This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Clarinet Technique, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the accurate clarinet technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
CAN A CLARINETIST CREATE A COMPLETELY NEW CLARINET TECHNIQUE AND POSTURE WITHOUT HAVING TO STOP PERFORMING AND START OVER? YES!
But it has to be by evolving degrees of change to your technique over time. Let me explain. For the average clarinet player, technique is not something that continues to evolve over time. So, by the time a talented committed clarinetist has played for five years or so, the clarinet player’s technique is not changing.
And the odds are it won’t change unless the clarinetist either gets into physical trouble or becomes unwilling to accept his or her inability to play the most difficult clarinet music without pain, injury, or strain.
WHAT IF YOU SAT OR STOOD WITH THE CLARINET AND LOOKED AT EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE IS GREAT CLARINET TECHNIQUE WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF AN ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE TEACHER WHO WAS VERY CLEAR ABOUT THE INSEPARABILITY OF POSTURE AND CLARINET TECHNIQUE?
What would be the result?
You would find yourself creating a gently evolving clarinet technique that would only allow you to become a better and better clarinet player.
But this doesn’t answer the problem stated by the title of this article. Simply, the title of this article asks, “Is it possible not to do what you’ve done on the clarinet without disruption to your performing?”
BY DEFINITION IF YOUR CLARINET TECHNIQUE IS IN AN EVOLVING GENTLE STATE OF CONSTANT CHANGE, AT SOME POINT YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING OF THE OLD TECHNIQUE LEFT.
A couple of points here: I want to address the issues of an evolving clarinet technique being an unstable clarinet technique and of eventually “having nothing of the old technique left”.
We have a saying in the Alexander Technique, “DO LESS!” What does this mean? It means that your posture and clarinet technique will be in a constant state of evolving into something better, if you use your warm up each day to let go of excess tension. In other words, every time you sit or stand to play you do a physical inventory of release, so that you use less and less muscle to play better and better.
Is this a radical approach to clarinet technique? NO, but it is a PRACTICAL approach for two reasons. First, if you don’t do this, it is very likely that your clarinet posture and technique will devolve into greater and greater slumping and tension. What I just said is the basis for why some days your clarinet playing is working, and other days why it isn’t.
If every time you sit or stand with the clarinet you guide yourself into postural and technique balance, then at the very least you are allowing more and more days to be good practice or performance days. Second, at the best you’re creating a very very subtly evolving clarinet technique and posture that will not interfere with how well you perform here and now. And in fact, this subtly evolving clarinet technique based on “doing less and less” will most certainly guarantee better and better performances, which means a growing faith in yourself to play well in front of others.
What does it mean to realize you aren’t doing anything you did the first five or twenty years on the clarinet?
IT MEANS THAT EVEN WITH IF YOUR EVOLVED CLARINET TECHNIQUE DOESN’T LOOK ALL THAT DIFFERENT TO THOSE YOU’RE PLAYING FOR, YOU HAVE CHANGED SO MUCH HOW YOU INHABIT AND MOVE YOUR BODY (FINGERS, DIAPHRAGM, ETC.) TO PLAY, THAT YOU AREN’T THE SAME CLARINETIST.
You have brought your clarinet posture and clarinet technique into such amazing alignment, by using less and less muscle to allow this, that you don’t feel like yourself. THE BODY ALWAYS TELLS US WHO WE ARE. What do I mean?
All tension, all good or poor posture on the clarinet, all good or bad clarinet technique, is your own creation. None of this is done to you. It is all the result of all of what you believe about yourself, what you believe is necessary to play the clarinet, and what you believe about others, brought to the clarinet.
Inherent in the above is that you have ALL OF THE POWER to evolve your clarinet technique, not cling to a potentially stagnant technique, or watch your clarinet technique and posture devolve over time.
Here is a spiritual example: It is possible you know someone who is an enlightened being, but you don’t know that this is their level of awareness. Because on the outside, he or she looks like and acts like everyone else.
What is the experience of a brand new clarinet technique?
MOST OF THE TIME YOU EXPERIENCE A SENSE OF PHYSICAL WELLBEING ON THE CLARINET, AND YOUR TECHNIQUE ALLOWS YOU TO DO WITH EASE ON THE CLARINET WHAT IS IN YOUR HEAD.
