How to internally subdivide music while playing the clarinet?
Tobi asked:
I have been playing the clarinet for about 3 years and i am now in the symphonic band at school. The music has gotten way harder and i always fail at sight-reading. Our band teacher told us to internally subdivide, but i seem to have trouble doing it. I cant seem to count while playing music, except when it’s really slow. Is there any way i can internally subdivide while playing?
SpeedyMusicReading.com
I have been playing the clarinet for about 3 years and i am now in the symphonic band at school. The music has gotten way harder and i always fail at sight-reading. Our band teacher told us to internally subdivide, but i seem to have trouble doing it. I cant seem to count while playing music, except when it’s really slow. Is there any way i can internally subdivide while playing?
SpeedyMusicReading.com
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How to Sight Read Music
keep the tempo while tapping your foot
Im a trumpet player 7 years!
SpeedyMusicReading.com
This is a very good question, and it’s a situation that many students need help with. Basically, you have to develop the skill and the habit of being able to feel the beat and its subdivisions while playing. It’s good that you can do it at slow tempos. Now you just need to speed up the process.
There are a few exercises you can do to help yourself. You can always clap and count rhythms, but that exercise by itself does not always carry over to when we are playing our instrument. To make it a habit while you play, set your metronome at a slow tempo (54-72). Start out by playing whole notes and counting “1 – 2 – 3 – 4” in your head. Make sure that you can really hear yourself counting in your mind. Gradually speed up the tempo and do this until feels perfectly natural.
After going through this process for a while, set the metronome at a slow tempo again, and subdivide eighth notes in your head. While playing whole notes, think “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and .” Gradually speed up this process as you did with the whole notes.
You can then repeat the process with triple and quadruple subdivisions. The key is to play something very simple and get in the habit of being able to count clearly in your mind. Gradually increase the tempo and the difficulty of what you are playing to further ingrain the habit. This is something that piano and string players can do more easily than us, because they can count out loud while playing. That makes it easier and it also makes it apparent to their teachers whether they are really subdividing or not. For those of us with mouthpieces in our mouths, we have to count in our minds!
I hope this helps.
Good luck!