I have been playing clarinet for about 6 or 7 weeks now and am enjoying it immensely. It's taking me time to establish a practice routine, but one thing I find frustrating is that even when I make time to practice I can't play for more than about 15 minutes before my lips get worn out and I have to stop. (Actually I don't think I can get through more than about 16 bars without stopping.) Is this normal? Is playing lots of long notes the best way to build up a strong embouchure? And what kind of time scale am I looking at before I can practise for, say, half an hour?

I'm not a clarinettist (I'm an oboist) but I think it is probably normal with all wind instruments. When I first started the oboe I could only play for 5 minutes at a time (and probably about 4 bars). Within about 3 months I had progressed to around 30 minutes (but still couldn't play a whole piece without a few extra rests in the middle). I then went away for a week and when I came back was back to 5 minutes again (although fortunately it only took about a week to get back to where I was before). Five years on I can play from between 60 and 90 minutes.

It is very important to practise every day in the beginning stages and try to do several practice sessions in the day rather than aiming for one long one - you will gradually find you can play for longer without really noticing.

Long notes do help and if you play them with a metronome you can measure progress by keeping track of how many ticks you can hold it for.

I've been playing for 10 weeks, and I'm still struggling with stamina though I'm much better now. At the beginning I could only do 10 mins, now i can do about 25. It does get easier, just stop when you feel tired.

anyway, nice to see another person that started around the same time as me. how're you getting on?

xxx

And don't forget to listen carefully while you do this and try to keep the note as steady as you can.

Thanks for the advice, kerioboe, maya and sbhoa. It's good to know that I'm normal! In a good session I can keep going to 10 minutes, which is an improvement on when I started. Practising in short bursts suits well anyway, as that's pretty much how I manage to fit it in.

I've tried the metronome tip already this evening. I like anything that allows me to measure progress!

Maya: I think I'm getting on well. My teacher is a jazz player and we're doing lots of work on just playing by ear and a little bit of improvising (worked on Baa, Baa Black Sheep last week). It's a completely new way of working for me; I've always been a reader and not at all a creative player, although I have a fairly good ear as long as it's just one line. He's not a very 'by the book' kind of teacher but he does have lots of teaching experience and VAST playing experience so it's all very new and exciting and inspiring. I find jazz harmony absolutely bewildering, though, and it's frustrating to be able to hear in your head what you want to play but not be able to make nice sounds or find the right notes quickly enough.

Right, I"m off to do another 10 minutes.

It is normal to tire after 10-15 minutes at first, don't worry. As you progress, your stamina will improve.

Kerioboe's advice is very good. As well as your stamina, your concentration is likely to go walkabout after 90 minutes or so. Lots of shorter practice sessions is good.

All the best for your future clarinetting!

Good heavens - other people can concentrate for 90 minutes! Even if I can play for that long, I find I get distracted after an hour, and sometimes more like 45 minutes. I take it as a sign that I should stop playing and do something else. Maybe I should be working on extending my concentration span as well as my stamina.

Depends how close the gig is and how far from being able to play the hard passage I am! If I have no specific goal I'm working on, my concentration rarely extends to more than 30 mins or so......once in a real state of panic I can keep going forever! My poor neighbours are going to be subjected to a LONG time of me attempting to flutter tongue on an alto sax and to get a top G out of said instrument tonight. The concert is tomorrow and to date my attempts at both are lamentable. I can hit just about every harmonic possible from the numerous fingerings I've tried for the G except for the one I'm aiming for. Let's hold out hope for adrenalin

All this talk of flutter tonguing, harmonics and alternative fingerings is frightening me. Have just managed to play a scale of E in one octave.

Which is a good start.

Alternative fingerings aren't that scary, and will come up fairly early in your clarinet journey. They're there to make life easier.

Flutter tonguing/multiphonics/other extended techniques come up a lot, lot later, so don't worry.

The best way to improve stamina is to play long, very slow pieces of music, which will keep you embouchure tight and refine you technique.

Stamina is a thing that all musicians come across, whatever instrument they play. Doing anything for an hour tires your mind out, your mouth is just the same!

That sounds like a fantastic way of teaching - especially since you already have a lot of more traditional music background, so you're not ignoring the reading music etc. In fact, given your background it may be a less frustrating approach than having to go through playing very simple tunes that you can easily read and understand but are at your level in terms of clarinet skills.

Jazz harmony is lovely - very logical, it's all patterns and numbers with one or two surprises thrown in to make it interesting.

Yes, it works really well for me. I've bought some tutors but I use them just for sight-reading to get used to the geography of the instrument. In the lessons we work on jazz scales and patterns which I try to learn in two or three keys - this is supposed to give me a vocabulary for improvisation. And we work on tunes which my teacher plays phrase by phrase for me to copy by ear (not just the basic tune, but an elaborated version). We work on harmony too, a little, and I've only just realised how much I rely on being able to see chord shapes on a keyboard - trying to play a chord on the clarinet is like being blindfolded. It's really stretching me - I wish I'd taken it up years ago!

It will!



This is exactly the sort of thing I work on with my teacher(s) - I love it, it's so different to the way I was taught clarinet as a child.

Don't know how things are going for you muffinmonster. And I may be stirring up a bag of worms here, but it's worth trying some different reeds, even now I find some more tiring than others.

Shortly after I started playing the Clarinet I started using studio reeds - which are described as being freeblowing and good for beginneers - They certainly worked for me, I just couldn't play above the break before I got them, then after 1 week off (because I cut the top of my left thumb ) with the new Studio reed I could do so with no trouble. I used Studio right up to G3 (classical) and then found they tired too quickly and didn't have the depth of tone I was after even though I had gone up a reed strength. After about 3 months on the Clarinet I could play for nearly an hour. But don't 'overplay' you do need to know when you're worn out or you'll end up getting worse not better! And different people will take longer than others to build up their staminer.

Could have all been a fluke - but I think they were right for me at the time.

I prefer to think of alternative fingerings as just being different ways of doing the same job - bit like right clicking the mouse and selecting vs keyboard shortcut vs scrolling through a menu. All have the same results, all have times when they are the most efficient way of doing things. Nothing to be scared of!

Flutter tonguing though still scares me after 25 years of playing! I think I just lack the gene that allows you to do it. I faked that passage somewhat on Sat!