The Progressive Clarinetist: A Comprehensive Method for Fast-Paced Fundamental Growth

Abstract

This modern-day method has been created because of the demand for a student’s consistent growth throughout musical programs in a collegiate setting. A gap exists between a private instructor and one’s personal practice throughout the week or school breaks that can be mitigated by having access to a wide variety of exercises and ways to implement these exercises using actual repertoire. This method will focus on the basic fundamentals of clarinet playing: air, intonation, finger motion, scales and articulation. Students will pick the fundamental they would most like to improve or remain consistent on and undergo a three-week period of intensive and specific practice with the goal of improving that fundamental and understanding better how it applies to all performances. This method will be split into five levels based on expectations throughout the individual years of an undergraduate degree, as well as including graduate students. While this program is aimed primarily at college level clarinetists, it can be applied to clarinetists of any age. The exercises have been compiled as a result of my personal experiences as a student and teacher as well as consultations with clarinet colleagues, and the etudes and excerpts have been taken from popular books and pieces in the clarinet repertoire. The exercises have been assigned to specific levels and fundamentals based on their difficulty and focus. Many etudes and excerpts address multiple fundamentals and will be used accordingly. The student who goes through this method will first take a brief test that assesses their level in all main fundamentals. Once their initial level has been ascertained, they begin their program. Each day of practice will incorporate a variety of exercises, etudes and excerpts aimed towards their specific goal. At the beginning of the program there will be considerably more exercises and etudes, but challenges via excerpts and harder etudes will be incorporated as the student’s endurance and skill grows. The goal of this method is to encourage consistent growth in the most important part of learning as a collegiate music student: fundamentals. By promoting continual challenges and growth in a variety of fundamentals, collegiate clarinet players should be able to avoid regressing during breaks from school and the review of fundamentals upon their return to school that keeps them from pursuing music and techniques they should be able to handle at their respective level. This method, with its tiered levels according to expectations throughout a clarinet student’s college career, can create a consistently progressing student who can pinpoint their own weakness, as well as providing a variety of new ways of practicing fundamentals in all types of repertoire.