This is a set of notes from two lessons - easier for me to capture in just one entry. If these notes are kind of scatter shot, sorry, life is really busy now so I note this when I can!
Vocalizing - this exercise is simply designed to get awareness of the glottis - its almost like chocking. Start out with a good tone, like a good c scale. Its not embrosure, its all down in the throat. You activate your vocal chords, and keep steady air while you do this. Its gonna hurt, makes the throat dry. Again, bottom of the neck, and try to hold a tone when you do this. You are basically speaking thru the horn.
Start with a 100% good tone on a high C - don't do this exercise any other way.. Now, take the back part of the tongue raise it to the roof of the mouth, not the glottis, but the back back part (maybe the back third) of the tongue. Move it up to the point of choking off the tone entirely. Remember to start with a regular tone, and then lift the back of the tongue. This is not the same at all as what I have been trying to do, which was dealing with the front two thirds of my tongue - this is why I could never gliss all the way down a sixth.
Exercise: do a normal tone, then raise your tongue to close it, then normal, closed, normal, closed, feeling the tone coming through this valve we are creating with the raising of the tongue. Again, the back third of the tongue is where the tone is focused, a physical sensation of creating the tone.
Now, play the C again, close it up and now hold it just barely opened from closed off - takes a lot of air pressure. Remember, this is still within the mouth, not down into the neck. Now try the gliss exercise without the clarinet. You should feel the sensation up in the back area of the mouth, not low on the tongue. You will also be aware of the glottis, but of course its still lower than the back of the mouth.
The idea behind this is that you can produce the pure tones using this area of the back of the mouth, and also it will make it so that you can ride the gliss to go between notes. Again, we are not using the front part of the tongue, it's the rear section that you are concentrating on. Kirt can do the sixth gliss without playing at high volume, so its not strength but awareness. Also for the gliss exercise use a kuh sound instead of a tah sound, unlike the rest of the time when you play. Its also a good idea to do make an embrosure, then do the gliss without the clarinet in the mouth. Do this for two or three minutes, close the eyes and really concentrate on what you are doing. Assuming you can do the gliss, you can also make it chromatic too, how much more control could you have? It occurs to me that if you are doing this all in the back of the mouth, then you could have even finer control, quarter tones and anything in between.
You know you have this correct when you are aware not only that you are not moving the front of your tongue, or changing your embrosure, but also it feels like the path of air is like a super highway or a tunnel of high velocity air. Note that this should end up being totally controllable, so that you can do the gliss at any volume. I have a ways to go on this!
I will say it again, the reason for the gliss is to enable the precise control of notes, so that the air does what you want it to, to not only get great tone but exact, fluid transitions between the notes.
You can do the gliss starting on the open G, but not any lower on the instrument, its just not possible.
March 31st - I DID IT! The first gliss!
April 2nd
Next step: Okay, let's work to get more control of it. Gliss a downward C scale in half notes to F, the back up to C. Nail the pitch as best you can. Try going to E a few times if possible. E is about the lowest note we can get, but it is not very stable and a real challenge. Again, if you don't start with a 100% quality C, you are missing the point. Also, do this slowly and make the pitches as clear as you can: the bliss of the gliss
Note: this is actually a bit faster than it should be, I figure set the metronome for 84 as about the right speed.
Next step:Okay, let's work to get more control of it. Gliss a downward C scale in half notes to F, the back up to C. Nail the pitch as best you can. Try going to E a few times if possible. E is about the lowest note we can get, but it is not very stable and a real challenge.
Once you have this set, the next challenge is to be able to do this gliss using a double embrosure where both teeth are covered by the lips. This I found was harder to do and for me at least it had something to do with how I was actually holding the horn. Sometimes I like to cross one of my legs and rest the bell near my ankle. This removes all the weight of the horn from my hand completely. After finally getting the single embrosure down, it was quite frustrating with the double until I change my seating position in this fashion. Then I was able to make the gliss work with the double lip.
Its been a week now and I am getting better with it all the time, and will get to the point where even the double lop should be no trouble. As Kirt said many times, once you can grasp the concept and do the gliss, its really pretty easy.
About a year ago during one of my first lessons, Kirt told me to try and make the normal Bb - the one where you use the bottom key and the top key - sound the same as the side Bb key. You are purifying the normal Bb to sound like the side Bb. This is basically moves the awareness to the back of the throat, akin to using the gliss - the tone is not produced at the embrosure, not in the formation of the tongue - its all in the upper back section of the mouth. Kirt's idea is that "you play the whole clarinet like that improved (matched tone) Bb, with enough embrosure pressure to bring the high C into tune, and subtle gradations on every note from G on up with the gliss - and that's it, that's all you do".
So there it is - the basic and key concept - or the secret, the opening of the treasure chest -for Kirt's concept of playing the clarinet. See, what took me a year to do, you got in just reading a few of these scribbles - and you can't beat the price.
OK, so that isn't all there is: another concept Kirt threw at me: have as little of the mouthpiece in your mouth as possible. To do this, first of course you have to have the right embrosure: have the lower lip stretched just tight enough against the teeth, just flat, you don't have to kill yourself. The chin should be flat and relaxed, and the corners of the mouth should be pulled back, and only need to be closed enough to stop air leakage around the mouthpiece. You can, when practicing this, even leak a little air around the corners. Its kind of like smiling with your mouth pretty closed.
Remember, try to keep the corners of your mouth back - keep the reed away from, and not surrounded by the lips. You could almost say that the horn is just barely dangling on the tip of the mouthpiece.
This is totally different than what I do on the saxophone, which is to simply wrap your lips loosely around the mouthpiece, surround it, and blow. Also, you move the jaw forward and back on the sax, that is correct technique for the instrument. That is one of the many reasons the clarinet is so much more difficult. As Kirt said once to me, you can teach yourself to play sax, but not the clarinet.
Rings true in my case, for sure!
That is it for now, see you next time