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In This Issue July 25, 2013
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- A Note From Michelle Anderson - On holidays...
- Free Training - A great reminder for you of five of the most common mistakes we all make, and how to correct them
- Michelle Recommends - "Are You A Clarinet-Nerd?" - Test your status!
- Do You Use Gmail? - How to ensure that you will still easily access this newsletter with the Gmail changes to your inbox
- Clarinet Is Easy - Complete how-to lessons for beginners and self-taught intermediate players
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A Note from Michelle Anderson
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Hello!
Welcome to the Clarinet Mentors bi-weekly newsletter. I welcome several new clarinetists to this community since the last newsletter. I hope you find great value in the clarinet pointers and videos that come with these newsletters every two weeks. 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 hope you are all enjoying summer. I have had some fabulous students this summer, including a few adults who are total beginners. I am amazed at how quickly a focused adult will improve when they have the best systems in place to play clarinet. I think I feel more inspired than any of them after a lesson as I witness their enthusiasm and progress! As you read this, I will be making our annual visit to lots of family in the mid-west. Although I am on holidays, I'll still be thinking about all of you, and coming up with more ideas for future Clarinet Mentors newsletters...
Have a great week, and thanks for being a part of my community!
Free Training - 5 Very Common Clarinet "Bad Habits", and, How You Can Fix Them
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I noticed in my teaching this week that with all of my regular, longer-term students, I felt like I was repeating myself a lot. I was reminding many of them of things that they already knew, but needed to hear. I don't know if everyone has fallen into the "Lazy Days Of Summer", and just lost focus, or if we all really just need someone to help us refocus from time to time. I know my best teachers were very good at noticing if I was going off track in any area of my playing, and bringing me back onto the right path.
That is what I want to do with you today. Today's free training is about 15 minutes long, and presents the five most common "bad habits" that we all fall into. There really are no new concepts here, but I do present them clearly, and show you the good and bad consequences of these behaviours. At an average of 3 minutes per mistake, it is worth watching. If you were here with me in my teaching studio, I would be watching you to see if I notice any of these things. I want you to watch the video, record your own playing, and notice how you handle each of these areas. If you notice that you could improve them, make it part of your practise this week.
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 - Are You A Clarinet Nerd?
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I happen to very much enjoy playing the clarinet. I have many people in my life who like the clarinet. We get together and talk about reeds, and have animated discussions about ligature materials, and get really excited about that new spring action, and how beautiful cocobolo is...OK...
"My name is Michelle, and I am a Clarinet Nerd."
Are you?
Just for fun, I created a one-minute video that really is just a clarinet version of "Name That Tune". There are eight famous clarinet pieces put together in a very fast medley. I challenge you to identify as many of them as you can. I'll put the answers in the next newsletter. In my opinion, if you recognize at least five of them, you are a hopeless Clarinet Nerd. (In fact, if you even click on the site to try it out, you likely qualify for official CN status...)
I originally posted this on Facebook to make it easy for you to share with other Clarinet Nerds in your life. If you are on Facebook, click here to see this fun video. I encourage you to click "share" to spread the Clarinet Nerdiness in the world!
If you are not a Facebook user, you can click directly on the image above to view the Clarinet Nerd Challenge on Youtube.
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Do you use Gmail for your email? New changes to Google Mail may change how you find this newsletter...
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Gmail is making changes to how your inbox looks that may prevent you from seeing emails from me. Gmail will be automatically filtering any email communication from many newsletters so that you won't see it in your primary inbox.
Even if you haven't seen this feature yet, sooner or later all Gmail users will automatically have it. Until now, everything was categorized how you wanted it. But now, Gmail has decided to put on a new feature that filters your email into categories that they create. I have directions below on how you can change what you see.
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Here's What You'll See:
Just above your inbox, Gmail will put your emails into 5 categories:
* Primary
* Social
* Promotions
* Updates
* Forums
Gmail will likely automatically put Clarinet Mentors newsletters and other messages that I send you into "Promotions". As long as my messages are in "Promotions" - you won't see them because "Promotions" skips your inbox. Gmail does make it easy to change so that you can decide what belongs in your inbox. When your inbox changes, here's what you can do to make sure we stay connected.
Here are the 2 steps:
- Find one of my emails in "Promotions" and drag it into "Primary"
- A pop-up will appear to ask if you want to do this for all future messages. Click "Yes".
That's it - now you're all set - Gmail knows we're friends, and you won't miss any of my messages to you :-)
I hope this is helpful to you in sorting your new inbox.
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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).
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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