IMSLP Forums

Any instructional aid on how to perform portamento on the clarinet, particularly the one in Copland's Clarinet Concerto?

any help would be greatly appreciated

I find a combination of embouchure manipulation and sliding the fingers off gradually helps. The embouchure part is the trickiest, but if you let your embouchure go a bit flabby, like a beginner who plays flat, then as you slide your fingers off and get to the top, the pitch slides up, and then right at the end you gradually bring the embouchure back to normal, which brings the pitch back up to the last note.

It's like riding a bike, difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it, you have it for life!

Good luck.

p.s. don't practice this around dogs (or while your family is in the house, for that matter)

Yes, I see, but it says here that Copland's glissando starts on a. It's impossible to slide your fingers from a to b-flat since there are no "rings." So how do you manipulate the pitch from a - d?

Thanks

I think ít's only really possible on a jazz setup -- really wide tip opening and really soft reed. Most of us "classical" players play chromatic to D and then start the gliss.

To the audience, it's not really that noticeable that the gliss starts slightly higher. I'm not convinced that Copland really knew where to start it, although given that it was written for Benny Goodman, he may very well have started it from the A. He did record it, so if your library has his recording you can check it. My library used to have it, but a lot of old LPs got thrown out because students preferred to use CDs and we were running out of space, i.e. I can't check it any more.

BTW, if I'm not mistaken (my music is at my office, not here where I'm writing this), the run up to the gliss is what is called a "diminished" scale -- alternating half and whole steps that outline a diminished arpeggio. I know a lot of students that just play chromatic without reading the actual notes.

Thanks a lot for the advice. I just have one more inquiry, any suggestions on how to make the gliss as clean and focused as possible?

He did record it, so if your library has his recording you can check it. My library used to have it, but a lot of old LPs got thrown out because students preferred to use CDs and we were running out of space, i.e. I can't check it any more.

Wait wait wait... thrown out of given away/sold????

To allegroamabile -- you need to practice it enough to be able to control the rate of ascent. It mustn't be bumpy. Also, bear in mind that if you're ever fortunate enough to play this with an orchestra, at this point you need to be communicating with the conductor because he has to catch you at the top. With piano, it's slightly easier because a pianist with a good ear can just catch you at the top.

Theoretically, the conductor can too, but with 60+ people who have to follow him, you can't give him any surprises by changing the speed of the gliss right at the end. Also, another reason to be able to control the rate of ascent is that sometimes you get conductors who don't want to follow a section like that -- they just conduct and expect you to follow them. So you might have to speed up or slow down the gliss if the orchestra is going to land before or after you.

To Yagan: I'm not sure exactly, we have a local public classical station that takes donations and sells what they don't want, so I suspect they went there. I just know that we were supposed to go through a whole bunch of boxes and divide them into keep/discard. The "keep" pile really meant "keep until you can find a CD replacement".

I know this is anathema to vinyl buffs, but apart from our space issues, a lot of our LPs were bought in the 60s/70s, and after a few decades of use (abuse?) by students, some of them were in pretty shocking condition anyway . . . . .

Actually, now that I think of it, I think the Goodman recording went missing before the clean-out, because I would have kept it if it had been in the boxes, just because it was by the clarinettist who commissioned the piece.

It took me many years to do that lick (and Gershwing Rhapsody in Blue) reliably. I think someone said something about sliding fingers off and loose embechoure here earlier, that's good advice. But I would like to add- be attentive which direction you slide your fingers off- I mean, they are going to be away from the center of the instrument, but notice how angled the trajectory is, how diagonal.

Also, yes, loose embechoure, but I think more importantly pay attention to the back of your throat= think of raising the back of your throat and palate. Generally,as you gliss higher and higher, adjust to an "eee" vowel sound (with respect to the shape of your oral cavity) You could also try 'growling' as you do it, this can make the gliss easier. Then take the growl away.

One last thing- to get to the high D, avoid the break and finger it as an completely open note with the exception of the register key. Slide your thumb off (like the rest of your fingers), but end with the corner tip of your thumb on the register key, safely away from that thumb hole.

Hope this helps!

-BB