Losing a once had skill

tornadonick

I will start with a little bit of a background on myself and my instrument. when my grandma was just a little girl, she wanted to learn an instrument very badly so my great grandpa went out and bought her a used clarinet. she played it throughout school and then passed it on to my mother. She played it throughout highschool and part of college and now it has been passed on to me. It is a normandy resotone and is in excellent condition. It has had a few problems before of course but anything that has caused problems have been repaired. When i started in 5th somebody broke into the bandroom and through all the instrument cases all over the room. Luckily the clarinet survived but the mouthpeive managed to take a lot of damage. After that i played with a cheep yamaha mouth peice for a few years. When i first started I was considered a very talented natural clarinetist, within the first two weeks, once i got used to making noise come through, i was able to play and get tested on every page in the first two instructional books we where using. I was doing great throughout 5th 6th and 7th grade but then i kind of hit a block. I could still play decently by the middle school band standards but i could just not get myself to improve. This held true all the way through 9th. my 10t grade year, I was unable to be in band and with an incredibly busy schedule, only found myself playing every couple weeks. Now i am back in band on my 11th grade year. Playing with the high school band, a new jazz band my freind is attempting to get going, and in the pit for our schools performance of, "the music man." I also went out and finally bought myself a new mouthpeice (vandoren M13)
I am finding myself in a terrible position. I seem to have lost the majority of the ability i once had. I play with a number 4 reed, i can read music very efficiently, I know and can play any note, I have the fastest tongue in the band. But when i play, none of those skills seam to work together. There are times when it seams like the problem is with the instrument but it does not explain everything that i am dealing with and i know that it is all from me.
I know it is kind of a broad question but can anybody tell me what my problem could be? I have sunk from the top player in the entire band to one of the lowest (not trying to brag my former ability i swear).

also as a sidenote, i am having a difficult time trying to find information on my clarinet, as i said it is a normandy resotone. cerial number:8182G
 
Well first thing you might want to try is renting a different clarinet to see if that really is where the problem lies.

On the other hand, if that's not what the issue is, you just need to keep practicing in those settings and not get discouraged. Play to the best of your ability, and you will improve.
 
Welcome to the forum.
From time to time an instrument will need to have some servicing done to correct some minor issues. When was the last time the instrument was serviced?

Also, as mentioned, try swapping your clarinet with someone else and see if it is the instrument or you having the majority of the problems. preferably one of the better players' instrument. or if you take lessons, then have your teacher test it.

What reed brand do you use?
A 4 is a good stiff reed and usually just he more accomplished players at your level would use a 4 with a Vandoren M13. It could be an issue, or could not.

After that, it's simply practice to get everything into sync per say. or, if you have never taken lessons you may want to take some at least until you get your technique more into sync again. They may be able to find problems in your playing technique .... which we can ask you about but visually seeing someone in person is alot better than on the internet.

But first I would be interested in how your clarinet is compared to someone else's

Also, check here for more information on your Nomandy clarinet
http://www.clarinetperfection.com/clsnLeblancNormandy.htm#EmblemNormandy
 
Interestingly enough, a few months ago, I was using a different clarinet (which i hated with a passion) for a couple weeks while mine was getting serviced. So that nocks that out of the way. I wasn't really expecting to get an easy answer off of here i know but i thought that there was a small chance that there could be an explanation that somebody knew. I appreciate the help. Oh and right now i am using mitchel lurie, if i got that right, reeds. I was going to pick myself up a box of rico royals and try them as that is what i used to use. I don't really know the difference but there must be something. Unfortunately my mom picked up the wrong box when she was in town so i still have not tried them.
 
well assuming that the instrument is 100% then I always go from top down.

I'll ignore the internal throat aspects of playing and just start at the embouchure .. here's a writeup I have for the embouchure (though I have to update it to make it clearer).
http://clarinetperfection.com/Embouchure.htm

After that one gets to the technique. But it's very hard to see your technique and assuming your technique has not changed but something else has ...

Have you tried playing technique books and what has been the change since your earlier playing ?

Is your tonging, breathing and fingering out of sync ? This can happen with a reed and/or mouthpiece change to a different style of reed (or just a bad reed) as it can respond slightly differently.
 
Eh, I'm not a big fan of the Mitchell Luries. I feel like I can't play right with those.

I know, that if my reed/mp set up is uncomfortable, it basically distracts me from everything else. It's a big thing for me to have a comfortable reed, believe me. Sounds like too stuffy/heavy of a set up, reeds react very differently on different mouthpieces. The M13 may just require a softer reed.
 
I like the Mitchell Lauries BUT in high school they were fine. Afterwards with more consistent playing I've found them to get water logged quickly and cause playing issues. Thus I went to Vandoren and Legere.

FYI, I can play a Vandoren blue box 4 on a M13, but i normally just play a 3-1/2 which I also play on my M13 lyre.

fyi a Mitchell laurie 4 is like a vandoren 3-1/2 or so .. at least for me that how it compares.
 
SteveSklar said:
I like the Mitchell Lauries BUT in high school they were fine. Afterwards with more consistent playing I've found them to get water logged quickly and cause playing issues. Thus I went to Vandoren and Legere.
Click to expand...
FWIW I just survived a 20+ hours playing marathon on Mitchell Luries. (#3.5 on Fobes Debut) But I digress...

In my experience, there are good mouthpiece/reed/embouchure combinations and not so good ones. As we don't know your embouchure, it's difficult to make meaningful suggestions.

But, as mouthpieces have different tip openings and table lengths and curvatures, I'd guess that there are reeds which are better suited for an M13, and some are better suited for eg. a B45. There's no fast route past trial and error - good luck...
 
I'm a HS* man myself. I find that it works well in all situations on the clarinet. However, on the bass, I have moved to a Selmer G facing (yes, they have such things - they even have an H if I remember it correctly), combined with a softer reed, this to deal with the greater volumes of sound needed in a show band situation.

In my opinion (of course), most people are playing on too close of a lay with too hard of a reed.
 
I somehow feel that orchestral players are the worst offenders in playing too stiff a reed. It is true that the impedance of a stiffer reed theoretically allows better locking in at altissimo range, but the air flow at times is sacrificed to the point there there is a net loss in response.

Mouthpiece itself is important, without doubt. I've read to the conclusion that resonance frequency of the reed and the mouthpiece sets the tone for everything else. Mouthpiece's bore is hella important (I still need to get ahold of Benade's paper and see for myself more on it...)
 
as you mentioned we can't see the embouchure. Nor, more importantly check it as a private teacher can. a video would be nice though.

But the M13 is a generally designed mpc, though designed on the darker side ala the Chedeville of the past per say. I have an M13 but play an M13 lyre much more often. So I can easily see that his ML 4 reed plays nicely on (at least my) M13.

So theoretically his mpc/reed setup should be fine.

But when a reed gets too soaked it can cause quite an issue with playing response, et all.

The only reason i would go to a 4 is if i have to sub a band/orchestra in 1st part clarinet for all the higher notes. otherwise i just like the ease of 3-1/2s. I've even played on 4-1/2s and 5s but i prefer my eyeballs to stay in their sockets.

We need much more information because if the clarinet is fine, and the mpc/reed is fine ... what's left ?

How does the clarinet respond while doing scales up and down, how does it respond across the break especially going from a throat A to a long B; how are intervals/arpeggios ? These are routines I do while I check a clarinet.

and back to the clarinet itself, I checked a clarinet for a lady last week, principal player. her clarinet was working fine then all of a sudden it stopped responding well. I played it and after some testing she finally realized that she had tightened a screw, then another screw, etc and she had tightened the throat key adjusting screw where it was not allowing the the Ab key to properly close. oops. A few screwdriver twists and viola, clarinet is back to responding the way it was.
 
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