Preferred beginner methods?
- Thread starter Merlin
- Start date
I prefer the Rubanks Blue Books too. It's the same ones they use in the schools so it's easy to advance students with it.
I've been reading lately though that some prefer private students to learn from the top down versus bottom up.
basically start learning from the mid range of the clarinet (with the octave key). This, from what i've read, promotes better embouchure and technique. Though I think that is interesting (and I plan on researching it some more) I think it requires too much from young students and of course more private tutoring. Plus, it's not always good to teach a different basic method from what the schools are trying to teach.
I've been reading lately though that some prefer private students to learn from the top down versus bottom up.
basically start learning from the mid range of the clarinet (with the octave key). This, from what i've read, promotes better embouchure and technique. Though I think that is interesting (and I plan on researching it some more) I think it requires too much from young students and of course more private tutoring. Plus, it's not always good to teach a different basic method from what the schools are trying to teach.
IMO, the only system I don't like is Suzuki. I had a beginning sax student that had been taught using that method and I thought he was pretty decent -- until one day I handed him an arrangement of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or some such to play with him as a duet and he wasn't playing the right notes.
He couldn't read the music, nor did he know what fingerings corresponded to what notes. He WAS able to listen to me play a phrase and duplicate it, which is commendable, but when I say, "Finger a D" and you say, "What?" there's a problem.
He couldn't read the music, nor did he know what fingerings corresponded to what notes. He WAS able to listen to me play a phrase and duplicate it, which is commendable, but when I say, "Finger a D" and you say, "What?" there's a problem.
Merlin..
Even though I'm NOT a teacher, your last sentence was one I couldn't let pass by.
You said\asked.. "Anyone else have a method they swear by?"
I then thought to myself.. "No, but I bet there's a bunch that have some that they swear AT!"
(Sorry, just had to do it.)
Shi-Ku Chishiki ShiKu.Chishiki@Gmail.com
For a beginning student --- i.e. no playing experience on any woodwind I would probably go Rubanks. (I have some of my beginning clarinet students on this book)
For a doubler just beginning clarinet the Celebrated Method for Clarinet (Klose) ... I love that book. It has everything
). ... Personally, I started on the Voxman studies/technique in the back.
I'll cast another vote for the Rubank series. About 100 years ago, or at least it feels like that at the moment ;-), when I learned clarinet, that's what my private instructor used with me. When I went on to teach, that's naturally what I used to teach my students with. :geezer1:
I like the Rubank methods for another reason, that being that they are widely available. When a student loses his book, you don't have to scratch and dig to find a replacement - instead you just send them to the local music jobber and have them pick up another one.
The time for Klose and other studies and methods (Lazarus was one that I preferred) is after the basics of the first two books in the Rubank series have been mastered.
Plus, with the Rubanks you get that funky metal clarinet for the Boehm side of the fingering chart, authored by good ol' Nilo Hovey. (Nilo? What mother names a child Nilo?) A link with the past, if you will.
Just make sure that you mark the chart so that a parent does not try to help the struggling student by referring to the "normal looking" side with the fat clarinet (which is the Albert system side)...
The time for Klose and other studies and methods (Lazarus was one that I preferred) is after the basics of the first two books in the Rubank series have been mastered.
Plus, with the Rubanks you get that funky metal clarinet for the Boehm side of the fingering chart, authored by good ol' Nilo Hovey. (Nilo? What mother names a child Nilo?) A link with the past, if you will.
Just make sure that you mark the chart so that a parent does not try to help the struggling student by referring to the "normal looking" side with the fat clarinet (which is the Albert system side)...
