Okay so, I play on the Clarinet, rather poorly for the 5th year and I'm going have to skip the final (7th year) of class so I could go and attend an University/College.
I am especially having problems with breathing, I just, never have enough. I always have a hard time getting enough breath and I need some advice how to help me with that, is there some special technique? I can't do yoga or learn how to swim, I need something that I can do by myself. I can't hold the breath for too long either and rarely do I get enough air to make my head spinning.
Any advice?
(I'm also going to bed now so don't hope for any replies from me, but thanks)
I don't know shit about clarinets, but I'm an expert at googling:
[URL]http://www.the-clarinets.net/english/clarinet-how-to-play.html[/URL]
Good luck with it
[QUOTE=GlebGuy;33800645]Okay so, I play on the Clarinet, rather poorly for the 5th year and I'm going have to skip the final (7th year) of class so I could go and attend an University/College.
I am especially having problems with breathing, I just, never have enough. I always have a hard time getting enough breath and I need some advice how to help me with that, is there some special technique? I can't do yoga or learn how to swim, I need something that I can do by myself. I can't hold the breath for too long either and rarely do I get enough air to make my head spinning.
Any advice?
(I'm also going to bed now so don't hope for any replies from me, but thanks)[/QUOTE]
I used to be a pretty good lead clarinet player (don't own one anymore though) despite only playing for 3 years. I'm not an expert though, so I'm not sure how much help what I have to say will be. First thing's first, make sure you're sitting upright and not leaning back, but not so upright that you're straining yourself to do so. Relax your tension; use a comfortable chair. Not sure if it would help much, but try using a thinner reed so it takes less force. Don't breath into the instrument particularly hard - use as little as you can while still retaining the wanted volume and tone quality. Don't use your throat to force air into the instrument - if you feel your throat and cheeks straining, you're probably doing something in an inefficient manner. If you have a long passage with few or no rests, try to sneak in a breath between staccato notes or measure lines; make sure you're both breathing out and in rather than just inhaling. And make sure you're not squeezing the mouthpiece too tightly.
When breathing in before playing make your breath sounds as if your saying "How-ee-ah". The How-ee gets air into both your chest and stomach and the ah prepares your lips/tongue for playing. Also be sure to extent your stomach as your breathing in rather than the normal habit of sucking it in.
Breathing while playing your clarinet should be natural, and not a problem.
Might I ask if your weight it a problem?
Also you might want to look into [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_breathing]circular breathing[/url].
I played clarinet and then the bass clarinet, so I have some experience. Your best bet is to do some breathing exercises for singing. Most of them involve sucking air with help of your diaphragm and slowly releasing. This is something that you have to practice, and if you do the breathing exercises daily for a month or more you'll notice a big difference. You can find some videos on youtube about this.
On the clarinet use a metronome and play one kind of note and see how many measure you can do with a single breath. You can start on a whole note, then half, then quarter, eighth, and whatever else. Just keep in time and make sure the notes are even and relaxed. It wouldn't be a bad idea to write down your practice results so you can see your improvement.
[QUOTE=nick10510;33821909]Also you might want to look into [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_breathing]circular breathing[/url].[/QUOTE]
I've been trying to figure out how to do this for a while, since there's no room for breathing in Flight of the Bumblebee.
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