im doubling clarinet to tenor sax for my schools jazz band and how the frick do i hold it. there is no way to get a good grip and it's so heavy it jsut pulls my neck down. i don't know where to place my hand or if having an odd, difficult handhold is part of the experience and gets better with time. also i sometimes feel the mouthpiece is running away from me.
i play the clarinet better than most of my peers but still suck in the grander scheme of things. all state where i am is really not that competitive compared to the likes of texas but im very unsure if i'm going to get in for a few reasons.
i can hardly memorize my scales up to four sharps and flats
don't ever ask me to comprehensively play an etude 😟
my technique is very flawed
im planning to get a private teacher in the near future but auditions are in 3 months and idk my technique flaws and sound will be fixed by the time auditions come around unless my growth is crazy exponential. My playing has also gone through a significant downgrade and my practice sessions are very unproductive because that lack of guidance of a teacher has really hit.
really ramble-y but hey so i'm a young student clarinetist who has a lot of longterm goals for their playing. Recently, i've been looking for a good but also affordable clarinet option to buy so i can use from now through early high school. I see that a lot of student clarinets are very focused on general ease of playing rather tone production, and i'm working towards a rounded, woodsy tone. When i see demonstrations of student clarinets they tend to sound thin and far too bright, likely from being too free blowing or from the synthetic material. I've had my eyes on a backun alpha but i'm unsure if it will help give me the sound i want, considering im used to my old rental i've had to return due to it being pretty janky. (still love old faithful, it contributed to a really nice sound XD) anyway my rental was a leblanc bliss. Digressing, any tips for finding a good mouth piece once i buy a clarinet...i'm unconfident in stock ones. I'm already jumping to searching for wooden barrel upgrades but i might aswell start with the root of the sound. I also have a diabolical tendency to go sharp. I'm consistently sharp in all registers no matter how much i pull out the barrel. pisses me off bad. probably user error tho. bye bye.