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\ Hi! This is Michelle Anderson from Clarinet Mentors. I\'92d like to welcome you to a complimentary
mini lesson on how to play high notes more easily. This is Part 1 of my high note series, and
it\'92s designed for people who are just starting to use the register key and play the notes
that we call \'93above the break.\'94 If you\'92re looking for more advanced help on the very
notes on the altissimo, please look for Part 2 of my series.\
\ So, if you\'92re just starting high notes,
I\'92m going to show you on this video some things to make it much easier, as well as
the four most common mistakes that people make when they\'92re trying to play the high
notes and how to fix them so that you know how to make it better. \
\ I\'92ve been teaching and playing professionally
for about 30 years now, and I\'92ve learned that every aspect of the clarinet is so much
easier if you have a good recipe \'96 a good step-by-step system for how to work these
things, and that\'92s what I\'92m going to show you on this video.\
\ So, first of all, I want to start by talking
about the most common mistake people make when they\'92re trying to make high notes
and they find they\'92re not working well. And that\'92s that they\'92re using a read
that it too soft to support the high notes well. When you first started clarinet, you probably
started on what we would call a beginner strength. Probably a 2, maybe even a 1-1/2 or a 2-1/2,
and those are helpful to most people when you\'92re first starting because it doesn\'92t
take much air, and it doesn\'92t take much embouchure or muscle power to make the note
speak well. But as you get more advanced and you learn
more notes, your air support gets stronger, your embouchure mouth muscles get stronger,
and then you can actually use a more resistant reed, which would be a higher strength or
a higher number, and that really supports the high notes.\
\ So, if you\'92re not certain if you might
have a reed that\'92s too soft, here\'92s some guidelines for you.\
\ Guideline number one is that generally, when
you start playing over the break, you need at least a strength 2-1/2 to really sound
good. And I would say for most equipment set ups,
probably even a 3 would be better. So if you\'92re less than a 2-1/2, you\'92re
probably going to have trouble playing the highest notes in the high register.\
\ The clue sound-wise that your reed is too
soft are that as you\'92re trying to play your high notes, they have kind of loud and
squawky, but a sure giveaway is as I have my register key on, and I\'92m playing above
a high G, so this is my left hand and on up. Sometimes the notes are going to just blank
out, you\'92re going to get this undertone. I\'92ll kind of demonstrate what that might
sound like.\ \
[Plays notes.]\ \
So I\'92m trying to play that top note and all I\'92m getting is that undertone. That\'92s really typical of someone who\'92s
playing on a reed that\'92s just too soft. If we get that undertone, we don\'92t have
enough support for the note. \
\ Now support does come from three places, the
reed, your embouchure, and your air stream. So certainly I could improve my air in embouchure
and that note may work just fine, but definitely the reed is going to help. So if you\'92re not on at least a 2-1/2, I
suggest you try that and you may find your high note troubles get much easier right away.\
\ Okay. Mistake number two for people who are trying
to work on these high register notes and they\'92re not working well, is that their air stream
is just too wimpy, too slow. So as you know, when we play clarinet, it\'92s
our reed that vibrates very quickly back and forth against the mouthpiece and that\'92s
what makes our sound. We want that to vibrate like crazy and our
air stream is what activates it.\ \
So the simple version of good air on the clarinet is that we want our air to be as fast and
focused as possible. If we could see air coming out of our mouth
the same way we can see water out of garden hose, we want to imagine that our spray nozzle
is adjusted to the really fast power wash setting. [Breath sound.] \
\ If we\'92re on a fine mist, although it\'92s
kind of easy to blow, our tone is not going to sound good. So if I just took an open G, that\'92s the
G where all the holes on the instrument are still open, I\'92m going to blow for you with
misty spray and then I\'92m going to speed it up to more power wash setting and you\'92ll
hear what it does to my sound. Here\'92s [breath sound] fine mist.\
\ [Plays notes.]\
\ So as I turn my spray valve, which is built
in and turned in around my belly button here, I can move my air much faster. It\'92s like I\'92m going [breath sound]. When I get to that warp speed, the fast setting,
that\'92s going to be what supports the high notes. \
\ So if I can play an open G with really good
embouchure and really fast air and I have a reed that\'92s a pretty decent strength,
those high notes should actually feel easy. In fact, if someone else were to suddenly
come along and start fingering my clarinet as I was playing an open G, I should be able
to play any of the notes up to this super high C, which is just our thumb and register
key. So I\'92ll kind of demonstrate that, I\'92m
just going to play an open G, focusing on that fast air, and then I\'92m going to randomly
start moving my fingers around, not really giving it much thought whether I\'92m going
low or high, and what I should experience is that it\'92s just as easy to play high
notes as low notes, because I have a really core strength to my air stream. Here we go.\
\ [Plays notes.]\
\ Wow! That actually felt really, really easy. Now, of course, I do happen to know how to
move my fingers quickly on the instrument, and that\'92s pretty easy to learn. But what was really cool for me is the high
notes felt no harder than the low notes, and that\'92s what it should be for you. A challenge is, the high notes usually feel
really hard to play and it\'92s really frustrating. So, I\'92m sure if you were to think about
faster air, you\'92re going to find that really makes a difference for those high notes. But it kind of leads us to mistake number
three that people often make, and that\'92s because we think high notes are really hard,
we have a natural reaction to it, which is \'93we\'92re going to concentrate. I\'92m going to play these high notes!\'94\
\ And as we\'92re concentrating, our body tenses
up and the one area that really interferes with notes is if our mouth tenses up this
way. Chomp! We bite down on the reed. Biting on the reed causes it to squeak and
it also kind of pinches it off, it inhibits the vibrations so that no longer we\'92re
getting those high notes.\ \
So if you\'92re trying to play high notes and you\'92re hearing a lot of squeaking,
it\'92s very common. Usually we hear the squeaking and we think,
\'93Oh, that\'92s terrible, I\'92m going to try harder,\'94 and then we bite more, and
then of course it squeaks even more. Or worse yet, we bite the reed shut and no
sound at all comes out.\ \
So a clue that you\'92re biting is that you\'92re hearing little squeaks and also it feels as
though the air is blowing right back at you. It\'92s like it\'92s not moving freely into
the instrument. If that\'92s happening, you might want to
just think, as you\'92re blowing, opening your jaw a bit, or an even better habit that
achieves that is to take the corners of your mouth and wrap them in. That\'92s a good embouchure habit to have
on the instrument anyway, but it also will open our mouth and make that work more naturally.\
\ The fourth most common problem that gets in
the way of high notes coming out easily has to do with our fingers. And basically, is that something about how
we\'92re putting our hands on the instrument involves an air leak happening. So on the right hand, you\'92ll notice that
the holes are actually larger than they are on the top joint that is covered with our
left hand. And in fact, this bottom hole is the largest
one. \
\ So a lot of times I find that if you\'92re
someone that has small fingers, you might not be covering those holes all the way. When we\'92re in the low register, we can
kind of get away with it, the notes will still feel harder to play, but they\'92ll come out. The high register is not so forgiving. If there\'92s a little bit of an air leak
anywhere in our fingers, the note either won\'92t play at all or it will feel extremely resistant,
will feel like the air\'92s blowing back at us and it will barely come out. So if some notes work really well and other
notes don\'92t work at all, most likely what you have is a finger that\'92s leaking.\
\ So I\'92ll show you the two most common places
that fingers leak. One is, as I said, probably this bottom finger
on your right hand is the most likely to leak. But there\'92s another place that\'92s really
common, and I\'92ll draw your attention to it, and that\'92s on our left hand.\
\ Our thumb\'92s main job is to cover the thumb
hole, but now it gets involved with this register key. And a lot of people have a natural instinct
to want to slide their thumb up there to catch the key. But in doing so, we often slide it so far
that we\'92ve left a gap at the bottom and air leaks out there. And then the high notes won\'92t work at all,
they\'92ll squeak and they\'92ll feel resistant. \
\ What we want to train our thumb to do is just
to rock gently and just the edge of my thumb is hitting the register key. There is a low note, there is a high note. See how much my thumb is moving? Barely at all. And that\'92s what I want you to practice. That\'92s a really common leak, is our thumb.\
\ Now the other leak that\'92s really common,
I\'92m going to turn my hand a little bit, is that when we go up to hit the register
key, the front of our left hand moves and watch this finger. I\'92ve just pushed open this key here, and
you can see it sort of moving by accident as I\'92m sliding my thumb, this finger has
come to rest on some of the keys underneath it. That\'92s a really common fingering error
that happens, too.\ \
So, if you just wanted to practice with your left hand, you could finger your low C, your
thumb, and with those three holes being covered up, and think about just the edge of your
thumb is going to roll up and hit that key, and keeping your air completely steady, as
if we\'92re playing one note, we\'92re going to try that, it\'92ll give us a low G, and
I rock up to the register key, making sure my thumb is still sealing the hole, and I\'92ll
hit a high G.\ \
[Plays notes.]\ \
Now, sometimes what happens is we roll our thumb up, we get a high G for a split second
and then we keep on rolling our thumb and it leaks and then the note doesn\'92t work
and that might sound like this.\ \
[Plays notes.]\ \
I got the squeak and then I got not much of anything. So that\'92s probably happening to you some
of the time and if it is, you now know that looking in the mirror, looking at your fingers
can be really helpful. \
\ If it\'92s your right hand that\'92s leaking,
in fact, what I\'92m going to do is get all my fingers in view of the camera here, I\'92m
going to start on that high G and work my way down. You\'92ll see when I get to this bottom finger,
I\'92m not going to cover the hole very well and you\'92ll hear how the instrument sounds.\
\ [Plays notes.]\
\ And of course, feels hard to play, so my reaction
is [argh!] and then I bite down like crazy and then no sound happens. So it really feels resistant when it\'92s
leaking, you can fix that.\ \
So the best way to have success in that high register is first of all, to make sure you
have a reed that\'92s strong enough to really allow you to blow with very fast compressed
air stream.\ \
Secondly, make sure you are blowing your air very quickly and try not to change your air
as you change notes. Imagine that your air is coming out of your
mouth like you\'92re a blowing machine. And as you move your fingers around, it stays
very steady.\ \
A third thing is, we don\'92t want to have tension in our mouth, such as often happens
when our body\'92s really focusing. So we want to have a nice round embouchure
so that we\'92re not biting on the reed, and we want our fingers to be quite relaxed, since
they tend to cover the holes better when they are.\
\ And lastly, we do want to make sure our fingers
are completely covering the holes. A good habit to get into is to make sure you\'92re
using the tip of your thumb and barely moving your left hand when you go into that high
register. All of this should make the high notes feel
actually quite easy and it\'92s a very nice feeling when those notes are easy to play,
because suddenly you double the amount of notes that you learn and you can play a lot
more sophisticated music. \
\ If you\'92ve enjoyed the pointers on this
video, I\'92d love to share a lot more with you. I have several interesting videos and articles
available that are designed to make playing the clarinet more easy for you. The best way to get a hold of this material
is to join the Clarinet Mentor\'92s online community. And you can do that by going to the website
that\'92s listed below, www.LearnClarinetNow. If you go there, you\'92ll be able to sign
up for the online community and get immediate access to all of my other great videos and
you\'92ll also get a fantastic newsletter every two weeks that has a really simple pointer
to make your clarinet playing better, and also interesting clarinet gear points and
things like that. So I\'92d love to see you on some of my other
videos. Thanks for listening.\
\ }