John Gardner

The first time this came up, I was working with a group of 9th grade clarinet students on finger dexterity and breath control. To do that, we were using a simple, one-octave scale they could all play. I didn’t often model my clarinet but had it with me for this rehearsal. We were working together, but I was also having them play individually. The progression of instruction:

Play the scale up and down, one octave – in one breath.
Good.

Go one octave, two times in one breath.
Got it.

One octave, three times, one breath.
After a couple times – good.

Now, let’s go two octaves, one time, in one breath.
Not too hard.

Two octaves, two times, one breath.

Two octaves, three times, one breath.
“But Mr. Gardner, we’re going to have to go faster to do that.”

Ok. Your choice. Go faster and/or breathe deeper.

Here we go….

Two octaves, four times, in one breath.
“Mr. G, a clarinet can’t go that fast.” (I loved hearing that).

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I took my clarinet, played a THREE-octave scale up and down about 6-7 times in one breathe.

“How did you do that?”

Without any pause, I answered,

“My clarinet has a speed button.”
I expected them to laugh, or to ask more questions, but every one of them took that answer at face value as in, ‘Oh….well, that explains it.’

I could not let them get away with that acceptance. I ripped off a 3 octave (or so) chromatic scale up and down multiple times, and then we talked about how I did that.

Did it look like I had to stop and think about what the next note was? Why not?

Did you see how close my fingers stay to the keys?

We discussed how we took that simple scale and worked on speed. Using that technique, and breaking runs into smaller groups, I was trying to help them grasp the concept of “Play Every Note.”