Arkansas High School All-Region Study Guide CLARINET

Transcription

1 Arkansas High School All-Region Study Guide CLARINET Klose (Klose- Prescott) Page 126 (42), D minor thirds Page 128 (44), lines 2-4: Broken Chords of the Tonic Page 132 (48), #8: Exercise on Diminished 7 th chords Page 133 (49), #13: Sixths All of these scale- based exercises traverse the full range of the clarinet, exploiting the two main breaks between registers (chalumeau/throat to the clarion; clarion to the altissimo). Your goal is to be able to play from one register to another with a consistent tone quality and volume. There are four essential factors on which you should concentrate in order to achieve this: Embouchure, Air, Tongue Position, and the Left Hand. 1. EMBOUCHURE The top and sides of the embouchure should remain physically active at all times, especially when changing registers. The well- known clarinet teacher Howard Klug suggests several excellent directions to achieve this: The lips should press towards the mouthpiece and the chin/nose should pull away. Have your lips feel as though they are pulling the teeth back into your mouth. 2. AIR The airflow that is required to play the more resistant notes (those that use more fingers) should also be used to play the less resistant notes. Or, to describe it differently, use the same abdominal effort for all of the notes. The required abdominal effort for playing the clarinet can be demonstrated by taking a large breath and saying shhh. You should find that this results in your ribs/stomach/waist pushing downward and outward, which in turn promotes a consistent, controlled airflow. For example: Exercise on Diminished 7 th chords (Page 48, #8) Beginning in the first measure and continuing every other measure (1, 3, 5, 7, etc.), you might have a tendency to use less air on the throat notes than the following notes in the clarion register.

2 2 While practicing this exercise really exaggerate the written crescendo! This should help your air smoothly move from throat notes to clarion notes. Using measure 5 as an example, practice the following while utilizing your Shh muscles for every note. Even though it may feel like the A is too loud, the audience should hear a consistent tone quality. First this then play as written! 3. TONGUE POSITION Your tongue should hold a steady up and forward position inside your mouth regardless of whether you are playing high or low, fast or slow. It is higher than you think! Your goal is to form a narrow passageway for the air stream to ride over the tongue and just below the roof of the mouth. To help you find and maintain this tongue position while playing, here are some more suggestions from Howard Klug: Play through a syllable E. Put your tongue into a whistling position, right behind the opening in the lips. If notes were food, attempt to push them into the place in the roof of the mouth where the peanut butter gets stuck. Exercises on Sixths (p. 49, #13) Maintaining a consistent tongue position is challenging when you are playing large ascending and descending intervals, and especially challenging when you mix in frequent register changes AND articulation! While articulating, it can be useful to try to stabilize the tongue by saying Key. This helps you feel the upper molars with the sides of your tongue, hopefully isolating tongue motion to the tip only. If you are still squeaking or losing your tonal focus, try the following: Play one measure slurred, very slowly. Even though it might feel awkward, maintain the Key contact with your upper molars. Also, maintain a very close distance between the top of the tip of your tongue and the bottom of the tip of the reed. This should make a big difference. If it still doesn t sound right, how are your fingers? Is your left thumb doing a good job pressing and releasing the register key? Maybe it s moving slightly after your other fingers or it isn t completely sealing the F tone hole after you release the register key. Continue to play the same measure slowly. Add in a very legato- style articulation, taking care to move the tip of your tongue very little. Only the front ¼ inch of your tongue should move, and the direction of the motion is vertical, never horizontal (say Nee nee nee the movement should be like that!). Now, check in with the back part of your tongue have you maintained Key contact?

3 3 Once you can comfortably articulate with a consistent up and forward tongue position you should begin to play with a focused and squeak- free sound! 4. LEFT HAND The fingers of the left hand should be gently curved, neither clenched nor straight. The first knuckle of the index finger should be very close to the lowest tip of the A key. This finger is also curved so that the second knuckle is in contact with G# key. When you move to and from the A key, roll the finger onto the A key with the side of the first knuckle. Also try to keep the fingernail in a straight line with the A key. When pressing the G# key, the finger should straighten slightly and press the key with the side of the second knuckle, using a minimum of wrist or hand movement. Slowly practice the following exercise: Now practice Page 48, #8, measure 5 very slowly with a minimum of wrist and hand movement: 5. Bonus: ALTISSIMO This year s music contains an extra challenge in Klose exercise page 48, #8: Diminished 7 th chords altissimo notes all the way up to A flat! This range may prove challenging for many high school students. There are a few fundamentals that you should keep in mind when extending your range upwards. a. The higher you play, the more you need to feel that you are compressing the notes into the roof of your mouth in order to achieve the necessary faster air stream. Basically, feel that you are raising the front portion of your tongue as you ascend. Because altissimo notes may feel more resistant, your tongue may react by wanting to drop lower in your mouth. To counteract this reaction, think more Ee! b. The back of the tongue and the throat are also very important factors in controlling altissimo notes. They actually need to be more relaxed than you might think. By slowly saying Hush you can feel what the tongue and throat should do: the tip and middle of the tongue are up and forward while the back of the tongue and the throat are relaxed.

4 4 c. Another method you can use to learn the correct tongue/throat controls (called Voicing ) for playing altissimo notes is to squeak on purpose! Squeaks are actually altissimo notes that you do not intend to play. In the following exercise you will feel how the back of the tongue needs to be a little lower and more relaxed the higher you play on the clarinet. Use throat- register fingerings for both high and low pitches (F#, G, A flat, A, and B flat) Breath- start EACH NOTE (no articulation!). The low note should be Hee and the squeaked (high) note should be Ho If your reed is the right strength for your mouthpiece, your air is fast, and your embouchure is firmly holding the mouthpiece (without squeezing the reed too much), you should be able to bounce back and forth between the two pitches by changing your voicing from E to O. If it doesn t work the first time, try again! Sometimes it takes several days before it finally works. d. After you have achieved some success and comfort with the previous exercise, try playing your altissimo notes with actual fingerings. Remember the relaxation at the back of the tongue! Here are some fingering suggestions for the altissimo notes in the Diminished Chords exercise: Line 3, m. 2: E flat Line 3, m. 3: F # Line 4, m. 1: G Line 4, m. 3: A flat

5 5 6. The secret to learning the notes on page 48, #8: Diminished 7 th chords On first reading, the notes in this exercise seem like they will take forever to learn, but they re really not so bad! Do this: write a capital letter A at the beginning of measures 1, 7, and 13. Now, play the ascending notes of measure 1, ending on the D flat in measure 2. Go to the next A (m. 7) and play the ascending notes, ending on the E in m. 8. The notes may not all be spelled the same way, but they are all fingered the same as you just played in mm. 1-2! Finally, go to the third A (m. 13) and play the ascending notes. Now you should recognize that each of the three A patterns are made from the same notes! There are two more patterns to mark now. Write a capital letter B at the beginning of measures 3, 9, and 15. Finally, mark the C patterns, beginning in measures 5 and 11 (yes, there are only two of these). Understanding that there are only three different diminished chords to play in this exercise should make it much easier to practice and learn! Artistic Studies Book 1- From the French School Page 64, #19 1. Be sure to firmly establish your quarter- note pulse (48) with an underlying eighth- note subdivision before you begin to play. It would help to practice the etude with your metronome clicking the subdivision (96). This will help you accurately count any long notes as well as make it easier to play the 32 nd notes and 16 th triplets (measures 17, 20, 21, 26, 38, 40, and 41). An adjudicator will be able to tell within the first two measures if you have a steady inner pulse! 2. Even though it sounds obvious, it needs to be said: accurately count the dotted quarter notes, quarter notes, and quarter note rests! If you are playing with your metronome clicking eighth notes, a dotted quarter note receives 3 clicks and a quarter note receives 2 clicks. Miscounting the easy long notes and rests is one of the most commonly made mistakes in auditions. 3. Dynamic contrast! Make your softs really soft and your louds really loud! In order to become comfortable playing very softly, first practice playing a note at a comfortable mf and slowly decrescendo to piano. Concentrate on maintaining a solid, well- focused tone as you decrescendo. It helps if you feel that your abdominal muscles are pushing outward and downward (remember what happens when you say shhh? ). After you are comfortable with your decrescendo, practice starting the note at p (remember your shhh muscles!). Make sure that you still have a solid, well- focused tone. 4. The very first interval you play (D B flat) needs to be extremely smooth and well connected. If you have trouble with this interval, practice playing the first three notes of measure 10 (D- G- B flat). Does the addition of the G make everything smoother? Now, see if you can use your air the exact same way and leave out the G. Another possible problem could be that your right and left hands are not working together. Slowly play the following exercise:

6 6 Has this helped your right and left hands coordinate their motion? 5. Consider moving the breath mark in measure 10 one note later, after the G in measure 11. While this breaks the slur, it makes harmonic sense. Play it both ways for several different people and see what they think! 6. Playing the side B flat fingering in measure 20 can feel awkward as you approach them from F, E, and E flat. As with good left hand technique discussed earlier, you want to use a minimum of wrist or hand movement to get to the B flat key. Your right index finger should straighten and contact the side key in a diagonal line across the tip of the key. You should find that this motion promotes flexibility at the big knuckle and helps you maintain your steady hand position. Once this motion becomes comfortable you will be able to focus your attention on the coordination of your right index and left ring fingers. They must be able to open and close their respective tone holes together with perfect precision. One finger often lags behind the other! 7. You might consider using a right side trill key (second from the top) to play the grace note A in measure 26. This will free up your left index finger to more comfortably play the following F#. 8. Refer back to the fingering choices on page 4 for the altissimo G in measure 27. Choices 2 and 3 are the best options in this situation. 9. The staccato markings in measure 37 are best played as slightly released notes rather than short, dry notes. Page 88, #6 Errata: The rehearsal numbers do not correspond to the actual measure numbers. They are consistently off by one (rehearsal 5 is actually measure number 6). Measure numbers in this study guide will refer to the actual measure. 1. Be sure to firmly establish a dotted quarter- note pulse (60-66) with an underlying eighth- note subdivision before you begin to play. It would help to practice the etude with your metronome clicking the subdivision ( ). If you cannot consistently stay with the metronome, you need to find a pulse at which you CAN, then gradually speed up from there. My favorite method of building speed is the two steps forward, one step back method. For example: If I can accurately play with my metronome set to dotted quarter- note = 60, then I would next move up to 64 and play the section that I am working on. It may go well, or I may have a few problems. Next, I ll move the tempo back to 62 and play the same section. Usually, I ll be able to play the section better than the previous tempo (64). The end result is that I have just built my speed from 60 to 62 without too much pain and suffering! We have to be patient when we

7 7 practice, and the two steps forward, one step back method allows for us to make steady and satisfying progress over time. 2. There is a fair amount of articulation in this etude, but many students mistakenly interpret fast and articulated music as staccato. Please notice that there are some staccato marks, but they are not on every articulated note! When tonguing the sixteenth notes strive for a clear, legato- style touch of the reed. Some articulation fundamentals that you should keep in mind: Maintain a continuously forward moving air stream The top of the tip of the tongue to the bottom of the tip of the reed Tongue motion is vertical, not horizontal Maintain embouchure firmness 3. The large eighth note leaps (measures 3-7, 33-36, 43-44) require a very consistent tongue position along with a steady and firm embouchure! You will want to review the preceding Embouchure (page 1) and Tongue position (page 2) tips. Since several leaps include an altissimo D (measures 3, 33, and 34), you might also need to make a slight adjustment to the back of your tongue as you practiced in the preceding Altissimo advice on page Even though the F# in measure 4 appears in a chromatic scale context, the trill makes a chromatic fingering choice more difficult. Use the first finger for F# and make the trill 2 wiggles only! 5. You might consider moving two breath marks. In measure 7 breathe after the first note (E flat) instead of at the end of the measure. Instead of breathing after the final sixteenth note in measure 22, breathe after the first sixteenth note in either measure 21 (F) or measure 22 (E natural). As suggested previously, play it several ways for different people and see what they think! 6. It isn t marked this way on the page, but it makes musical sense to emphasize repetition by adding dynamics beginning in measure 20. Starting at m. 17 it is marked piano. As you repeat yourself in m. 20, play mezzo piano. Repeating yourself yet again, play mezzo forte in m. 22. Continue to make a slight crescendo through measures You will be playing a healthy forte by the time you reach m. 29, so as you try to build intensity with the final repetitions in measures 30 and 31, know your limitations and take care not to overblow! 7. Measures are all about left hand technique! Revisit the left hand advice on page 3. In addition to the exercise on page 3 you may want to play the following exercise in front of a mirror to help stabilize and refine your left hand technique: