July
12
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The single best clarinet exercise i’ve ever learned!
6ths <–Click to see the exercise!!
That’s right, it’s that simple! This is the single best exercise for moving fluidly over the break and moving freely and fluidly throughout the clarinet’s range.
Start super slow. The goal here is not speed, it’s to move from one note to the next with no breaks or disruptions in the tone. All you should hear is beautiful, consistent tone the whole way, just like glass, pure and clean. Go slowly and imagine how the finger movement feels before you actually move them. Make sure your throat and back of your tongue are in the right position. Too high or too low and you will cause scoops and diphthongs when going to the higher note.
This is the first thing I play every time I pick up my clarinet. This simple exercise gets your fingers coordinated with your throat and tongue position and gets everything locked into place because you simply cannot slur these intervals cleanly unless you have everything in place. I highly recommend adding this to your warmup routine!
andrew d meyer 
Really glad I came across your blog! My first instrument is flute and I was given a clarinet a few months ago. I’ve been teaching myself to play it, but have been struggling a bit with the break, because it’s so different from flute and sax. I’ll try this in tomorrow’s practice and see how it goes. 🙂
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Cool. Let me know how it goes! It’s not easy at first but I think it’s really the thing that helped me move over the break effortlessly!
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