Staying connected to the clarinet

ByBret Pimentel
Photo, KSMF Webmaster

In general, I’m not that concerned about keeping fingers close to instrument keys. A lot of woodwind players and teachers seem to believe that “close” fingers mean more speed, which I haven’t found necessarily to be the case. To me, a much larger factor is tension: if my fingers are tense (because, for example, I’m trying really hard to keep them close to the keys), they move more slowly.

But when I work with beginning clarinetists (whether first-time instrumentalists or doublers), many of them seem to have a great deal of trouble with squeaks and with notes responding sluggishly—problems that I think in most cases can be traced to fingers not completely covering toneholes, or not covering them in a synchronized way. And one of the major reasons that this happens is that the fingers are too detached from from the keys. It’s not a question of distance, per se,  but one of awareness.

One reason this is such an issue for clarinetists in particular is that so many fingers have multiple jobs. The left thumb operates a tonehole/ring and a key, which must sometimes be pressed individually and sometimes together. The left index finger has a tonehole/ring and two keys. The right index finger has a tonehole/ring and four “side” keys. And the pinky fingers have responsibilities exceeded only by the bassoonist’s thumbs. Throw in a couple of sliver keys, and you’ve got a lot of fingers constantly in transit from one key to another.

Another reason is that the clarinet’s ring keys are fairly unforgiving compared to the plateau keys of a saxophone, an oboe, or some flutes (even “open-hole” flutes really only have small perforations in relatively large keys). The clarinet’s mechanism must be in good adjustment and the clarinetist’s technique must be precise in order to both operate each ring and fully close each underlying tonehole.

To develop a strong sense for where the keys and holes are located, I do encourage beginning clarinetists to keep the fingers not just close to the keys, but actually lightly brushing the rings. In the very earliest stages, I insist on this even at the expense of intonation, and, while their knowledge of pinky fingerings is limited to just one or two keys on each side, I have them keep those pinkies in constant contact with their respective keys. As they learn to use more keys, I have them practice moving the pinkies to the next needed keys as far in advance as possible, even several measures ahead, and then maintain contact. And as their mastery of the ring keys improves, they can learn to differentiate between close enough to the ring and too close to the ring (when the pitch is flattened and/or tone is muffled). Using these techniques from day one, they can quickly gain awareness of the keys’ locations. As they master this, I become far less picky about finger heights and instead encourage relaxed, freely-moving fingers. More advanced players whose fingers have gotten too free—to the point that accuracy suffers—can revisit these same techniques.

As a side note, the problems of squeaks and unresponsive notes, nearly always caused by imprecise finger technique, are too often met with bad advice like “tighten your embouchure” or “get a harder reed.” To educators and (shudder) the self-taught: check the fingers first. Then the fingers next. If problems persist, proceed to check the fingers one more time!

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    dynamics

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  • |

    Dissertation: Woodwind doubling on folk, ethnic, and period instruments in film and theater music

    ByBret Pimentel

    My doctoral dissertation is now available online through the University of Georgia library:

    Woodwind doubling on folk, ethnic, and period instruments in film and theater music: Case studies and a practical manual

    It was completed in 2009 so some things are already out of date. Also, lately I’m trying to steer away from the term “ethnic” instruments (“world” instruments seems slightly less problematic until I can find a better solution).

    Enjoy(?).

    ABSTRACT

    Woodwind doubling is the practice of playing instruments from more than one woodwind family. In musical theater and film music, woodwind doublers are valuable for their ability to produce the sounds of a varied woodwind section for a fraction of the cost of hiring a specialist musician to play each instrument.

    Since the 1990’s, composers and orchestrators in musical theater and film scoring have shown increased interest in instrumental sounds from outside the traditional symphony orchestra. Many have featured folk, ethnic, or period instruments as solo instruments, bringing authentic sounds to scenes set in faraway locations or historical periods, giving an exotic flair to fictional locales, or simply adding new colors to the usual palette of instrumental sounds.

    Composers of film and theater scores have used ethnic woodwinds, in particular, in their scoring. To meet the demand for ethnic woodwind sounds, many prominent woodwind doublers on Broadway and in Hollywood have adopted these instruments, in addition to their usual arrays of modern Western instruments.

    Eight folk, ethnic, and period woodwinds recently employed in film and theater scoring have been selected for study in this document: bamboo flutes (especially the Indian bansuri and flutes used by some flutists in Irish traditional music), the Chinese dizi, the Armenian duduk, the Native American flute, the panflutes of Romania and South America, the pennywhistle, the recorder, and the Japanese shakuhachi.

    For each instrument, a representative example of use in theater or film music has been selected and transcribed from a commercial audio recording. Each transcription is discussed with emphasis on demands placed upon the ethnic woodwind musician. Additional discussion of each instrument includes suggestions for purchasing instruments, fingering charts, description of playing technique, description of instrument-specific performance practices, discussion of various sizes and/or keys of each instrument, discussion of instrument-specific notation practices, annotated bibliographies of available pedagogical materials, lists of representative recordings (including authentic ethnic music and other music), and information on relevant organizations and associations of professional or amateur musicians.

    Read the full text at the UGA library website

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