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In This Issue August 22, 2013
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- A Note From Michelle Anderson - A quick hello
- Free Training - A Clarinet Mentors Encore - Activate your blowing muscles for better sound
- Michelle Recommends - Tom Ridenour's interesting alternate fingerings for high A, B & C
- Clarinet Is Easy - Complete how-to lessons for beginners and self-taught intermediate players
- From The Clarinet Mentors Community - Mike Vaccaro's websites for clarinetists
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A Note from Michelle Anderson
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Hello!
Welcome to the Clarinet Mentors bi-weekly newsletter. I welcome new readers to the Clarinet Mentors community, and I hope that you enjoy the clarinet knowledge that is shared here. Feel free to comment on any of the videos on the YouTube page, or by sending me an email. My goal is to continue to make life easier for clarinetists all around the world!
I have just returned from a fun and long family holiday, and am settling back into life in my home studio. This week, the peace of the studio has been disrupted not only by some very loud repairs in my own home, but the destruction and rebuilding of our neighbor's garage. The noise is intense enough that I realized that I could not record a good quality video for the newsletter this week (unless it was a very creative clarinet-jack hammer duet). I considered opening up my studio door and playing loud and high Eb clarinet excerpts to frighten them all away, but I realized that they do have a job to do, and the quicker, the better. I hope you will forgive me for recycling my teaching content this week. I'll have a great new video for you in the next newsletter.
As always, if you have any clarinet-related questions, please send them my way. It may take me a while to respond but I will! You can put a comment directly under my videos in the comments box, or send me an email. I am starting a new feature in my newsletter this issue called "From the Clarinet Mentors Community" where I will feature some of the interesting clarinet-related things that many of you have sent me. Have a great week, and thanks for being a part of my community!
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Free Training - A Few More Common Clarinet "Bad Habits", and how you can fix them...
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Today's free training is a re-run. When I realized that there was simply too much construction noise around my home studio to record this week, I decided to feature a video lesson from February. Some of you may have seen this before, and I welcome you to watch it again. I chose this one because I received more comments and emails about this video than any other that I have recorded. Somehow, it seems to address something that most people do not think about.
This video is about how to really activate our blowing muscles to move the airstream as quickly as we should to play clarinet with a warm and full sound. You will notice that this was recorded before I upgraded my recording gear, so the sound quality is a bit softer than my more recent videos. However, I think the content is very helpful. Please enjoy this, and I anticipate having a great new content video for you in the next newsletter.
As always, I enjoy hearing from you, so please add your comments in the comments box below the video on YouTube, or send me an email. Click on the video image below to watch this video lesson.
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Michelle Recommends: Alternate Fingerings Video
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In the past, I have recommended an excellent book that features many altissimo fingerings by Tom Ridenour, entitled, "Clarinet Fingerings". I highly recommend that book to anyone who is regularly playing repertoire that ventures into the altissimo range.
Today, I have another recommendation for you. In this video, Tom demonstrates some alternate fingerings for A, B & C at the top of the clarion (or high) register. There are some cases where you want a graceful and easy slur from a note where most holes are covered up to a high C where this fingering may help you achieve an easier slur. I think the video is worth watching and you can try these fingerings out. Likely you would not use them most of the time, but there will be instances where they can come in handy.
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Clarinet Is Easy - Your Step-by-Step Beginner Course - Now Available! (Also enjoyed by many intermediate level players)
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How To Solve Your Common Clarinet Frustrations and Play Clarinet More Easily
I firmly believe that if anyone has the "recipe" for how to play clarinet, things are really relatively easy to do. Most of our frustrations come from inadvertently learning bad habits along the way. With that in mind, I have created for you a 10-lesson comprehensive course for beginners (and self-taught intermediate players) that gives you the tools to truly learn the clarinet easily, while avoiding all of the most common frustrations that can plague us. I believe that these lessons can save you hours of grief by giving you the best practise systems that have worked for hundreds of clarinetists. The lessons have great content, and are presented in a video format so that you can watch them again and again. If you would like to play with more ease and have a clear understanding of the fundamentals of clarinet playing, you can get more information on the Clarinet Is Easy course here (including some free preview videos):
Click here for the free preview videos to Clarinet Is Easy
If you are curious about this, you can try these lessons with a 100% 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee . (That means that you can try a full 5 lessons before you decide if you have received great value from the course.) If it is not the right style for you, you get your tuition refunded, no problem. I invite you to try it now! Many students have received amazing results so far from this course (and you can read their comments on the order page).
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From The Clarinet Mentors Community
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I receive many interesting emails from folks in the Clarinet Mentors Community. I will be regularly sharing some of these things with you in upcoming newsletters.
Last issue, I recommended the Backun barrels and bells, which I use and endorse. A few people wrote to me with other gear that they like and appreciate. The lucky thing about being a clarinetist today is that there is a lot of good gear out there that is designed to help us to play better and more easily.
I received a very nice email from Mike Vaccaro who also designs barrels, bells and mouthpieces in the Los Angeles area. I haven't had the chance to try these myself, but if you are in that area, you may want to check them out in person.
Michelle Anderson, the founder of Clarinet Mentors, is a professional clarinetist and teacher who currently lives in Vancouver BC. Her professional career spans 30 years and she currently plays regularly with the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, the Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble and the West Coast Chamber Music series. She has performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Touring Orchestra and many other groups. Michelle currently specializes in teaching adults to play clarinet more easily and quickly through online resources, and conducts the Vancouver Clarinet Choir.
Thanks for reading this biweekly newsletter.
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Helping you to find success on your instrument with sound teaching techniques, and useful learning systems.
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