Does your instrument have a “SPEED” Button?
At the time, our Fall Bands were divided into three classes. There was the Marching Band, a class of 10th-12th graders who did not march, and a class of 9th grade non-marchers.
It was early in the semester and I was working with the 9th grade band’s clarinet section. It is important to note that these students had never heard me play. Clarinet is my major instrument…and way back in a previous century, I was pretty decent.
Anyway, we were working on a scale, but I used this opportunity to also teach correct fingerings, hand position, range, speed and breath control.
We played the scale several times and got the first octave sounding pretty good. They were feeling pretty good.
“Okay, now let’s add a second octave.”
There were looks and stares, but they stayed with me. Some of them acted like I was teaching them some notes they had never played before.
“You’re in high school now — and you need to be able to do this.”
We played the upper octave slowly, but then gradually increased the speed. The next step…
“Good. Now I want you to play up and down BOTH octaves in ONE breath.”
Not bad.
“This time, we’re going to go up and down both octaves TWO TIMES in one breath.”
STUDENT: “Mr. Gardner, to do that, we’re going to have to go faster.”
“EXACTLY. We’re going to go faster — and you’re also going to need to take a deeper breath and control your air. Remember…..TWO times…..ONE breath. Ready?”
I was gradually increasing the tempo and they were surprising themselves with the fact that they were getting it.
When I said we were going to go THREE TIMES in one breath, one of the freshmen stopped me.
STUDENT: “Mr. Gardner, clarinets can’t go that fast.”
That was my cue. I got out my Buffet R13 and zipped up and down those two octaves several times. I really don’t remember the number, but it was much higher than the “impossible” three where they thought we were.
I finished.
Big eyeballs. And silence….until one of them asked shyly,
STUDENT: “How did you do that?”
I started out by saying that,
“Mine is a professional model clarinet…..and it has a special SPEED BUTTON.”
To my dismay, that explanation immediately and completely satisfied them.
THEY BOUGHT IT.
Of course, you can go fast if your clarinet has a special speed button on it. I was almost speechless. I thought I was telling a joke.
No, I didn’t leave it there. I couldn’t. I talked with them about technique (how close my fingers stayed to the keys) and some practice technique, including what we had been doing with, 1) get it right, then 2) get it faster and 3) keep increasing speed.
More on practice technique in another post. And maybe I’ll share the story about the clarinet student who told me the section we were working on was “too hard”.
Thanks for reading.
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