Geraldine Allen's Clarinet Tips

How can you transform your playing?

Have you ever asked these questions?

How can I?

• get a better sound


• get the note to start when I want it to


• improve my tonguing


• stop squeaking


• have more breath


• play faster

Are you able to find 10 - 20 minutes three times a week to work only on this? If so, you can start transforming your playing right now.

It would be good to know a little more about you as a player.

Where are you with your playing?

It may be that you learnt as child and may have reached a good standard but due to life and work may not have picked the instrument up for several years. Or may be you did not get the time or opportunity to play as a child but have begun to play now, perhaps by teaching yourself in the initial stages or by having one or two lessons and then continuing on your own. Have you been able to join a group or orchestra and enjoy playing but have eventually become frustrated because you are not able to achieve the standard you know you are capable of?

Maybe you are a more advanced player and find that there are inconsistencies in your tone production that you would like to correct and you may have questions such as:

How can I?

• improve my tone across the registers


• control my tone over different dynamic ranges


• project the sound


• have a variety and speed of articulation


• have better breath control


• develop a faster and more fluent finger technique


• play a legato phrase


• create the sound that I hear in my head

The real questions at the heart of this are:

how can I play musically - communicate expressively - interpret what the composer is saying - convey something to my listeners?

Why do you want to play an instrument?

This is a one - sided conversation at the moment but I am guessing it is because you want to play great music, to a good standard. I am going to be talking mainly about clarinet playing because that is my instrument but most of the techniques I will be explaining apply equally to a wide range of wind instruments.
Over the coming sessions I am going to provide you with ways of answering the questions outlined at the beginning of this session which will have a major effect on your playing provided you are prepared to put aside regular time to work at it.

I am not talking about a lot of time.

It is more important that the effort you put in is regular and frequent. The quality of the work that you are doing is what counts.

10 to 20 minutes targeted practice three times a week will make a marked improvement to your playing.

© 2010 Geraldine Allen and Impulse Edition
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Photographs: Di Jackson