Bret Pimentel, woodwinds

Crossing the break on the clarinet is easy

January 2, 2018February 25, 2013 by Bret Pimentel

The following is a comprehensive list of what clarinetists need to do to successfully Cross the Dreaded Break:

Put the correct fingers in the correct places at the correct time.
That is all.

I frequently meet young clarinetists who have been taught that a successful Crossing of the Dreaded Break requires many other things, including but not limited to:

A long lecture by the band director or private teacher about how impossibly difficult this is going to be
Tightening the embouchure
Experiencing crippling fear
Blowing harder
Getting a more expensive mouthpiece
Using a band method book that postpones crossing the break for absolutely months and months
Being really tense and working much too hard
Moving up to a much harder reed

If breath support, embouchure, and voicing are correctly established, then Crossing the Dreaded Break ceases to be a Thing. It’s just another note: a moment ago you were playing B-flat, and now you are playing B-natural. As long as your fingers get where they are supposed to go, then that’s all there is to it. Personally, I don’t even use the word “break” with a beginning student—there’s no need to get them all uptight about what really is a non-event.

It’s not too soon

March 15, 2017February 14, 2013 by Bret Pimentel

Frequently I think about something one of my teachers said to me as an undergraduate student. I was preparing for a rapidly upcoming recital, and played one of my repertoire pieces in a private lesson. There was a tricky page turn in the printed sheet music, and my run-through came to a halt while I … Read more

Random Note Picker, version 0.2

January 2, 2018February 7, 2013 by Bret Pimentel

A little over a year ago I made the Random Note Picker, a small web app for generating groups of random pitches. I mostly use it to quiz students on their scales. It otherwise hasn’t gotten much use, but if anyone is interested there is now a slightly improved version. Check it out.

Yet more woodwind blogs you should be reading

January 3, 2018February 6, 2013 by Bret Pimentel

I insist that you check out the following woodwind-related blogs, listed in no particular order. Also see my previous roundups:

David A. Wells

David Wells is a bassoonist, educator, and scholar. His blog is excellent and rich in original, thoughtful, useful content. Try these on for size:

Memorizing scales

February 1, 2024January 31, 2013 by Bret Pimentel

As I’ve mentioned before, my university students are subject to a scale proficiency exam. Most arrive at the university “knowing” at least some major scales, but most of them will also have to learn at least a few new ones and maybe put some old ones into a new format. For their exam, the scales need to be memorized well enough to play three randomly-selected major ones, and three randomly-selected melodic minors.

For some students, there are technical barriers to this: untrained fingers, insufficient familiarity with alternate fingerings, or tone production issues in extreme ranges. Some also struggle with nerves or other psychological baggage (“I’ve never been good at scales, Dr. P.,”). Even among students who are moving rapidly through advanced repertoire, and have all the necessary facility to play the scales, there are some that find the memorization to be very difficult.

Here are some of the issues that my students have:

Clarinet/saxophone doubling and “loose” and “tight” embouchures

March 15, 2017January 16, 2013 by Bret Pimentel

I have been watching with dismay some recent online message board conversations about clarinetists picking up the saxophone and saxophonists picking up the clarinet. I am of course a big supporter of doubling, but much of the discussion seems to center around embouchure, and the language used is not only misleading but also vaguely pejorative. Clarinetists seem to regard the saxophone embouchure as “loose,” a term I think most saxophonists would take exception to, and saxophonists consider the clarinet embouchure to be “tight,” a concept I would expect clarinetists to shy away from.

I am not aware of any difference in looseness/tightness between the embouchures of the two instrument families, and can’t think of a reason why there should be one. In both cases, the embouchure—the lips and surrounding facial muscles—need to be “tight” enough to form a non-leaking seal around the mouthpiece and reed, and “loose” enough to allow the reed to vibrate at the desired amplitude (volume). The most common looseness/tightness problem I see in teaching both instruments is excessive tightness, often used in an attempt to compensate for pitch stability problems caused by poor breath support, and resulting in sluggish response, restricted dynamic range, and stuffy tone.

Number sign, sharp, or tic-tac-toe?

January 12, 2013 by Bret Pimentel

Required recordings, spring 2013

March 15, 2017January 7, 2013 by Bret Pimentel

As regular readers know, I have my university students (oboists, clarinetists, bassoonists, and saxophonists) each add a new recording to their library each semester. During the course of their respective degree programs, they should each accumulate a nice curated collection of recordings. Here are this semester’s selections:

Peter Cooper: Cooper & Marriner

Amazon (CD) | Amazon (download)

Repertoire: Concerti by Strauss and Mullikin.

2012 in review

January 1, 2018December 30, 2012 by Bret Pimentel

Here are some highlights (to me) of what happened on the blog this year. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for new, non-meta content once the holidays are over. Some technique talk for flutists, oboists, and clarinetists, and some stuff for reed players of various stripes. Some stuff for woodwind doublers: finding gigs, why fingerings aren’t that big … Read more

What I’ve learned in my first three years as a college professor

March 15, 2017December 22, 2012 by Bret Pimentel

I’m still at what I hope is the beginning of a long career, with lots of things left to learn. But here are a few little things I’ve picked up along the way so far (three and a half years, actually), and that I thought might be worth sharing.

Getting hired for a job in academia is about being the right match. I applied to a lot of jobs during the final year of my doctoral studies. A few seemed like good matches on paper, but for a number of others I thought I could perhaps offer something better than what was listed in the requirements. For example, I applied for quite a few single-woodwind jobs, and tried to emphasize in my cover letters and CVs that I could potentially take on responsibilities with additional instruments. I got virtually no response to those applications. The jobs that I got interviews for were specifically multiple-woodwinds jobs.

A highly-qualified and very talented friend of mine was hired for a teaching position. I had opportunity later to speak with one of his new colleagues, who raved about my friend’s lively and outgoing personality. “The other person we interviewed was so boring,” she moaned. I suspect that had I interviewed for that job, I would have been the “boring” one. At some other interview, my friend’s energy and humor might have been seen as frivolous or flippant, and my more muted social style might have won the day.

Since being hired myself, I’ve had several opportunities to serve on committees that have sifted through applicants for other music faculty positions. There are lots of people looking for those jobs, and when the applications start to pile up, anyone who doesn’t meet the specific requirements of the job gets set aside pretty quickly, no matter what other strengths they might bring to the table.