Cooper

Good work on the first octave of D major. This week work on the second octave up to high D – see fingerings for high C# and D below.

High C sharp fingering – note open first finger (not half hole) in the left hand
High D fingering – note half hole, not open on first finger of left hand

Pieces

The Gymnopédie No. 1 is coming along nicely:

  • Remember to show separation between the phrases
  • If you can, print it out or find a way to mark the beginning and end of phrases on the PDF (sometimes you can highlight parts of pdfs depending on what you are viewing them with)
  • Re-articulate the F#s clearly – the same way you articulate in the Barret study, by taking the tongue away from the reed and keeping the air support going (my reed will take a lot more air, so take breaks!)
  • Experiment with tonguing all the notes or slurring all the notes in each phrase – what do you prefer? Remember that this piece was originally written for piano, so the slurs are marking phrasing more than articulation.
  • For next week, we will work on the second page – see if you can figure out where the phrases begin and end (the printed slurs are not always right, and it is, to a certain degree, up to interpretation)

Barret

  • This is the Link to the Barret book if you need to download it: https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/95231/pnba
  • The articulation exercises start on page 46
  • Notice that No. 1 is just a C major scale with 4 quarters per note. You can work all your scales this way, so whichever scale you are working on each week, you can play it while working on your articulation
  • before starting, have your air and embouchure set and ready, with your tongue touching the reed – release the tongue from the reed to start the sound
  • Keep your air flowing and touch the reed to re-articulate – experiment with making the notes very short or long, and with tonguing with more or less space between the notes.
  • when you are getting a nice sound on the low D, keep trying to go down to the low C – make sure all your fingers are in the right place and think of dropping your jaw and saying “Ahh” while keeping the air flowing (if it doesn’t come out, don’t worry, move on to something else!
  • Fingering for low C and regular (not the forked fingering) F natural below
Low C fingering
Low F natural regular fingering