Hello Thank you so much Michelle Anderson! From Mexico, begginer clarinetist. Looking forward to become a military musician. All of your videos have been very helpful.
Hi Michelle thanks for your time to prepare such good advices , specially for me that starting to play at age of 59 , and i am enjoy a lot your methods and the way you explain and gives us an incentive! Thanks Dirlei from Brazil
As a clarinetist with decades of experience I have watched and enjoyed a few of your videos to explore online instruction. I am a engineer by trade. Decades ago I taught numerous high school students from day one with a focus on sound production. By careful coaching and trouble shooting before any bad habits developed I could get enthusiastic students to sound like pros in 8 weeks. I did not venture into the altissimo but stopped at high C at the 8 wk point but did teach a few higher notes later in the year. Some never squeaked. Although they sounded good they couldn't play much. I mention this to indicate I have experience teaching sound production but i am certain your teaching experience far far outweighs mine. I hope you don't take offence to this, I would like to offer a different and technically correct explanation of airflow in a wind instrument. The flow through an instrument is controlled by laws of fluid dynamics and things like Bernouli's principle. We have no direct control of velocity as you imply. Our diaphram can only pressurize our lungs and oral cavity. The flow rate in the system is determined only by pressure and the cross sectional area of the exit orifice, which is the mouthpiece and reed opening. When the reed is vibrating its opening is changing. This modulates the flow. The airflow upstream of the reed (your mouth) has no specific direction or much velocity. If you think of the modest volume of your lungs and how long we can play a note we must empty our lungs at a slow rate. When you demonstrate velocity with the piece of paper you are exhaling 20 or more time faster than when we play. Playing velocity is more like yawn and not at all like a cough. Your velocity model is misleading and incorrect. We have only two fundamental controls on continuous sound production. Air pressure and reed force. Air velocity behind the reed is a function of pressure and orifice size and is inconsequential. No amount of tongue or throat manipulation will materially affect it. We have only control of pressure, while velocity is what it is. There is no focus of the air stream. Teaching sound production requires focus on just a few fundamentals, no magic required. Beginners will struggle to produce air pressure.We mitigate that with soft reeds and student mouthpiece facing. That will improve with training. The second is embrochure and reed force control. Regulating reed force by feel is the first step but regulating by sound is more precise. Long stable tones are the answer. One often overlooked step is teaching the student what to listen for. They hearing for the first time with their ears and through bone conduction in their teeth so confusion is common. Telling them how they sound is key. I work on mouthpiece position, lower lip and teeth position. We experiment with too much and too little so they understand the effects and get back to the correct location at home. I'm Canadian too. Keep up the good work.
Hallo I live in Evesham,England,Having only started two years ago at the age of 70 I really enjoy it but I hold my breath whilst playing and that seriously restricts my progress.How can I change this,I have the same problem with swimming,
I'd love to see a video in which you actually teach us how to do these things that you talk about and demonstrate. Pulling the lip down means nothing. Where exactly do we pull it down to? And what are the teeth doing when we're doing this. And the huffing and whispering from the previous video didn't teach me anything. How do you actually do those things?
Hi Graeme - Thanks for taking the time to comment. I always find it baffling when people criticize a channel that offers well over 100 free educational videos, that take hours to film, edit and upload and have been enjoyed over 2 million times on RU-vid. Even it this isn't "serious enough" for you, it seems to be beneficial to many people in the world. I hope you enjoy your clarinet playing, and perhaps you can send great compliments to the people who do have "serious" channels. I know they will appreciate the acknowledgement of their contributions.
GG ......Wow .....You just blew me away ......What a rude and immature comment to make .......This instructor is one of the best I have come across on RU-vid and to say she isn't serious about what she is doing is ludicrous ......Really, really mind blowingly ludicrous .....Madam Michelle is off the charts in how well she presents things and how comprehensive ALL her videos are .......Someday when I get to them all I'll be able to verify that but I fully expect the next 100 I've yet to see will be as good as the first 6 or so fantastic ones that I have seen so far .......You should make a full and honest apology to her for your poor observations and extremely rude statement or don't make any more comments to her and her community ever again ........We've got some basics to work on and nobody needs this kind of trolling to deal with ......
