Recently a reader sent in a question about how to deal with fingers that don’t want to move at the same time. I thought it was a really helpful question to ask because it’s something that every clarinetist regardless of age or ability struggles with. I’ll post the question below (edited to remove some details) and [...]
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What does it mean to be in tune? That seems pretty obvious right? Just get out your tuner and play a note. If your not flat or sharp then you’re in tune. Easy. Done. But perhaps that’s not all there is to it. Maybe you’d like to play with an ensemble or even just one other [...] I’ve recently finished this book by Neal Stephenson. If you don’t know his work, it typically involves Science and Fiction but not always science-fiction. How’s that for clear. Anyway, this particular book deals with topics like geometry quite a bit and I’ve found myself thinking about the clarinet at the same time and so, here we are. Economy [...] As I mentioned before, I’m working on videos of Ron Caravan’s Polychromatic Diversions for Clarinet which I think make a solid introduction to contemporary clarinet techniques. So, here’s the second video in the series – the etude 2. Digital Etchings. As you might imagine this etude places continued emphasis on micro-tonal and timbral fingerings. However, these [...] For people who want to try some contemporary music, it can be a little daunting to figure out a place to start. After all the notation, instructions, and techniques can all be unfamiliar and difficult to understand. Recently I pulled out a copy of Ron Caravan’s Polychromatic Diversions for Clarinet. Despite the slightly strange sounding name, [...] I know that I haven’t posted anything in a little while, but I have exciting news. I just ordered the first proof of my book from Staples. For now I’m calling it “Four Extended Techniques for Clarinet: A Practical Guide”. My goal in writing it is to demystify some of the extended techniques most commonly used [...] Sometimes we come across tricky rhythms in a piece that defy our best practice techniques. Well here’s one more idea that I’ve found extremely helpful. Articulate the subdivisions. For instance on a dotted rhythm articulate all the subdivisions of the long note. So if you’ve got a dotted quarter, articulate eighths. [...] It’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to put up a new post so thanks for your patience. As promised here’s a little bit about polishing up your rhythm. Many of you know some of the basic practice techniques for improving the evenness of a rhythmic passage. For instance there’s the one where you [...] Sight reading for me is one of those skills that I know is important but rarely have any time to work on. I also, feel that when sight reading something I’d like to actually read as few notes as possible. What I mean is the more patterns we can recognize and play, the easier the piece [...] Every musician regardless of what style they play in needs to practice their scales and arpeggios. It’s an article of faith like saying every musician needs to listen to other musicians. So, like most other clarinetists, I’ve played scales out of a variety of standard books starting with Rubank and later Baerman, Albert and then devoted [...] |
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Copyright © 2010 Adam J Berkowitz – Clarinetist - All Rights Reserved |
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