Doubling on clarinet is helping me

[kurth83]

This could also be a response to the aging lips thread. I'm 63 for reference, and took 20 years off and began this comeback two years ago.

I've been frustrated in my comeback, I just don't have the strength or the flexibility I used to. I joined a community band (a marathon abuse your chops once a week thing), and practice diligently. Improvement is happening, but you know, when you can't do what you could, it is a bit frustrating.

My issue is I can't play more than four lines (of anything in the back of the st jacomes or Arban for that matter), without having to rest. It leaves me feeling like I can't play anything... Like I've lost all meaningful access to basic trumpet literature.

So I got to thinking about alternate instruments for the physically challenged, and after much research into the woodwinds, hoping to find a lower-strength-requirement instrument that has lots of classical literature but is accepted into a wide range of genres, clarinet came out on top.

So we begin with a CSO (clarinet shaped object) from amazon (mendini), which actually plays surprisingly well in retrospect. It works well right out of the box, and is carefully tuned to the needs of a rank beginner. Big surprise from the useless toy I was expecting. But I upgraded to a Yamaha (the best of the student models), and a professional classical mouthpiece (vandoren bd5) in a few weeks. That new setup feels really good.

My niece calls me squidward now (sponge bob reference, squidward is a clarinet geek).

Now I find as a trumpet player that clarinet is remarkably easy to play, the wind control, tongue level (they call it voicing), all behave similarly on clarinet, enough that it felt very comfortable, like a duck taking to water. And I have nearly unlimited endurance (while using a soft student reed anyway). Long hours are necessary to progress on a new instrument, so endurance is key and this is very encouraging.

The embouchure uses mostly the same muscles as trumpet, except you are compressing the mouthpiece instead of compressing the lips, so the synergy there is remarkable and somewhat unexpected, like my clarinet embouchure is already pretty strong thanks to the trumpet. And clarinet is much easier, 10 min on clarinet feels like 1 min on trumpet.

Treble clef in Bb doesn't hurt either, I can sight read it in my head, I know what is supposed to come out before I play it.

Now for the real surprise. The clarinet practice is noticeably helping trumpet. At first I found that it acted like a super warm-up if I played clarinet earlier in the day. My lips were more limber, supple, and still just as strong for my usual evening trumpet practice session.

Fast forward about a month, and my trumpet endurance is taking off (still nothing to write home about compared to what I could do, but a significant and rapid improvement considering it's been a glacially slow 2 years). The limber/supple thing is remarkable, I can express things much better, my lip is just feeling all-around better. Still not what it was, but at this point any improvement is cause for hope.

As an aside, clarinet is my backup plan in case I never get fully back on trumpet, and the backup to the backup plan, an instrument that takes zero strength, except you have to hold your arms up for prolonged periods (which could be a problem for an older person), is the flute... It also has a wide range of repertoire and genre acceptance.

So I also bought an FSO ($100 flute-shaped object), also a mendini. It also plays well, I found a professional flute player playing it on youtube, and he was able to play advanced flute literature on it perfectly, and commented that as a flute it wasn't terrible. Longevity for these $100 instruments may be a problem, but I haven't hit that yet, and can buy a nice Yamaha student flute to go with my nice Yamaha student clarinet if I want to. But it sure is nice to be able to get my feet wet for almost nothing.

I could comment on the humor of some of the videos I have watched on clarinet and especially flute where the (somewhat valley girlish) teachers assumed the entire audience was female... For some reason that was hysterically funny to me. Even so, the material was generally excellent, and I learned a lot.

So that's the latest update in the desperate plan to try to get to where I can play again. And clarinet is fun, I can make it sing and cry like a trumpet (minus the blasting part) - wonderfully expressive instrument - and it is quiet so is neighbor friendly. Don't know about flute yet, just started that one, still trying to make simple noises consistently...

[etc-etc]

Wonderful story!

Compared to trumpet and clarinet, flute requires a larger airflow (at much lower pressure) and is very unergonomic. There are 7-shaped headjoints available that let the flute be held as a clarinet. I do not see them used a lot, likely because the in-out rotation of the headjoint is difficult to accomplish with a 7-shape, and the quality of sound may be perceived to be not as good as with a standard headjoint.

[Mike Prestage]

In all honesty, what you've written (including your perception of the strength requirments of the trumpet as well as the apparent similarity of your setup to an effective clarinet embouchure) strongly suggests some fundamental limitations in your approach to the trumpet. The improvement you're seeing since taking up clarinet could easily be down to big picture stuff. The positive experience of picking up an instrument and making music without struggle could have been a powerful reminder of what it feels like to 'get out of your own way', allowing you to play closer to the limits of what will be possible without making some changes to the basics.

If it's important to you to get on a path with the trumpet where you can keep improving indefinitely, you might need to be open to re-learning some fundamental aspects and probably seeing the gap in approach between trumpet and clarinet widen.

I'm sorry if this seems negative - that's really not my intention and I do think the broader picture of your post is uplifting and worth sharing

Mike
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www.facebook.com/MikePrestageTrumpetTeacher

[spitvalve]

I've dabbled with the flute off and on for several years. It's been very good for my trumpet playing. I tried my sister's clarinet once during a family visit 25 years ago and managed to get a better sound out of it than my dad, who had played it in high school and college but hadn't touched it in forty years. But that was my only foray into the dark side with the black tube of death. I do enjoy playing the flute, however.
_________________
Bryan Fields
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1991 Bach LR180 ML 37S
1999 Getzen Eterna 700S
1977 Getzen Eterna 895S Flugelhorn
1969 Getzen Capri cornet
1995 UMI Benge 4PSP piccolo trumpet
Warburton and Stomvi Flex mouthpieces

[kurth83]

[Trumpjerele]

I wanted to try a second instrument, I was hesitating between trombone and saxophone, but a friend lent me a saxophone and my doubts were over.

I've been playing the trumpet for about 20 years, most of them quite frustrating until I started doing the exercises in Jeff Smiley's balanced embouchure book in 2020.

The saxophone on the other hand, is proving to be very rewarding.

For me, it's like running and cycling, you use the same muscles, but in different ways, and unless you are a super-specialist, one instrument will not impair the development of the other.

Also I do feel more connected to the music, just for that, it's worth it.
_________________
Notice!!! Amateur musician without formal studies

Trumpet: Yamaha 8310Z
Mouthpiece: the great Yamaha11b4

Sax tenor: Yamaha YTS 23
Mouthpiece: Otto link tone edge

[spitvalve]

I don't play my other instruments (trombone, flute) nearly as well as the trumpet. I've given decades of my life to the trumpet and I get really annoyed with myself if I can't do something perfectly. The other instruments are not a life or death matter to me so I often get great musical satisfaction playing simple things on them without expecting perfection.
_________________
Bryan Fields
----------------
1991 Bach LR180 ML 37S
1999 Getzen Eterna 700S
1977 Getzen Eterna 895S Flugelhorn
1969 Getzen Capri cornet
1995 UMI Benge 4PSP piccolo trumpet
Warburton and Stomvi Flex mouthpieces

[kurth83]

I am also finding clarinet rewarding too. I can make a trumpet do anything I want musically (within my physical limitations).

I find clarinet to be very similar, I can express myself musically which greatly adds to the pleasure of playing it. Similar to the sax experience above, I felt at home on it almost immediately. And my trumpet benefits, so it's a win-win all around.

I think one of the main points here is that woodwinds are very accessible to brass players, something I never dreamed of until now. I always thought they were completely different and it would be starting from scratch to play one.

Interestingly I recently had a conversation with some of our clarinet players in concert band, and our co-principal mentioned she played trumpet for three years in an air force reserve band a few years back.

[Bill_Bumps]

I started on clarinet when I was eight years old. My parents handed me my first instrument and told me "Here's your clarinet. You start lessons on Tuesday."

I've playedit off and on ever since. But I'd long been drawn to the trumpet sound, and about three years ago, I took up the trumpet.

I have no regrets. But when I start getting frustrated that my trumpet playing still isn't what I'd like it to be, I pick up the clarinet again. I doubt that anyone will mistake me for Artie Shaw any time soon, but it does give me a break during which I can look at the music a new way.

[Seymor B Fudd]

When I was in my early teens I sold my "electric train" models and bought a clarinet. Honestly this was a very bad deal but at that age you don´t come forward as very calculating.
Anyway at the same time, or as a fact some years later I began playing brass instrument in our brassband - only touching the clarinet now and then.

But - and here is my "huge" astonishment - I found the embouchure necessary for the playing of clarinets rather opposed to the one required for brass instruments.
"Inserting" the "mouthpiece" in between my lips, thereby kind of biting the reed is absolutely contrary to the position you ought to have blowing into a mouthpiece for horns. I have tested this and found that playing the clarinet as opposed to your experience does negative things to my horn chops. I.e like severing my ability to "puck".

Aside from this I am glad that I bought that clarinet (still lurking somewhere in my house). When my daugther was newly born and and a long time after that I regurlarly sat down beside her bed at night time playing slow nice songs to her; reading fairy tales was way to abstract....
_________________
Cornets: mp 143D3/ DW Ultra 1,5 C
Getzen 300 series
Yamaha YCRD2330II
Yamaha YCR6330II
Getzen Eterna Eb
Trumpets:
Yamaha 6335 RC Schilke 14B
King Super 20 Symphony DB (1970)
Selmer Eb/D trumpet (1974)

[tptptp]

[peanuts56]

When I was studying with Carmine Caruso, he told me flute was the best double for a trumpeter, I took to it pretty fast and performed in public several times on flute.

[spitvalve]

[Shark01]

I play both trumpet and clarinet (actually started on that in middle school), but find no correlation where one helps the other.

I wonder though if what is happening is that the clarinet mouthpiece is serving as a facial muscle building exercise…..similar to the old pencil exercise or a Warburton PETE (the new version of that).

Since your comeback, have you been doing any facial exercises?

[John Mock]

Hello folks--

I think doing anything with the facial muscles as we get into our 50's and above is good for strengthening them.
_________________
Kanstul 1500 trumpet
Kanstul 800-2
GR WB Classic and Studio M mouthpieces

[Seymor B Fudd]