Clarinet for Beginners with Adam Simonsen
The ultimate guide for the clarinet beginner. More than 4 hours of teaching. You will be guided through the first production of sound, 19 tones and 4 scales, 10 melodies for beginners, which you can later play together with a pianist, maintenance of the instrument, ideas and tips about reeds and equipment, and finally a historical overview of how the clarinet evolved.
LESSON PLAN
01 Intro
Get an overview of what is going to happen over the next 4 hours in this clarinet class.
Try this chapter now!
02 How to assemble the clarinet correctly
Might sound easy, yet there are still tips and tricks that make things easier and maintain the clarinet in good health.
03 Finger and hand position
This lesson explains how proper hand and finger positions make a big difference on your playing and explains what to look out for and how to build the correct fundament that will help you in your daily playing.
04 Tongue position
Having the correct tongue position is crucial for a proper tone production and getting smoothly around the instrument.
05 The embouchure
Embouchure basically means how you shape the mouth´s muscles. This is the very fundament where instrument and your body become one mechanism. This lesson explains how to build a proper embouchure and will show the importance of it.
06 The air
The clarinet is a wind instrument and therefor air is everything. This lesson will give you lots of exercises that will increase your capacity, make your blowing much easier and unrestricted and ultimately make you create the sound you wish to have.
07 The first sound- Tone production
How do you actually produce sound on a clarinet and what is possible? A lot! This lesson is all about different takes on sound production and how to develop it on your own.
08 Repeating notes-attacks- articulation- staccato.
Many words for the same thing: Articulation, staccato- attack of a note- repeating notes. It´s all about how to get your tongue going so you can play more crisp and clear and vary your playing to get more nuances into it.
09 19 notes and 4 scales
Now you should be ready to build some finger technique, and going through all the tones on the clarinet- and also start do some finger gymnastics- by playing 4 different scales. This is your daily vitamin pill.
10 10 melodies with piano
Now we get to what it´s all about: music making. In these lessons you will be guided in detail through 10 popular melodies and afterwards get the chance to play them on your own accompanied by a real pianist.
11 Reeds, mouthpieces and ligatures
This is the nerdy part of this class, nevertheless super important to get a hold of your equipment and how these different parts work together.
12 History of the clarinet and how it evolved
Get to see and know how the clarinet evolved over the past 250 years by visiting the historical museum of music instruments in Copenhagen. What a history and how fascinating to see the many many steps towards what we know of being a modern clarinet.
