Long tone discussion and exercises



Mails de David Hattner, Antony Pay et Sean Osborn

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David Hattner   www.northbranchrecords.com

From HatNYC62@aol.com Fri Sep 7 05:08:04 2001
Message-ID: <30.1a457c6a.28c99414@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 23:08:04 EDT
To: klarinet@clarinet.org
Subject: [kl] Long tone discussion again

I wanted to reprint here what I recently posted on the BB about my feelings
re: long tones vs. scales. Of course one could always do BOTH, but my
argument is to take the long tone time and ADD it to whatever scale time
there is. Here is why.

I still think long tones represent an unnecessary stealing of time away from
scale practice as part of a proper warm up. The difference between a working
clarinetist and someone who can't get work almost always comes down to
rhythm, intonation and technique. Minute colors in tone are almost impossible
to hear under most circumstances one would encounter professionally (we don't
play concertos and chamber music every day. certainly never etudes on the
job). In any case, clarinet players are more sensitive to this sort of thing
and most others will not even notice things other clarinet players find very
obvious.

The only clarinet players who mostly play for other clarinetists are
professors and students. Thus the importance of what I call 'clarinet player
issues' is greatly magnified when one is in school.

I realized far later than I might have that it is much more important to play
well and make a lot of music than to worry about what other clarinet players
might say about something I was doing. Thoughts like those can put
limitations one what you can express musically.

On the other hand, not having great technique, excellent intonation and
perfect rhythm will inhibit what you want to do musically more, because no
one wants to listen to a player who does not posess all of these things,

If you practice 20 extra minutes of scales every day at age 15-18 you will
save an hour or more of technical practice when you are in college.In
addition, you will have to practice every piece you play longer because you
have less basic technique.

If you listen to recordings of great clarinet players like Marcellus and
Wright, that tonal concept will get into your ears and help you produce it
far more efficiently than anything else you can do.

Should you ultimately become a professional, you will discover that you have
almost no time to practice anyway, and you certainly won't want to squander
any extra time on long tones.

David Hattner, NYC
www.northbranchrecords.com

 

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Antony Pay   Goldberg-magazine

Ne manquez ses vidéos (disparues pour l'instant)

From Tony@stsm.demon.co.uk Fri Sep 7 13:14:46 2001
To: klarinet@clarinet.org
From: Tony@stsm.demon.co.uk (Tony Pay)
Subject: [kl] Long tone discussion again


On Thu, 6 Sep 2001 23:08:04 EDT, David Hattner said:
> I wanted to reprint here what I recently posted on the BB about my
> feelings re: long tones vs. scales.

I think this is very sound advice.

Another way of putting it is to say that quite a large proportion of a
good player's expertise and expressiveness lies in their control of how
they go from one note to another. That involves not just how they play
the intervals occurring in scales, but how they play other intervals
too.

In the chapter 'the mechanics of playing the clarinet' in the Cambridge
Companion, I published a small exercise that I still find invaluable in
my own playing.

It comes in two parts:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Part one:

||: 4/4 LMHM LMHM LMHM LMHM 6/16 LMH LMH 5/16 LMH LM 4/4 HMLM HMLM HMLM
HMLM 6/16 HML HML 5/16 HML HM :||

Part two:

||: 4/4 MHML MHML MHML MHML 6/16 MHL MHL 5/16 MHL MH 4/4 MLMH MLMH MLMH
MLMH 6/16 MLH MLH 5/16 MLH ML :||


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

In the above, the ||: and :|| at the beginning and the end are repeat
signs;

4/4, 6/16 and 5/16 are time-signatures;

L, M and H are three notes of duration one semiquaver, L being the
lowest pitch, M the middle pitch, and H the highest pitch. They are
beamed as grouped.

It all lies under one slur, and semiquaver equals semiquaver throughout.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the passage that accompanies the exercise in the Cambridge
Companion:

"Consider further the analogy with speech. We habitually place a
tremendous variety of delicate emphases on the syllables of the words we
utter. On the other hand, much of the traditional study of an
instrument is devoted to the discipline of producing a consistently even
sound in all registers, and between notes. Now, whilst it is true that
a variation in something can be meaningful only in the context of it
being possible for that something to remain unchanged, we seldom need to
play passages completely evenly, just as we very seldom speak completely
evenly. One of the characteristics of excellent playing is that the
player has control of the microstructure of the variation in timbre or
dynamic between notes. This control is what makes evident the
organisation of the notes into groups. It may not be perceived directly
by the listener, who may simply think of it as 'good rhythm',
'brilliance', or 'eloquence' even in a running passage that seems even.

"For example, a part of what is required to play the second movement of
Stravinskys Three Pieces for Clarinet is to make the first semiquaver
passage both phrased as marked (by the slurs) and grouped as marked (by
the beaming, in threes). To do this naturally is made a little awkward
by the leaps involved, but even in the easy bits it can be elusive to
show the threes without labouring the point. It is clear that we must
show them, too, because a little later some of the notes recur in a
different grouping, and an audible difference between the two structures
must therefore be intended.

"But almost any semiquaver passage needs to be structured in some way.
Notes are not all of equal importance, and although it is a matter for a
performer to determine on any particular occasion exactly where what we
might call the resonances of the passage need to fall, some such
hierarchy is always established. When we have established it, we might
say that we *understand* the passage better.

"What we want is the general ability to group the notes in the same
natural way that we group syllables into words in speech; which is to
say, not obviously but nevertheless intelligibly. A good move may well
be to think of some words that we can imagine go with the passage, and
check that our playing has the same character. This trick has a long
pedigree, and I for one would like to see and hear it more used. When
it is successful, it puts us in a much better position to articulate
whatever understanding of a passage we may possess.

"Of course, the clarinet differs from the spoken voice: it may 'fight
back' when we want it to do something. A note that we want to be
resonant for musical reasons may, on the instrument, be one of the
weakest; and the opposite also occurs, perhaps to our even greater
discomfiture. But as I said earlier, we are not dealing just with a
clarinet. We ourselves are a part of the system, clarinet plus player,
and we can learn to overcome the difficulty even when we play on
period instruments, which have more uneven scales. Sometimes, of
course, we are fortunate here, and can use the 'deficiency' of the
instrument to expressive effect.

"The following simple exercise helps us in the direction of being able
to emulate on the instrument the ability we have, when we speak,
unconsciously to control dynamic and timbral variation. The idea is
that the exercise is a sort of template that we use to create our own
studies from the piece of music we are playing. There is no conventional
stave, because the three notes are intended to be any three notes, in
ascending order. Neither is there a tempo indication, because we want
to be able to use it in an intelligent way, at varying tempi according
to our needs. Semiquaver equals semiquaver throughout. To apply the
exercise, we choose three consecutive notes of the passage and put them
in ascending order. We may choose these three notes because they have
different responses, or because one or more of them needs to be
stressed, or simply because they feel or sound awkward as we play them.
As we perform the exercise, we listen with the intention of having the
result be both even and modulated. (If we use the trick of using words
to help us imagine this, we may come up with something rather like
millimetre-millimetre-millimetre-millimetre-metronome-metronome-
metronome-micro-, repeated over and over again. You are encouraged to
write your own libretto!) The important point is to achieve an
equilibrium between the long legato and the substructure, a relationship
rather like that of waves to a calmish sea. Notice that in the first
part of the exercise, the first and third notes each get their turn to
be the most resonant or loudest, whilst in the second part, the second
note is the only one emphasised.

"Usually the complete passage we are studying will require only one of
the various organisations of the three notes that these exercises
create. In my view, though, it is almost always a good principle to
study, in addition to what we ultimately want to achieve, the
alternatives that lie close by. In this way the exercise has its own
life, and the original passage does not seem stale when we return to it.

"As we experiment, it should become apparent that there are at least two
things that can change to show the substructure, these being timbre and
dynamic.

"The control of the first is best thought of as done by a change of
resonance I often like to imagine that prominent notes have the
quality of being played on a marimbaphone, and the others on a
xylophone. Doubtless we obtain such effects by making almost
imperceptible movements of the mouth and tongue. The details of this
are best left to be trained by our ear as in speech, especially since we
want the process ultimately to be unconscious; though it is worth
experimenting with the effect of making mouth shapes corresponding to
different vowels to begin with. Sometimes strange vowels have strange
effects (like multiphonics) but trying new things out always tends to
expand our range of possibilities.

"The control of dynamic occurs via the technique of support we mentioned
earlier. As before, this works best when *allowed* to occur.

"What we are learning is to play unevenly, but in the way we want. The
slightly tricky rhythm of the exercise is intentional; while what
Timothy Gallwey calls Self One is coping with this, we can learn the
really complicated stuff despite ourselves. (See The Inner Game of
Tennis (Random House, 1974), which one top flight violin soloist calls
"the best book about violin playing I know". Its pretty good for
clarinet players too!) There is also an important effect when we return
to the passage itself. We experience a release into a less demanding
environment. Exercises we create for ourselves should always have this
quality of being both simpler and more complex than the passage they are
designed to improve.

"It is worth adding that as we play the exercise (or the passage)
faster, we will do better if we are modulating a brighter basic timbre.
This is because faster music needs a sound with more higher frequencies
in it to sound as clear as slower music, for a given acoustic. Lower
frequencies persist longer, and muddy the change from one note to the
next unless the higher partials, which die faster, form a
non-overlapping sequence. This is also why we find we need softer reeds
in a very resonant acoustic."

 

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Sean Osborn   http://www.geocities.com/osbornmusic/

Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 08:48:34 -0700
To: klarinet@clarinet.org
From: Sean <feanor33@home.com>
Subject: [kl] Long tone discussion again


I thought I'd pipe up. While I agree with all of David Hattners reasons, I
think there is plenty of time to incorporate long tones into your warm
up. If you are a student, then you do have the time to spend on a good,
long, warm-up daily. If you're a professional, you will have less time for
a warm up daily, but since David is avocating scales over long tones
because you need technique, then I presume he's talking about students, not
professionals. If you are a student and you don't have time to add a warm
up at the beginning of a day, then you are either at a point where you
don't think you need improvement from it, or you are not dedicated enough
to succeed. Harsh, I know, but it's tough out there, and you have to be
honest - which is sometimes harsh.

A warm up should be designed to free your mind, and allow it to concentrate
on one or two aspects of playing at a time only. This cannot be
accomplished by playing an etude (or any other piece of MUSIC), where
you're concentrating on making smooth intervals, proper technique, good
tone, intonation, phrasing expressively and appropriately, keeping a good
embochure, coloring the sound, getting over the breaks, etc., etc.,
etc. A warm up should have components that isolate all of these, so you
can concentrate on starting the day RIGHT on all the basics.

Let me tell you about the warm-up I crafted while a student at Eastman,
that I did every morning for a few years, that did me wonders, and I still
do parts of it today.
It only takes a half hour, and I know it was worth it for me.
I started with two sets of long tones chromatically rising from low Bb,
then falling from throat Bb at sixteen beats each, and MM 69, and dynamic f
(but not ff). During this I concentrated on a good sound, proper
breathing, proper embochure, and I stopped when my embochure got tired. I
was having endurance problems then, and this warm-up helped me increase my
endurance and monitor my progress.
I then did another set of longtones with crescendos from pppp to ffff and
back to pppp, to add concentration on evenness of sound and increasing my
dynamic range. Do this with a tuner in front of you, and you add intonation
concentration, which is especially hard on the clarinet when changing
dynamics (and keeping a consistant tone at the same time)

Then I did a set of scales from the Jettel Klarinettenschule Book II (which
are FAR superior to Baerman, as is the whole book), at 1/16th notes, MM
132, 152, 168, 184, 200. For this, I was concentrating on obviously
technique, evenness of notes, evenness across registers, extending my
altissimo (those scales go HIGH), and getting a fluid, super-fast
technique. For a couple of years, I also added the Bb solo from Capriccio
Espagnole to this because I wanted it to be consistant and sound good.

Next I did a excercise I stumbled across designed by Jimmy Abato, Bass
Clarinet at the Met before Jim Ognibene. It's called the "Abato tone
study", and is best illustrated by example. Playing p (but not pp), and
legato, and fairly slowly, you rise low E, F, middle E, F, clarinet E, F,
altissimo E, then back down F-E-F-E-F-E. Then play E F# E F# E F# E (then
down), then E G E G E G E, after you get to the E D# combination, play E
octaves, then start the whole thing over on F F# etc. I did two of these
each day, followed by two new ones each following day. This is great for
concentrating on slow-finger technique, breath support over intervals, and
general legato. This is best done AFTER the long tones, because you will
have to have already established the good embochure and breathing that you
were concentrating on during the long tones. You don't have time to think
about them now, you have to concentrate on legato.

Lastly, I had a tonguing excercise I developed to speed my articulation up
(which got to 156 at that time). It's two bars of 4/4 time, repeated
consisting of four 1/16ths, a quarter, four 1/16ths, a quarter, twelve
1/16ths and a final quarter, on open G. You set the metronome wherever
your limit for tonguing is, and repeat the rhythm (tatatatataaaaa,
tatatatataaaaa, tatatatatatatatatatatatataaaaaaaa) until it feels like your
tongue is going to fall off. The quarter note at the end of M2 is there to
be shortened so you can start the repeat of M1 on time again, and you
should be doing at the MM where you can just barely make the last quater
note in time. Do not advance your MM in a single day, just do the excercise
until your tongue gets very tired, wait a minute and do it again until it's
tired. That's it. If you find you get to the last quarter-note in time,
then it's time to move the Metronome one MM up. This of course allows you
to concentrate on proper tonguing, and air stream during tonguing.

This warm up worked great for me, and I do a lot of it now whenever I feel
I need time to concentrate on basics. I guarantee that if you're a student
with any shortcomings in air stream, tone production, technique, legato,
tonguing, or intonation, that a warm up like this will help more than
anything else you practice all day. All it takes is a half-hour. I think
it's even better to design your own warm up based on what you want to
concentrate on. If it's technique, do all 24 scales, instead of just 10-12,
like I did. If it's legato, do an interval excercise and spend more time on
it. Write your made up excercises out! A warm-up is the best way to get
into the habit of playing correctly.

Cheers,

Sean Osborn
http://www.geocities.com/osbornmusic/
http://www.mp3.com/metopera/


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Merci à David Hattner, Sean Osborn et Tony Pay pour
avoir si aimablement autorisé la confection de cette page.
Charles Schneider

Soufflants EJMA