Clarinet Warmup: The most important thing to warm up is...

Sent Saturday, January 10, 2015

CLARINET MENTORS

For clarinetists who want to perform more easily and beautifully

In This Issue

• A Note From Michelle Anderson - Happy New Year!
• Free Training - The most important thing to warm up that will help you improve most quickly on clarinet is...
• Michelle Recommends - Some good "finger pattern" books for your warm-ups
• Clarinet Is Easy - Complete how-to lessons for beginners and self-taught intermediate players

A Note from Michelle Anderson

Hello !

Welcome to the Clarinet Mentors newsletter. I hope that new members, and long-time members enjoy the clarinet news that I share here with all of you.

I wish everyone in the Clarinet Mentors community a very Happy New Year, filled with good music for all of us!

I've enjoyed a great holiday visiting family all over the place - Oregon, Minnesota and Winnipeg, were some of our destinations. Luckily for us, it was about 20 degrees warmer in the midwest than last year.

My New Year's Resolution last year was to decrease tension in my playing. What a good one! I seem to need to work on that regularly, but it has really helped my playing. I like having a musical focus, and I encourage you to choose one as well. This year, I want to be more "mindful" in my practise routine (a concept which ties in nicely with today's training video, which you will find below). I also am going to improve my flutter tonguing, which frankly, is not so good. I guess since I rarely need it, I've gotten by with faking it by "growling". I have a piece that really needs it, so I will journey from someone who can't even flutter with my speaking voice to hopefully, full-fledged, clarinet flutterer in the next few months. Send me your strategies if you have them! Perhaps I need to start spending time with my Italian and Portuguese friends who roll their R's so well!

Thanks so much for being part of my Clarinet Community. I hope that you enjoy your clarinet this week!

Michelle

Free Training

Clarinet Warm-up: The most important thing to warm-up is...

We all know that warming up is theoretically, a good idea. Yet most people do not have an effective warm-up routine. A good one will help you to create good habits in your playing and bring you improvements that are noticeable in a very short time.

Free training video: [ https://youtu.be/hUQNVmGjloI ]

Michelle Recommends

Two good finger pattern books (scales, arpeggios etc.)

It is handy to have some good finger patterns to use in your warm-up routine. Here are a couple that I like:

At an intermediate level:

24 Varied Scales and Exercises for Clarinet - J. Albert

This is the book that I used as a young clarinetist, and it has many great patterns.

At a more advanced level:

​Foundations Studies - From Baermann Clarinet Method - Third Division - edited D. Hite

This book is one of the standard clarinet finger pattern books. You will find all major and minor keys, scales in thirds, fourths and just about every other interval. The original version from Baermann Third division is organized by type - all major scales first, then all minor scales. The version edited by David Hite, reorganizes them by key. All C major patterns are together - scales, arpeggios, scales in thirds etc. I personally find this one easier to read since I like to dig into one key signature thoroughly. However, the same materials are found in both versions, and they are both great. How you like to access it is up to you!

Clarinet Is Easy - Your Step-by-Step Beginner Course - Now Available! (Also enjoyed by many intermediate level players)

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 thousands 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):

https://www.clarinetmastery.com/clarinet-is-easy-preview-videos

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).

About Michelle Anderson

Michelle Anderson, the founder of Clarinet Mentors, is a professional clarinetist and teacher who currently lives in Vancouver BC. Her professional career spans over 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.

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Helping you to find success on your instrument with sound teaching techniques, and useful learning systems.