Making Thine Ears Sensitive

I remember, distinctly, being in rehearsal in HS and begin asked (as a part of the group) to sing something in our part.  What?  I don't sing!  That's why I'm in band people!  I didn't have any sort of relative pitch and I certainly didn't know how to carry a tune.  How am I supposed to make my voice sing the notes you're asking for?  Confusing!
 
Then I get to college and Theory and Sightsinging are taught in the same class period.  No problem there.  However, the class was slanted towards singers and piano players and there was no instruction in how to enact your voice.  I have a really low voice and most people don't so I always found myself uncomfortably singing below other people (which I would not continue to do) or not being able to sing as high as required.  Once again, it also didn't help that the class was slanted towards singers and piano players (it also didn't help that there was no actual teaching going on.  No one started from the beginning and assumed we all knew nothing and then taught everything.  It was more like having someone look down their nose at you every day because you didn't have the training they expected you to have so they wouldn't have to actually teach you anything.)  To say the least, I was disheartened.
 
Then I was taking "Form and Analysis" (not really, they just called it that and the Organ Professor taught it really poorly) and I was struggling because there was no teaching going on and then we were singing stuff in harmony (which I can't do and wasn't taught to do) and was getting nowhere.  Then....
 
I got into Drum Corps.  The best part about that is that there are always recordings avialable, the shows are to the point, usually very well written, and easy to listen to over and over.  I acquired a few Cd's and started listening.  Then I discovered a few shows that I REALLY liked and felt compelled to sing along.  I found that I could easily crack my voice and sing in falsetto quite easily (something multiple college professors, with Doctorates, were too lazy to do.)  Then, I figured out that, after multiple listenings, I kind of had a pitch memory.  Like, I could actually remember what was coming up next and sing it before the note started and be right!  Yes! 
 
Then I started thinking...Can I have perfect pitch on my instrument?  Not actual perfect pitch, the kind you're born with, just perfect pitch on my instrument.  How else do brass players know what note they're gonna play?  How else would I know which note was which without seeing someone's fingers or reading the music they were playing?  Good idea!
 
So, I started to just think notes before I played them.  I "kind of" knew what everything sounded like, but not exactly, so I decided to start being much more specific with the level of sensitivity I had to pitch.  Amazingly, it helped alot.  Not only do I have a much better idea of how everything should sound on my primary instrument, but in playing anything, I have a much more acute awareness of how intervals sound and how harmonic progressions sound. 
 
I never realized how close half-steps were until I started listening to how far apart I was playing some of them on certain parts of my instrument.  Then I started listening to my private students and they were way off too!  Then I have a flashback...
 
If you were taking lessons where I went to college you took a Fall and Spring jury with the entire wind and percussion faculty.  I have no problem with this kind of stuff so I was never bothered by it, but I remember one instance in particular that I took a long time to figure out.
 
I was asked once "Do you feel like you're playing in tune with yourself?"  I had no response for that at the time and no explanation was given.  In fact, the subject never came up again.  Granted, I did change mouthpieces that summer and that did bring my overall pitch up (I tend to play low, it's a consequence of my open embouchure) but I just didn't hear about it again.
 
So, I'm teaching someone a couple years ago and it hits me!  Dang, all of these intervals are totally out of whack!  You aren't playing in tune with yourself dude! 

Now I can't stop saying it.  It's everywhere!  It's as if I can now see radio waves that were not visible before, like I've got X-ray vision.  Craziness!
 
Anyways, how do you make yourself more sensitive to the changing of the tides?  I don't know that there's a formula for gaining a more firm grasp on relative pitch, but I do know that there are things you can do...
 
-  don't get discouraged
-  if you're not a singer, become a shower singer (you know, like in the Golden Girls when Sophia realizes that Blanche's brother Clayton is gay "He's as a gay as a picnic basket!"  "Ma, how did you know!?"  "I heard him singing in the shower.  He's the only man I ever knew who knew all the words to "Send in the Clowns."  It won't be this revealing, but it will teach you about pitch memory.
-  if you like singing with the radio, you're in business as this will also teach you alot about pitch memory.
-  if you refuse to sing SOMETIMES you won't get any better at this stuff
-  if you're ever in a rehearsal situation where you are guessing who's sharp and flat you're doing the right thing
-  watch some American Idol and figure out how many of the singers are flat most of the time (hint - it's ALOT!)
-  do a full intonation chart for your instrument
-  try singing your parts to yourself, then check it against your own playing.  You'll be amazed how "off" you are sometimes.
 
Try it out!  Having a good ear is the best way to start moving around and changing instruments.  If you have a good ear, picking up something new will be alot easier when you know what things are SUPPOSED to sound like.

Reflecting on Challenges

Reflecting on my relatively short playing career (16 years of seriousness) I find that I'm constantly learning and never really mastering.  I was in a class today and the Director made a good point to his kids "If you think you've mastered this part, you're wrong.  Even professionals who make the big bucks [or don't] will be the first to admit that they are still learning."  No kidding.
 
I know that I don't make the big bucks, but I'm a hardcore serious player.  I've never really put a Clarinet down for longer than a couple months, and that is always necessitated by a lack of time.  I remember being able to do things in 10th Grade that seemed simple in 11th Grade, and then again in 12th Grade.  Every day from when I graduated from college to now I've improved a million percent.  I'm growing, I know I must be, but it's so hard to tell sometimes.
 
If you have a bad reed day you feel like you're awful.  The only thing you hear is a rough buzzing sound or the sound of swirling spit and you think "Ugggh, I suck!"  I don't, but it's hard not to think that.
 
I would go to auditions in High School and College and think at every one "I SO hope that today's my day" like I wasn't prepared or something.  I never thought for one second that I was "the man" or "the guru" (a title given to me by my assistant director.) 
 
I was constantly tinkering with my playing back then, just like I am now.  I know when I went off to college I sat down in my first lesson with my Clarinet prof. and he said "So, what do you really want that you don't have?"  My response was technique, bottom line, I thought I had none.  His response was "Ok."  No, "Oh yeah, you really have horrible fingers, etc, etc, etc."  Just "Ok"
 
We talked a little about the state of my playing and I referenced someone who went to my High School AND went to the same college who was like 5 years older than me.  I said "I want to be as good as ___________."  His response was "You're better than __________ when they graduated from college, right now." 
 
Dang, that's nice.  I sort of walked around thumping my chest for a couple days until I was confronted with all the little issues in my playing.  Then I came back down to earth pretty quickly.  Looking back on it, my teacher was doing the same thing.  He's an incredible player, but as I see it now he was totally messing with his playing too.  He had, as I feel I do now, a massive understanding of playing, literature, etc, but he wasn't satisfied.  How do I know?
 
I remember hunting for literature and him just pulling things off the shelf.  The time he came up with Hindemith's "Acht Stucke" and saying "Let's try this" was pretty interesting.  It's a piece for unaccompanied Flute, I guess that says it all.  It felt like a challenge "Can you learn this?"  I bet it was also a personal challenge "Can I teach you this?" 
 
I loved the challenge.  I played many pieces like this and every one had the same caveat attached "Can you learn this?"  I guess that's where I'm at now.  Can I make this tweak to my sound?  Can I slightly change my tooth position on the mouthpiece and make it stick?  Can I start opening the first finger completely on Altissimo C# and D?  Can I totally eliminate the "spit sound" even if my reed is horrible today or too soft today?  Can I learn a tight french vibrato? 
 
Every time I want to make a change it's always spurred by this thought "Man, I suck!"  Now, I know I don't, but I can't help but feel that way sometimes.  My Director in H.S. used to always advise everyone to keep around them papers and tests you got incredible grades on because sometimes you need to be reminded that you can do this, especially when you feel like you can't.  I've got plenty of things like that around me as assurance, but I'm never going to get TOO into them, because if I do I'll get a big head about me. 
 
I guess everyone's in this state of flux.  Man, I rock.  Man, I suck.  Not in a Manic sort of way, it's just that sometimes you're doing great and sometimes you're not.  I hope I'm always trending up, that's all.  I get concerned that I might be going backwards.  Sometimes, just like in life, you have no idea what to do to not be going down.  Sometimes you have a pretty good idea what to do but you aren't sure how to enact your ideas, and it's hard not to get down on yourself because you don't know what to do.
 
It's so hard to fall back to this sometimes, since we're human and prone to stupidity:
 
Phillipians 4:13(NKJV)  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.   
 
Part of the strengthening must be the quest for betterment, but it's still of Him who shows you the way.  It's a delicate balance between striving and improving.  It's so hard to find the place where you can say "This makes me better and I'm not acting like a raving lunatic to get there."

Things That Bug Me: Playing Really High

Things That Bug Me: Playing Really High on the Bass Clarinet

I've been blessed with an extensive altissimo from early in my career. Actually, I'll never forget switching back to Bass Clarinet as a sophomore in H.S. and getting my first lesson in playing high. A guy who had just graduated (and was a phenomenal player in his own right) taught me how to play up to a Double C. I kind of held onto that and when I studied ith my first really good private teacher she started every lesson saying "Alright, let's play the "Traumatic Scale". She called it that because it was supposed to go up to Altissimo G every time and lots of her students didn't like that. However, that combination of the Double C and a really good private teacher birthed this altissimo renaissance in my playing.

Within a year I knew how to play up to Double C with techincal proficency and I made fast friends with someone who wrote a couple pieces for me. Back in the day he wrote his first piece for me, a concerto, in Db Major and wrote in some Double Eb's and said "Can you play this? I wrote it in pen." Well, now I'm stuck. So, I figured out Double Eb in short order and worked out some 4 octave scales. At current my Eb, E and F scales (written) are 4 octaves.

I found a fingering chart by Terje Lerstad that went far higher than I could have imagined and began employing the notes that were even higher than Double F in an "eek it out" performance practice. I ended up using a "Triple C" in a gliss from Double C to Triple C on the last note of the Artie Shaw "Concerto for Clarinet". It won me a second place tie with a Clarinet performance major (one year my senior) in a Concerto Competition.

At that point I decided to draw a line in the sand and start to categorize the "pretty altissimo" and the "it-comes-out" altissimo. Pretty went up to double F, it-comes-out went up to Triple Eb. I don't sit around using these notes all the time, but they do come in handy when I want to play something that isn't for Bass Clarinet and I want to play the piece at pitch.

Now comes the hard part. How do I get these notes to come out at all?

Increasing your range on any instrument is a slow progression. Wherever you're starting is good enough. If you can barely cross the break, that's ok. Start where you're at. Regardless of where I started I'd be playing everything the same way. No massive embouchure changes, no serious changes in air flow, nothing crazy. The only thing I would change is the throat shaping I'm using to produce the pitch. Now, from Low Eb on Bass Clarinet to Altissimo G should all be done the EXACT same way. Only above this note do you need different throat voicings to get the notes to speak clearly.

I would recommend playing up to whatever note you can get up to and stopping. Try to make that note and the 3 notes below it sound pretty good. Don't be satisfied with something that's just "alright" really work toward a very solid tone that is beginning to show your unique characteristics...a tone that fits YOUR tonal profile...then move on. Make sure the 3 notes before each successive pitch sound good as well and continue moving up the instrument. Straining, fussing and fighting won't do you any good, but consistent, steady, stoic practice will. Make sure you're playing all these notes up to Altissimo G just as you would play the lowest notes on the instrument, regardless of how high they are.

When you reach the Altissimo (C# just above the staff) then you will need to make sure that you are depressing the half hole lever (which will uncover the actual "half hole") You can't live without the half hole being open from now on. Once again, no straining, no fussing, no fighting, no hootin', no hollerin', nothing. Just play until the note speaks. Passing up the altissimo G you enter a whole new realm. Before I get into how to make these notes speak, I'll list the fingerings that I use to make them go. These may not work for you on your instrument. Personally, I play Leblanc Bass Clarinets, so if you have a Selmer, or whatever, then these may not be perfect for you, but they're probably awful close.

When I say 123 I'm talking left hand fingers.
When I say 456 I'm talking right hand fingers.
R means right pinky and L means left pinky(followed by the note the key plays.)
Reg means register key and T means thumb.
F after the 4 or 5 key means the fork key.
C# after the 123 keys means the banana key that plays low C#.
HH means the half hole is open.
S after the 12 keys is the sliver key.
SK means side keys and 1 is the lowest key and 4 is the highest key(ex. SK1).
A and Ab denotes the left hand A and Ab keys.
When I say LL after the note I'm denoting how many ledger lines it is above the Treble Clef staff (ex. 4 LL = 4 Ledger Lines above the treble clef staff.)
Got it? Cool! Off we go.

Altissimo Ab (4 ledger lines above the staff) T Reg HH SK1
A (4 LL) T Reg HH 2 3
Bb (5 LL) T Reg HH 2 3 C#
B (5 LL) T Reg HH 2
C (5 LL) T Reg HH 2 SK1
C# (5 LL) T Reg HH SK1
D (6 LL) T Reg HH 2 3 C#
Eb (6 LL) Open
E (6 LL) T Reg 1 4
F (7 LL) T Reg 1
F# (7 LL) T Reg HH 2 3 4 6
G (7 LL) T Reg 2 5 REb
G# (7 LL) T Reg Ab 2 5 REb
A (8 LL) T Reg HH 2 3 4 6 REb
Bb (8 LL) T Reg 2 5 REb
B (8 LL) T Reg HH 2 SK1
C (9 LL) T Reg (HH) 2 3 4 5 or (T Reg HH 2 SK1)
C# (9 LL) T Reg (HH) 2 3 4 6 or (T Reg HH SK1)
D (9 LL) T Reg (HH) 2 3 5 6
Eb (10 LL) T Reg (HH) 2 3 5

That's all I've got at current. Terje's fingering chart actually goes higher and, of course, I use alot of fingerings from his chart, so don't think they were my idea! So, what to do...

This is the hardest thing to learn and the easiest thing to remember once you get it. It will be very much like learning to ride a bike. Promise.

If you're using a saxophone-like embouchure then you already have a nice amount of lip on the reed. Don't shy away from that. As you push with your throat and all the funny voicings start to jump out your lip being on the reed will cause a divide in the reed and give you all kinds of harmonics. This is excellent stuff, don't be afraid of it, you just don't have control of it yet. Heck, sometimes I don't have control of it.

When you ascend the instrument all the pressure is going to be coming from the back of your throat. As you increase and decrease pressure the aperture at the back of your throat gets larger and smaller. Sometimes you don't have to do a whole lot to get a speak as you push "a bit" newer, higher notes come out. Occasionally, you'll find a note that only speaks and a specific point, at a specific frequency inside your throat. For me, this note is Double A, for you it could be something else. Whatever you do, DO NOT apply massive pressure to the reed to get what you want. There is already pressure on the reed and you may need a tiny bit more to get a good sound...I can live with that, but do NOT try to do all this with your lip....it won't work. No joke people.

Westward Bass Clarinets!

Does vibrato = tone?

I don't think that I've ever considered this question thoroughly.  For years in High School I constantly heard "The vibrato is NOT the tone, it is an embellishment of the tone."  a concept  which I still agree with in simplicity.  However, how many people use their vibrato as their tone successfully?  Could those same people play without vibrato successfully?  What is so alluring about vibrato?  How do you learn to play with vibrato?

Personally, I never once took a lesson or played one single exercise involving vibrato.  One day, my Director said to me "You know, you should try playing with vibrato."  I was off.

I went to two people I respected as musicians and said "So, how do you do that?"  The first, a supreme Alto Saxophonist said "Don't try too hard, just vibrate your air, from your lip and your diaphragm, don't try to do too much of one or the other."  The second, a supreme Bassoonist and Saxophonist, started outlining all these exercises that required vibrating with the metronome.  I said "Cool, thanks" then went on my merry way.  So, I never practived it, I just started doing it.  

Rehearsal was the best place to work this stuff out because I was at the front of the section and no one was questioning me.  I furthered that by being tactful and not making the vibrato known until I thought I could do it tastefully.  A few months later I was using vibrato all the time.  Well, what kind was it?  I don't know, my vibrato is probably as broad as you can play it before people would recognize it as slow.  Back then the only vibrato title, and still the only, I knew was "french vibrato."  Ewwww, the dastardly french vibrato.  Too fast, too intense, too much vibrating, not enough sound.  Probably the reason I tend to play on the slow end.

So, is it acceptable on Bass Clarinet?  Is someone going to yell at you if they catch you using it?  Well, I've been jumped all over more than once by sectionmates in an adult band because the vibrato was messing them up.  Sorry, that's just how I do.  Funny thing, nobody ever complained before.  So, you might step on some toes, but the toes you're stepping on are not super sure what's going on, so they may just rebel, that's ok, we're all human.

How do I do this stuff?  Well, look at it this way.  Vibrato is a slight flucuation of the overall tone and pitch.  In order to play with an effective vibrato you have to have a good ear.  If you're not sure what "in tune" sounds like, then you are not ready for this.  Perhaps doing an intonation chart is a good place to start.   Get a sheet of paper and warm-up.  Tune the instrument to open G.  Now, start at the bottom of the instrument and play chromatically all the way up the horn.  Play every note "mezzo mezzo" (if you don't your volume will distort the pitch.)  Write down for every note how flat or sharp it was.  Now, you have somewhere to start.  As you begin to vibrate you'll now what you're doing to certain notes.  Without this information you'll be continually vibrating notes that are already out of tune, meaning they are most likely vibrating even MORE out of tune.  

Don't attempt to vibrate too much.  The vibration comes mostly from your air column, meaning down deep.  You've got to be able to have the air column vibrating before the air leaves your mouth.  Solely using the lip will sound more like a novelty act than classical music.    

Don't attempt to vibrate all the time.  The vibration needs to be reserved for notes that sound good vibrated.  For example, when "An American Elegy" begins the first note is in the low woodwinds and brass.  Just a simple low F I believe.  You can't vibrate this note.  It doesn't make sense.  You've got to use some musical sense.  Moreover, you can't attempt to vibrate this note to try to make it sound good.  You've good to have another method to enter and sound nice.  Vibrato doesn't always equal pretty.

If you are incapable of beginning notes without slapping the note upside the head then vibrato isn't for you.  If you cannot "non-articulate" or breath attack a note, then you can't substitute vibrato for poor fundamentals.

If you don't sound fundamentally good, meaning you can't produce a characteristic tone on the instrument, then you cannot substitute vibrato for the tone.  Vibrato will only make you sound worse.

So, as you can see, at its base vibrato does not equal tone.  However...

I've been messing around with a french-style vibrato for a couple months.  Let me tell you something, this stuff really works.  Now, I'm 31, so this means I've got 15 years under my belt playing with a vibrato but I've found that with a massive amount of control will allow you to vibrate so tightly (notice I didn't say quickly) that the vibrato and the tone meld into one unit, it's pretty cool.  So, a french vibrato is NOT fast and obnoxious, but tight, controlled, and blended. 

Does that mean it equals the tone?  No, but it does have "refrigerator rights" with tone.  There's big difference here.  Find it, and a solid french vibrato you will have.

How would I recommend practicing vibrato for vibrato's sake?  Play stuff.  I tend to stay with the Rose Studies.  32, 40, who cares, as long as it's solid music.  Teach yourself how to put the vibrato in there and how to control it.  As before, the other best place is rehearsal.  When you're tactful no one is going to know you're folling around with a vibrato, but it will improve because you'll be playing it pretty regularly.  

So, to answer the question;  No, vibrato does not equal tone.  It just has equal rights.

Things That Bug Me: Playing Loud

Playing loud....ahhhhhh, the glory days. There was a time when I viewed the Bass Clarinet purely as a volume machine. "How loud can I play this?" was the question settling on me every time I got to rehearsal. Yeah, I could play sensitively, but really, I wanted to just blast somebody out of their chair. That's fun stuff. For the longest time I never considered exactly how I could produce as much tone as I did. I was NEVER once brought down to size for playing with a bad sound, and only occasionally called on the carpet for playing out of balance.

That's the beauty of playing a low instrument, no matter how loud you play (if you sound good) you are bound to blend in. Now, I'm in no way saying that you shouldn't be sensitive to the ensemble or that you should totally abandon musical taste, but what I am saying is you have alot more leeway with volume than you think. The band is built from the bottom and a weakling will never be heard over an orchestra. It's a wonderful position to be in, to be at a seat where you can hear everything and support it at the same time. Honestly, I don't know how you can sit in the Flute section and not be able to drive the group. I'd get bored so quickly my little head would spin around. Besides, those instruments naturally carry. You could sneeze into a Flute and get a sound that will carry to the back of the hall. Put any kind of air into a Trumpet and someone will hear you. Sneeze into a Bass Clarinet and what do you get? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

That's why this is so important. You're going to be overcoming natural tendencies of the instrument. If you're playing Bass Clarinet and you find yourself not being heard. Not able to bring yourself, as Grainger would say "To The Fore", not able to really carry a group, being kept in the background, then you have a world of obstacles to overcome. How do I produce more sound? Am I using the right reeds? Am I using the right mouthpiece? Am I using the wrong embouchure? How do I get more air out of me and into my horn? Read on, this is not about produing a unique tone, this about making sure people hear your unique tone.

Let's start with air. This is always the easiest thing to fix. I'd say most people breathe too shallowly and allow for too little expansion of their lungs. When you sit to play, be sure that your back is straight, and this requires that you lean slightly forward in your chair and over the instrument. (This is also the point at which I recommend you use a floor peg AND a neck strap. No exceptions.) Placing the peg slightly under your chair allows you to lean slightly over the instrument and get your face up over the mouthpiece. This is a much more desirable angle for playing. Doing this also allows your neck to be straight which gives you a clean line from your lungs and through your mouth to blow air. If you're standing you can easily mimic this posture as long as you have a neckstrap that tightens well and doesn't slip (I prefer DeJacques, they can't be beat.)

As far as getting air into your lungs, well, you just have to suck all the air out of the room with every breath. Your lungs have an amazing capacity to expand and to learn to function better than they do now. Even if you have a respiratory disorder (personally, I have asthma) then controlled and methodical use of your lungs will increase your lung capacity and potentially lower your need for medication (it did in my case.) As you continually work your lungs you'll find yourself becoming stronger and stronger. Over time you'll find that you may not be able to hold your breath longer, but you'll be able to broaden your tone because there will be SOME improvement in the amount of air you can take in. I've seen Freddy Martin (a DCI Hall of Famer) do very cool exercises that involve breathing and simple stretching (as I could see, it was to stretch the ribcage.) It's, by far, the best exercise regimen I've seen for wind players. Try combining those things sometime. My wife does Pilates (really well) and there's "Pilates Breathing" involved. But what if, just what if, you could do hard core wind breathing while doing something like Pilates? Nice combo I think. I'm not a fitness professional, but I'll say...anything that stretches your ribcage would be mighty helpful(Heather says a good mermaid should do ya.) The expanse in your ribcage helps an awful lot. Doing this to simple patterns (breathe in 4 and out 4, in 4 out 8, in 4 out 12, etc.) will greatly improve your lung strength.

Forcing the air out of your lungs requires sheer force of will. There's no substitute for desire here. You either want to get the air out or you don't. If it were me and I were trying to come about this on my own I'd play leaning over and squatting (causing me to contract my abdomen.) I knew a girl who was a Flute Performance major as an undergrad and she came back from her first semester of school telling us how her teacher told her to practice like that. I tried it for a while....it works (actually, it forces you to work like a dog to get something out of your instrument. Plus, I probably didn't do it enough.) I've also heard from someone who studied at the same school I went to that her/our teacher had her practice laying on her back. The idea is that you MUST be "wasting your air", moving it as fast as possible. Just remember this, in all of these exercises you should be training your body to push air up from the base of each lung, from your diaphragm (as if you've never heard that before.) People say it all the time, but they leave out the part where you exhale with your diaphragm. Yep, those details will get you every time.

Only one more topic to cover before you go and apply this stuff. Your setup. It really doesn't matter what mouthpiece you're using, and reeds are only slightly more important. I played on a Yamaha 4C and 2.5's all the way through my Sophomore year of college (now, that's NOT a volume-friendly setup.) You can produce a very broad, quality sound as long as your reeds are not too hard for you. The only thing stopping you now is repetition. If you're in an ensemble on a regular basis then you have ample opportunity to learn how to move air into your instrument. You have ample opportunity to experiment with your tone without ruining it for the group. If you only have the outlet of individual practice then you must LIVE with long tones. Stay in the middle of the instrument for as long as possible until you feel you're getting somewhere. It's at this point that you might want to try moving progressively up and down the instrument, being very careful to play as full on the bottom and top of the horn as you do in the middle. You'll discover that it is (obviously) more difficult to maintain a CONSISTENT volume the higher and lower you get on the instrument.

Imagine your sound as a box.  

(Go ahead, I'll wait...........)

Now imagine that box in various sizes depending on the volume you're playing. If you're playing, as my Assistant Director in H.S. would say "Prit-ty Darn Loud" then that box is "Prit-ty Darn Big." Now, as you move up and down the horn you have to keep the box the same size, no matter what note you're playing. As an individual this is considered "uniformity of tone." I know, it sounds fancy, but it means just what we talked about.... you tone doesn't make this drastic change with every change in pitch.

This is something that LOTS of people have problems with, but never really know it (Kind of like in Romans 7:7 when Paul says '...For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.') If I had never heard of Tony Kniffen from my buddy and his whole thing about uniformity of tone I would have no idea I had a HUGE problem with that. This is a two way street people. If you figure something out, share it because you never know who may NOT know what's up unless you tell them. The moral of this story is simple. You don't have to play a volume friendly setup to produce volume. The setup doesn't produce volume, you do. Your instrument doesn't produce volume, you do. Go forth, be merry, and produce......sound that is.

Things That Bug Me: Playing Across the Break

This one drives me bonkers! The break is viewed by so many as this incredible barrier, a musical firewall, a Macedonian Phalanx



the Western Front of the Clarinet(except it's not all quiet), the Great Wall of Break. Like it's this impossibility that cannot be crossed (you know, like when you see that lady who swam across the English Channel and everyone thought "You're out of your mind!") The word break has such a nasty connotation in musical circles. Clarinetists and Band Directors alike curse its name and try to avoid it as much as possible. It's this fear that causes people to not be able to do anything about it.

That attitude drives me crazy. "Well, it's just hard so I can't do it." or "OK kids, now this is REALLY hard but don't freak out because you'll probably never get it anyways." or "This part doesn't "lay well" because it crosses the break." I've heard all of this and more. It's always the same thing "That's so hard, oh no, I can't do it!" Excuse, excuse, excuse (or in the word's of Bob Harper "Talk, talk, talk! Words, words, words!)



Uggghhhhhhhhhhh, enough already!

*OK, deep, calming breaths*

Let's make sure we're all talking about the same thing. The break is the space between Middle B and C and the throat tones on the Clarinet. This space requires you to put down all your fingers again, press the register key, and start all over again going up the horn. It sounds harder than it really is. Now for the demystification...

Approaching the break is probably the easiest place to trip yourself up. Most people get near any kind of jump that requires crossing the break and they immediately psych themselves out. "Oh gosh, here it comes!!!", then a massive burst of air shoots forth and fingers go down all in a jumble and "SQUAWK!!!!" Yep, it's already all over. Basically, everything was done wrong in this scenario. (Oh, and by everything, I mean, EVERYTHING!)

First thing's first. When approaching the break you need to find other ways to read the music. Is there a sequence going on? Some kind of pattern that allows you to just keep playing without a serious amount of thought? You can quantify the interval ("Hey, that's a Perfect 5th.") Is there something that will make you think more about reading than crossing? ("Hey, this is an arpeggio!" "Hey, this is a scale with a note or two missing!") Something!?!

Second on your list is simply, what notes are you playing? Is it A to C? Bb to B? Bb to C? A to B? Determine which pinky fingers need to be down on your right hand. This technique is called "right hand down" (people teach it all the time, and no, it's no revolutionary.) At this point I would also recommend choosing a right hand fingering for the higher note. Even if you're left-handed the left hand pinky keys are only an escape ladder, not the main elevator.

Third is revolutionary (since I've never heard anyone teach it.) Put your middle and ring finger(and the occasional pinky finger you may need on this hand) on your left hand. This technique is called *Ta-DA!* "left hand down." Now then, you've reduced the number of fingers you need to move to 2. Yep, you went from 5 or 7 to 2. Nice, huh?

Anyways, now we have to figure out if you have good motion on your thumb and left index finger. Your finger should be hooked such that your middle knuckle is, basically, pointing straight up towards the top of the Clarinet. If you do this your finger will be positioned resting against the Ab key and almost over the A key. Now, you don't even have to roll, a simple upward movement of the finger will open the A key rather easily. Your left thumb should be placed on the left side, near the edge, of the left thumb key. Make sure your thumb is pointing across the instrument at a 45 degree angle. Since you don't have to cover a hole you don't need to have a ton of contact on this key. I would say that too many people use this key to attempt to hold the instrument up (but that's a whole other post.) Now, if you're on the edge of the key a simple rocking motion on the thumb key will depress the register key. Remember, it barely has to be touched to open (and to work for that matter.)

Now, for those of you that are like "Well, if you have a double register mechanism then blah, blah, blah and if you have a Single Register Mechanism then blah, blah, blah. Oh, and BTW, I didn't buy horn X because it had this kind of mechanism and I just can't play that.....harumph, harumph, harumph!" I have news for you. *Getting down to a whisper* The horn doesn't play bad, you do...... Please stop spreading the rumor that the instrument makes you do things. If the instrument makes the "hssss" sound when you press the register key, broaden your tone so the expanse of your tone sucks up the "hsss' sound. Period. Done. Easy. It's over.

Moving on...

Regarding that rush of air that preceeded the fingers moving in a jumble (which has now been corrected), you have to keep your air flow consistent and warmer than you would think. If you're using a standard Soprano Clarinet embouchure you can't keep your mouth open enough to allow the air flow at the temperature I'm asking you to use. You've got to back off a little...move towards a Saxophone paradigm. An embouchure that more equal pressure all the way around the mouth. Now, if you don't use a ton of air to begin with then you have a bigger problem than crossing the break. Chances are you don't sound too hot(haha, get it? Hot, warm air?....nevermind.)

As the air speed remains consistent and the air temperature is slightly elevated you can simply move two fingers(index finger and thumb) and you're good to go. The note will speak much better than previously, and if you do this enough your overall tone quality will improve.

I recommend that you design some exercises for yourself so you can practice this. Maybe play Major Scales backwards down across the break. You could just a easily use a 5 note segment or even a 3 note segment. Bottom line: You have to do something or it isn't going to get any better.

There's an excellent example of needing this kind of skill in ensemble practice. Eric Whitacre wrote a lovely piece for Band called "October." I love it! Beautifully written. The parts (especially mine) are all very interesting and have alot going on even though the piece is not a barnburner. Basically, you could play the Bass Clarinet part as an unaccompanied solo and carry it off quite nicely.

Anyways, when you listen to the piece enjoy, it's lovely. At about the 5:30 mark things start to get a little frenetic and some tremolos begin to enter in the upper woodwinds. At the 5:42 mark the Bass Clarinet comes in with the tremolo I'm talking about. When everything stops and all you have is trills and tremolos in the woodwinds, in the background is a tremolo in the Bass Clarinet part. The first from D on the 4th line of the staff to Throat A. Then it changes to Middle C to Throat A. Yep, that means you're crossing the break multiple times per second...then you have to change tremolos, then change back. Oh, did I mention you have to play it loud too?? Yeah, no hiding in the corner on this one. We can heeeeaaaaarrrrr yoooooooouuuuuuuu! You can tell even in this recording that the Bass Clarinet tremolo is slower than every other one in the woodwind section. (It doesn't hurt that I know exactly where it is, but you get my point, it's audible.) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Now, this is not the only example of these principles in literature, but it is quite extreme. When you're in a community band, like I was, and the 3 adults sitting next to you (one of whom who used to teach you privately) all say "I'm not playing this." and they proceed to play it down an octave then you know there's an issue with this in performance practice on an almost epidemic scale. I implore you, please, work this out. I'll do other posts on other pressing issues, but if you do not have command of the middle of the horn you are sailing a sinking ship.

A Weighty Mouthpiece Issue

So, I've been thinking. I've been playing a Selmer (D) mouthpiece on Bass for about 10 years now. It totally works. I've got two of 'em to boot! One's kinda old (I wouldn't call it vintage as it doesn't have the model etched on the table) which is really nice (basically, it plays the entire range of the horn without issue(Eb3 to Eb8)) and I have a newer one (got it in 2002) which is "FATTIE!"

Anyways, I keep thinking about other mouthpieces I should try, brands I should give a shot. There's all sorts of pieces that I've considered: a bigger Selmer, one from a new Behn line, a Fobes Debut (I have an original Basso Nova that is so old it has the hand engraved "Basso Nova" on it. Got it from Clark's booth at Clarinetfest in '98. He actually let me stand there and try 30 pieces before I bought), a HUGE Pillinger, and a HUGER Pomarico. I LOVE the "Basso Nova", but something about the Selmers draws me in deeper than the Fobes, but I can't give up on the Fobes. That sucker is one-of-a-kind.

I should speak up for Clark right here. I play a Fobes Nova on Alto Clarinet and it's as big as a howitzer



(no, really, the back end of the mouthpiece is larger in circumference than the shank on the neck) and plays that way too.

I play a Fobes Debut on Soprano Clarinet (he sent it to me free as part of his Debut program. It worked! I love the thing and sing it's praises daily!) It's not a tank, but moves like a spitfire



...and that's a good thing on Clarinet. So, the moral of this story is, Clark rocks!

On Bass, however, I'm about 1000000000000 bagillion times more discerning about my sound. If you read my diatribe on tonal profiling then you'll know that I'm REALLY particular about my sound. I've considered getting everything from something bigger, to something smaller, to something made from rod stock (like the Selmers are); I've considered upgrading on a mouthpiece I currently have (like getting a Fobes San Francisco (which is made from a Zinner blank)), and way too much more to tell. Then, the other day, I'm thinking..."What if I actually use a heavy mouthpiece?" Honestly, a heavy mouthpiece. Like, on "Good Eats" when Alton Brown always says about fruits and vegetables "They should seem heavy for their size." Should my mouthpieces seem heavy for their size...?

I did an unscientific test on my pieces (of which I have many) and I have to say the Selmers seemed heaviest, the Fobes seemed almost as heavy, and my little plastic Yamahas and Brilhart seemed pretty light. Maybe I'm on to something.

I'm going to bring the Fobes out of the dugout and bat the New D, the Old D, and the Fobes 1,2,3. I'll give it about a week, then I'm gong to weigh them. We'll see if I'm remotely right (even if it only applies to me.) Hopefully I'll come up with more questions than answers.