Week 4 of October

I feel like I made a lot of progress this week on my left hand. I'd say I'm keeping my index curved on the A and F# keys around 60-70% of the time now, which is a huge improvement over last week. I've also gotten a lot better at keeping the ring finger on the C hole.

This did bring out another problem to light: My pinky fingers on both hands. I don't know if it's the clarinet that just has slow action, or if my pinky just isn't pressing hard enough, but except for the C/F key, there is often a delay in the sound that comes from the key not being pressed all the way down right away. This happen most often when I'm using my left pinky (it doesn't really matter which note it is, which is why I think it's a problem with me and not the instrument).

The Rose 20 is doing better than last week, but I still can't really feel how this song goes for some odd reason. I'm not sure if I should move on to another one or keep going with it this week... it's just very awkward for me. At least the left index portion of this etude is doing a lot better.

As far as embouchure goes, I feel like I still have trouble getting the high notes to speak. It's not a really big deal anymore up to a high D, but E and up (especially F) are still rough. I notice this a lot when playing through the Albert D Major scale in thirds. I'm not entirely sure if this is a tongue position problem or a jaw problem... I think it's a mix of both.

The Sain-Saens is doing better this week, but the problems that occur due to the above are still apparent. I think I'm doing the tapers a little better, but they still need more work... they'll be easier to do when I get the jaw/tongue position straightened up I believe. As far as getting the 16th note sections musically, I think there is some improvement, but I won't really be able to master that until I master the fingerings completely... just one of those things that happen only some of the time. The second movement is doing much better I believe than last time you heard it. Some of the sections I used to have trouble with are still there, but they're at the point where I can get them about 65% of the time now I'd say overall.

On a side note, I got a neck strap this week, and that has helped me out a lot I feel. I never really realized how much tension the clarinet would cause on my right thumb until I got the neck strap. It doesn't solve problems on its own, but I think it was a good investment on my part (it's an elastic one, so it also helps me a bit on embouchure by pushing the clarinet up a bit for me, which was harder to do with just my hands). I also go a new ligature to try out, though I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet... I'll keep going with it for a bit to see how I like it once I get it broken in.

Oh, and I think I'm pretty much done with that cold I've had for the past two weeks finally!

Week 3 of October

I'm not sure what to think of my practicing this week. I got a little sick for a few days, but I never had any really bad practice sessions (they weren't great, but not bad). But based on my playing earlier today, I just feel like I could be playing better, specially on the saint-seans.

The scales are going fairly well. I don't have them all down without any problems yet, fingering-wise, but they're pretty close. It's more strange than I thought to think about lift while playing... it's still something I need to get used to, as it's a relatively new concept to me. Scales in 3rds really help here.

I think I'll need another week or two on the rose #20. It's hard to work on the "wuh" when I still have trouble with the notes. For some reason this etude just doesn't make as much sense to me as some of the other ones, so it takes longer to learn.

I worked a lot on the wedding dance spots (I would really like to have it completely down by the time we start rehersing it regularly, but I probably won't), and they have gotten a lot better, specially the high part. I decided on working with the alternate fingerings for that section, since they are a lot simpler once you get used to them... only problem I have is with how flat the D and C# sound like that (I get the register down for the other notes, so they're not a problem at least).

For the saint-saens I feel like I've gotten worse at some spots, and better in others. I'm not really sure why either, since I don't feel like it's been long enough that I've played those spots that they would have gotten that much worse (it's mostly on the first movement). I circled the spots I feel give me the most trouble.

Week 2 of October

This week was fall break, so I went home for that. Consequently, I ended up not being able to practice for a few days when I travelled and was busy with other things. I did get some good practice time in with the little time I did have, at least, even if I had to split a lot of it with leaning our new symphonic band music.

The albert scales don't have an Ab minor page, so I did g# minor instead. In today's practice I managed to do pretty well on that as far as fingerings go, so I could focus on sound more, but the other days weren't quite as good. F minor went well, though.

Rose 18 is interresting... it's actually not too difficult to do that one without any dynamics. I think I'm doing a better job of keeping my jaw forward for longer periods, but not quite where I need it to be yet. It's very close.

Unfortunatelly with the little practice I got I didn't get to do as much with the sonata. I went through all the movements and marked some places where I tightened up some, but didn't get to really do much as far as finding out why that was or how to fix it yet. I can answer that on some of them at least.

Week 1 of October

This was a sort of busy week. With the symphonic band concert tomorrow night, I've had a bit of a tougher time focusing on my lesson work. I did still get a lot of practice in, but my mind wasn't there 100% of the time.

I don't feel like I made as much progress this week as I did these last two weeks. Not that I didn't get to practice enough or that I think I didn't improve at all, but I can't really notice as much of a diference in my playing like before (that could be a good thing, of course).

My main focus this week was to work on keeping a steady tongue position... that's surprisingly difficult to do! It seems that I can last for about 4-7 measures at a time right now, depending on the song, but after that I need to take a break to reset tongue position and embouchure. It also gets worse as I keep practicing, and by the end of my practice sessions I can only last a measure or two, and some times I have trouble doing it at all if I practice for a long time.

I guess this just means that I need to work on stamina/endurance now.