Week 3

I'm really getting exhausted this week from a lot of work I've had to do over the last few days.  I got two exams over the next few days, so the reading is going to be more intense than usual.  On the plus side, I'd say this week was really productive for the clarinet.

I did a ton of work on adding a little more brilliance to my tone (the high note sound into the low notes thing).  The biggest breakthrough on this was actually after friday when Dr. Burke talked about the mouthpiece only work.  I've been doing that a lot and it has really helped me with my voicing and intonation, which in turn is keeping the tone quality more where I want it.  Most of this type of work went like this:

I would play a C on the piano, then try to match it with the mouthpiece.  Then I'd get my tuner out and see if I could sustain the C in tune for extended periods.  I would also bend the pitch up and down and see how quickly and accurately I could get back to the C.  After I felt comfortable with that embouchure and tongue position I put the MP back into the clarinet and played a high D, trying to keep it in tune as long as I could.  Then I'd move down chromaticaly, keeping each note in tune and with the propper tone, usually going all the way down to the lower register.  I'd also go up chromatically up to an Ab at times. 

This was usually done in a mf dynamic at first, and then I'd get softer after a few tries and work on that.

I also worked on the Eugene method stuff, usually staying at the softer dynamics.  Before playing anything that started on a low note I'd play a high D or C# to get the feel for tone.  I didn't get to do a lot of work on the arppeggios for this key this week, but I did a good bit on the other areas. 

The Sierra piece is coming alone nicely.  I've been starting with this by working on the 5th mvt first, then playing one of the other ones.  For the 5th mvt, I'm still learning the technique for it, but it seems that my biggest issue is keeping the sound from spreading on the leaps and keeping the tone quality there on the lower notes (specially at the beginning).  For the 2nd mvt, the problems relate a lot to what I'm working on now: how to play softly with good tone. 

I also worked a good bit on mvt 1's technique (I tend to rush some of those passages) and on the stuff we talked about for mvt 3 last week.  I'd like to perform mvts 1,2, and 3 this week for rep class, but I'll have to see if I feel like the technique is ready for it by friday. 

As a side note, I managed to fix a lot of the intonation problems with my clarinet this week with a little bit of handy work.  Turns out one of the keys wasn't going down all the way, causing a slight leak on certain fingerings.  This was why I couldn't use 1/1 fingerings on the instrument and it somehow made everything a bit more flat than it should have been.  Problem solved now I'd say!