DHSSB CLARINETS FOREVER ♥

Basically this week, please practise:

1) scales etudes (ex 89 & 90: two beats = 100. Work both tongue& slurs, ex 91: three beats = 80. Work both tongue & slurs). i want to hear clean articulations & good bridging. if there's a need to breathe when you slur, please breathe & start at the first beat of the bar.
these exercise are to work on your fingerwork(slurs) - whether your fingers move @ the same time a not. & also for tonguing - work on tonguing when moving from one note to another.
if you want me to link this to set piece/tsm. i can explain: slurs - there's a lot of bridging in set piece, an example is section A, thirds clarinets semiquavers @ B. tonguing will be for thirds for set piece at the opening bars. & all tonguing parts in tsm for all clarinets.

2) work out rhythm for section A for set piece. I already tell you guys how mr ng is counting (whether in twos or in threes) & i want you guys to go home and sing your parts out while you conduct. there might some parts which is hard, esp for 2nd&3rd clarinets for 2nd bar of section A after 6 bars rests. I will always conduct in that manner & i hope everyone can follow.

3) March is qt okay, just that the short notes i want to hear it more solid (listen to trumpets, their notes are short & very solid) ours sounds rather airy. remember to use the t-syllabus to tongue!

YPSSSSS here (:

Adding to patricia

What i really want to say is. We as SL, we know what we are doing, and not like we really want to torture you guys with boring stuff & everything. & you need to trust us that what we are doing can improve your playing.

Do you know why we do such boring stuff? cos the boring stuff is your basic foundation. is just like when you are young, you need to know how to stand before you walk then run. you might know how to stand already, just like you can blow notes in your instrument. but that doesnt mean you can run fast which a lot of you guys are doing. you guys are too focused on pieces. do you know whats stopping you guys from improving, is that you are practising the same way over & over again. without knowing that what is stopping you is your basic foundation.

The reason why we are drilling so so much about long tones, major scales, sbt, etc. is that we can infer that you guys didnt work on your foundation. most of you. even if you have, & you think that coming for SP & working on foundation is useless, for myself i dont think so. Everyone can improve & there is no best playing in the world. Compare ourselves to outside world. Do you think we are on par with them? you might think that it is ridiculous to compare ourselves with them as they have played the clarinet for so many years. the pt is, why they are so good is cos their foundation is strong. & from there we can know that our foundation is not as strong as theirs & i can say that we have a lot a lot more to improve on foundation, even myself.

I know that im strict with you guys. But what if i dont be strict? can you even say you are strict with your own playing? do you ever listen to your playing & wonder, whats wrong with my playing & why i cant play as well as the recording etc? If you didnt, we did for you guys. All of you & everything really goes down to foundation. Pieces are just little things that show your foundation. SO YOUR FOUNDATION MUST BE STRONG

I just hope you guys understand what are we trying to do here, forcing you guys to playing long notes & scales after every breaks. You have to know that we are still not up to standard. but trust me, after all the practices. WE WILL REACH THAT STANDARD. but that only comes true when you guys put in your best effort & understand what are we doing

From you guys reactions, i can feel that you all dont understand us & you dont understand how such little things about long notes & SBTs can help. the truth is that we year 3 clarinets did long notes & everything & here we are. I can say that between year 2 & 3 there is a slight gap in terms of playing & tonality. I really hope to make the gap smaller.

clarinets, what if you were the SLs of the section & you face this situation. What would you do? I can just simply ask you guys what to practise & tell you everything and ask you guys to go home & practise. But there is really little improvements in you guys since starting of the year till now. I really want to make sure that everyone practise & everyone improve tgt. I dont want anyone to slack, especially when SYF is nearing.

Hmmm, the thing about running. it can just show your perserverence. Running isnt tough you know as long as you perservere to the end. But from what i see tdy, a lot of people stopped & me & patricia have to stop to wait for you guys & push you guys along. It just show how weak you are. you can run slow & not stop. but you cant stop. When you stop, it is hard to start running again. You cant just say cos you have stitches or anything or you feel tired & thats why you stop. You cant give yourself excuses. Cos have you think about it? if you have stitches, wont others have? if i didnt stop when i feel tired & having stiches which is the truth, why cant you continue? if you guys cant even perservere to run just 2 rounds around the school, do you think you yourself can tahan the hard journey through SYF?

You guys need to grow up & really understand the situation we are in. You know, we cant give ourselves excuses to slack off just because we think we cant do this or that. Cos thats is limiting yourself. What we are doing now is making you step out of your comfort zone. & you need to step out of your comfort zone. Cos this is life & you need to learn how to survive with it.

So yeah, i expect better attitude towards running 2 rounds & playing foundation stuff. I know it's hard to see the change in your playing with all those boring stuff. but you will see it & hear it yourself after 2 months. provided you listen to us.

You need to trust us clarinets, you just need to trust us & do what we say. Cos we wont make you waste your precious time of life.

& please dont compare what we are doing with other sections or anything. Just ask yourself, you want to improve or you just want us to do what the other sections are doing? As musicians, we must always aim for the better. if we have the time to improve ourselves & the right method to. why not use that method though it is tiring. As long as our end result is good & we turn into great clarinetists & bring the band proud.

Cos, what we are doing is for your own good, clarinets. It might tire you guys out, but it is tiring us out too. But we really really hope that clarinet section can be a very very good section. Dont you want to make good music/sound out of your clarinet? Dont you want to play really well as a section?

Think about it, clarinets.

Hello! Patricia here. :)
There's a number of things I would like to address.

1. Running

The objective of running is to build up your air so that you all will have more air to blow your instruments. Can go search online for evidence. got chim stuff abt how running can improve cardiovascular fitness, lung capacity blablabla. In fact, swimming is the best exercise. Mr ng said before also if you all can rmb. But I believe a lot of you all wouldn't like to swim tgt. heheh including me. So if you all have time do swim! ^^

Today's running was really quite fail. Can see from the number of ppl who gave up and walked instead. I really hope that you all will take the running seriously so that the whole section can improve tgt. If one person give up, another person will also give up. Domino effect. I know most of you all hate running but please just try to motivate yourself ok? Think of having more air to blow clarinet and better intonation.... positive stuff. And can train for 2.4 also hahas.

2. Fundamentals training (SBTs, long notes, scales etc)

I know most of you all hate these exercises cos its very tiring and and your mouth will really hurt. But only if you train on these then will your intonation improve. This is the objective from now onwards for tsm right? Anyone dare to say that their intonation is so good that you can play tsm without going sharp or flat? Not that i can lols. There's always room for improvement. That's why we are all training on this now.

Maybe some of you will ask how it improves your intonation. Then I ask you what is intonation linked to? It's linked to air, embouchure and all those stuff that links back to basic fundamentals like long notes. That's why we are training on these exercises right now.

Besides that, by playing all these, you are training on your bridging and flexibility and tonguing. Some of you will ask why can't we just focus on the pieces and work those problems on bridging and intonation by the pieces. But I ask you again. If you cannot even bridge from eg A to B fluently normally, how can you play as written? And if your notes are all of different pitch, ie, some flat some sharp, even if you tune C, is there a use? Your other notes will go out of tune!
And and if you just focus on the pieces, you play eg appassionato, then eg your F very sharp, your E very flat then are you going to loosen and tighten your embouchure every time??
The reason why good players can play in tune most of the time is because of their strong fundamentals. That's why we are drilling you all on these stuff now.

Same as running, I hope that you all will take these seriously and think of it positively.

PS: CLARINETS' CUPBOARD! Let's decorate it ok? Give me ideas!
PPS: Jiayou in practising! Let's be more bonded and motivate each other in practising. :)

Thank you for reading! ^^

Hey YPSSSSS here again,

Here is the dates for SP (main band & Year 1s)

Week 3: 16 Nov (tue) & 18 Nov (thu)
week 4: 23 Nov (tue) & 25 Nov (thu)
Week 5: 30 Nov (tue) & 2 Dec (thu)
Week 6: 7 Dec (tue) & 9 Dec (thu)
Week 8: 21 Dec (tue) & 23 Dec (thu)
Week 9: 28 Dec (tue)
Total: 11 SPs

Time: 815am to 1030 (for Non Main Band), 815 to 1230 (for Main Band)
Venue: School, Music Atrium (if unable to book MPR)
Attire: Any School-based Tee (NO UNIFORM)

Aims:
By W5: Sort out March & Set piece
By W6: Sort out intonation for TSM
By W8: Able to balance & play tgt neatly
By W9: Able to play Set piece neatly

We'll be getting our Set piece & March Together scores soon! Please remember to practise!

Adding on to that, please remember to practise SBT Ex 29 to 38, Ex 89 to 91, Ex 107. 118. 120. We're using those exercises frequently as warm up exercises.

Good luck for Indoor test tmr (:

YPSSSSS!

Rawr! Hey i've changed blogskin. If anyone hates it, just grab a knife & kill me bah. i spent quite a long time. But if someone more pro can do html stuff, feel free to change! :) haha i changed the skin so it's easier to read :) haha

Love,
YPSSSSS (:

Hey Clarinets (:

Today marks the 4th intensive practice we had since the holidays started. We know that as a section, we are not up to standard yet & I really hope everyone will work hard & strive for the best of the section & the band. In terms of balance, intonation & neatness, we arent there yet.

Holidays is the time when we can spend our time on our instruments, especially when we have no exams to worry about. and we have such a long holiday (2months!). I hope everyone won't regret wasting your holidays when 2011 starts. I hope everyone will improve a lot in terms of tonality, musical expression & I hope that our section will be a lot more bonded.

I can assure you, that the journey for SYF is tough, very tough & we NEED to stay strong TOGETHER, as a section. No one is supposed to chicken out & announce themselves as weaklings. We need to believe that we can do it & work towards our ultimate goal. For myself, my goal for clarinet section is: Being able to play together & produce good music & have fun together.

I can promise you guys, that after all these intensive practices & sectional practices, we will grow & mature, and we'll grow tgt as a section. No matter what happen, we are a section. We must really give in with each other & move as a section. We can be good individually, BUT we can lack teamwork at the same time & our section will NOT sound good.

I really hope everyone will move at the same pace & people who are lagging behind will buck up & continue to work towards the goal. Always keep in mind about our goal for SYF. Really, we have spent so much time on our choice piece, we can't screw it up. Cause, if any of us give up now, we will really waste our past year for nothing. We must stay Strong & Positive.

So Clarinets, WE MUST HAVE THE NEVER SAY DIE ATTITUDE.

YPSSSSS (: