First a few general thoughts on technique:
The horn feels different when you are only trying to play one note and just moving your fingers - something to think about at all times, a mindset to strive for.
On tone: consider that we are stripping out some of the non-essential partials of the tone to pure it up -it is more of a metaphor but it is a refinement. The big trick is to be able to recognize this tone when no one is around, so you don't have to be coached and coached on it.
Also note the difference between being wide open in the mouth and breath, and controlling and shaping the tone, which is what you want to do.
Fingers: we want to have the lightest touch we can with the tips of the fingers on the keys. Remember that it takes hardly any pressure at all to close the keys down, even though it might seem, especially if you are prone to squeaking, that smashing the fingers down is the best way to go. Really, it only slows you down. One of the reasons I love the clarinet more than the sax is the blinding speed that you can achieve, since you don't need to force down those larger keys. I have read that only the flute can be played faster, and here I am assuming the open hole and not the plateau flute. In any event, a fast and light touch, on those occasions when I am able to achieve this, makes me feel like I do when playing the guitar: my fingers are just dancing over the keys (or strings). Its a great feeling.
Now consider this little exercise:
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As Kirt wrote to me:
"This new sheet focuses on some break exercises in an arpeggio form. I found these challenging primarily from a tonal perspective, although they do challenge the left hand a bit. The right hand can stay down through all of the arpeggios."
Its a bit melodic.I should note that the Db is played with the right pinky on this first exercise.- as always do what you can with one hand whenever possible.
Here are some exercises from the Vade Mecum a text designed for the clarinet player that may have a limited amount of practice time and still wants to get a complete workout for the hands.
Supposedly you can do the entire 21 pages in half an hour. If you can do that, you probably don't even need then, you are already an amazing player. This would be an excellent book to add to your collection.
I am including a couple of these exercises here, which Kirt tells me are the essence of the practice. First lets take a look at page 5:
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Note that I have been very tense with my hands when doing these. I have difficulty with the rocking motion the whole left hand must perform so that you need to do these movements. Things to remember: don't slide on the register key, the thumb should just barley cover the lower right part of the key when you are going from F to the octave. The thumb should be at a 45 degree angle to the key, and the thumb rocks on and off the key as needed. You won't fuzz the notes on the register key hole by keeping the thumb close. Kirt has his thumb pretty much touching the register key all the time, even when he is not pinching the key open, and as he says its pretty much a pinch movement.
Look carefully at your hands in the mirror. In my case, my index finger seems to want to fly off the mark constantly like I was flipping someone off. Very difficult for me to overcome. The trick is to relax the hand and at the same time keep the hand close in to the body of the horn. I always try and get good finger position first, before I play. What I mean by this is to put all the fingers down as if I was playing a low E and then just fractionally lifting off the keys, keeping the anchor points (left hand resting on the A and Ab keys, right hand resting on the side keys, in both cases not opening the keys but keeping in contact with them). This position is what Kirt says is the open G position - think about it and it will make a lot of sense to you.
In all cases the first finger of the left hand remains curved, pointed towards the F# key, never straight. In fact you play the A with the knuckle, which makes for only a tiny movement, and your first finger wastes no motion at all. A good exercise for this is E - A - Ab.
Remember that what Kirt is showing me is going directly to the technical difficulties of the horn - get the hard stuff out of the way first.
Tounging: here is the first and simplest exercise:
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This can sure make your tongue hurt if you do it long enough. Now, if that hasn't killed you off,go to page 14 of the Vade Mecum:Download file
Its important to remember that these are staccato notes, and you should be concentrating on opening and closing the tongue as the only movement your make in your mouth, and a very small movement at that. I find that this exercise is actually easier to play faster rather then slower. I also find that squeak like crazy on this exercise for some reason, which is course means I am not covering the holes correctly. I mean to say, I know this is the simple and straightforward reason, but its still very difficult for me.
So - a solid tone, move the fingers and stop the reed with the tongue. You never stop blowing through the entire exercise. On top of all this, the tone has to be pure, not fuzzy. Have fun with this one kids.
Clarinet face: Kirt has talked about this before, but the idea is that you get your embrosure all set before you put the horn to your mouth. This means, jaw moved back like a drawer pushed all the way in, corners of the mouth back,lower lip stretched, not like a drum head but enough to make a flat plane across the lower teeth, upper lip down and just covering the teeth. If you do this right, and have the face already made, then you can put the horn in your mouth without moving anything, and just play. This means that you aren't trying to grasp and hold onto the mouthpiece, and thereby biting down on the reed, but rather the mouthpiece is just placed there in the mouth. This minimal contact ensures that you are really using the mouth cavity to shape the sound, and not wrapping the lips around the mouthpiece, as you would with a saxophone. If you do this right, make the face and then put in the clarinet and just blow, you will already be in the ideal position to play before you touch the horn, with no adjustments.
I have had some success with this when I put the horn in the mouth, get set to play and then take out the horn without moving. This is backwards but it gets me ready to play, and it is one more thing I am working on. Very difficult for me indeed. I was told that while this is not has difficult as the gliss, Kirt wanted to emphasize that this is absolutely critical for me to be able to perfect my overall technique.
One last thing, I will pass on 141 practical technical exercises from the classic Klose. You will see this is aimed at the Boehm system, so for those of you playing Alberts, this should even be more fun. These are self explanatory I think, so go for it:
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Keep it real - keep playing!