music that are followed with an iron discipline, so when I am playing songs, as opposed to scales, I will figure it out as I go.
Another issue that Kirt noticed, again, is how I was holding the keys down with far too much pressure. I had recently bought a clarinet strap since I was getting tendonitis in my right arm, and that was helping but I am still doing the death grip.
It is a certainty that gripping this hard does NOT improve my playing. In fact, I felt if anything I was going in every wrong direction possible, all at the same time. I think I blocked the rest of the lesson out, and I really couldn't bear to listen back, later in the week, to the recording I made of the lesson.
One last thing, and this just killed me, my timing was crap! How could I not know how to play in tune, after all these years? I was only during the next week I realized that part of the bad timing was due to some notes just being harder to play. Even if my hands are fast enough, I mess up with that short bit of time being lost as I try and play a hard note.
One thing that Kirt noted, and I realized that it was exactly right in my case, is that I was approaching difficult notes by sort of easing into the note, instead of playing it straight on. This doesn't help, in fact it hurts your ability to play better. No easy answer except more practice, and to make sure the notes are supported constantly from the abdomen. But its good that this was pointed out to me.
In short, at the end of this lesson I was quite depressed, and worse yet, I had to go right over to give my first clarinet lesson to my student. How, I thought, can I teach this when I can't play it myself?
So, some perspective was given to me at this lesson. My student, who is playing my other horn, played piano for ten years but never a wind instrument, so this is a big task for him to take on.
When he was playing tones, I realized that no matter how I suck, at least I am not quite a beginner. I also realized how difficult it can be to explain how to do the simplest thing, make a good tone on the clarinet. There is really so much to explain, and boy can it be frustrating to the new student, not being able to make a clear tone. We spent some time, my playing a note and my student trying to match it. It really does help the new student.
In short, it turned out to be a good lesson (I work with my student and he was happy he told me a couple of days later) even thought it was hard for him. Once again I realize how beneficial it is for my own technique to try and teach it to someone else.
I went home, and my wife, who is learning the cello, had an awful lesson too, couldn't play anything well. I guess it was just one of those days, eh?
Lets fast forward a week, to my next lesson. This time, I spent almost an hour practicing before I went to my lesson. I was determined not to have such a terrible time that week.
We started out listening to what Kirt tells me is the standard of standards for clarinet pieces by Debussy. Beautiful as you would imagine, with lots of long tones for quite some time in the first movement. Remarkable tone by the clarinet player, whose name I don't remember. Interesting to me, as Kirt stops and makes a few commments on how well the guy or woman was playing. For one phrase, Kirt says, why did they play it like that? And just rips out the same complicated passage like it was nothing. I have so damn far to go!
We spoke again about the chromatic scales and Kirt noticed that I was still holding the clarinet with far too much force, so he ended up giving me a short physical exercise to help my hands loosen up.
Kirt studies Aikido and he gave me an exercise to help loosen up my arms and hands. Get up on the balls of your feet, off the heels. Put your hands at your sides and start shaking your arms rapidly, moving your arms as if you were flicking something off the ends of your fingers. Do this rapidly until you get enough motion to start bouncing on your heels. Stay at it for maybe five minutes. Well, it certainly makes the blood run into your hands.
Still we spent quite a bit of time with Kirt standing behind me where I could see him in the mirror to see how he was holding the clarinet, trying to get me to at one and the same time hold the clarinet very close with my hands and yet without any extra pressure. I am still trying to get the hang of this, but as he said, the way that is easiest to hold the horn is the right way. It should be a caress, not a squeeze.
Another pointer: while playing the pinky keys, Kirt noticed that I was not simply holding my pinkies straight out. For some reason I was curving them, as if there was a problem if they extended past the end of the keys. Who knew? I never even thought about this, but it makes perfect sense now.
Kirt gave me a couple of exercises, first of which is a re-write of the chromatic scale into two parts: first play chromatically from the low C to the E at the top of the staff and back down. The second section is from the low F to Ab in the middle of the staff and back down. This gives you almost all they key combinations on the horn, but does not go all the way up to the upper octives. I have been doing these two scales along with the standard chromatic low F to the higest E. Do I have to repeat that you need to use the chromatic fingerings for all these scales? I didn't think so, thanks.
Also, he wrote what looks simple but is actually really tricky. Check this out, and note the fingerings:
Download file
Left hand means to use the small key between the C/G hole and the D/A ring for the Eb, while chromatic fingering uses the side keys and the thumb for the Gb, and regular finering uses the Gb on the top key of the horn. This is quite complicated for only being 12 notes, so have fun with it. Note that Alto doesn't mean anything, I just had to have it in order to make the software works right. I should note that I am using the freeware Finale Notepad 2008 to do the notation, far better than the other freeware I mentioned a couple of lessons ago.
I will say for me the chromatic Eb/Bb left hand combo is great for ascending scales. It kills me to try and get my third finger in position when I am playing descending notes. Kirt did take a few minutes and tweaked the keys just a bit to make it easier for me to play the note. As he says, these old Buffets have German silver keys, and he is not afraid to make some minor adjustments. While he is bending the key on my horn of course he tells me how he broke a key doing this once......well, I am happy to let someone more expert work on my horn. Suffice it to say Kirt didn't mangle my horn.
So in this week I have been trying to concentrate more on just getting a good tone. I am anxious to move on to some other material, but Kirt, always the correct taskmaster, says whats the point when I am not producing a quality tone now, it just won't help. I am working on this Klezmer tune, which seems to encapsulate all the difficuties I am having now with fingering and tone - its a great tune, and once I get it down, I will post it here.
Kirt did mention something else about tone, and this rings so true to me. We had been talking about the steps necessary to produce a good tone: the abdomen, breath, embrosure....all that stuff. What he finally told me is that at some point you just have to make that good tone, and just concentrate on the experience of it.
This is exactly the same idea that I tell my guitar students: learn all these concepts I am telling you, and then only worry about playing with feeling. Don't throw away the theory and all that, but let your brain and more importatnly your ear be your guide. You know, nobody can hear your brain, only the sound that you produce so concentrate on that.
Thursday nite, after playing almost an hour, I finally was getting what I consider to be a good, full tone - and then my mouth pretty much collapsed and so I had to quite. Twas ever thus.