At a recent lesson my teacher declared "We have to get those fingers moving!" and did give me exercises to help. I can feel them making a difference already

Then I wondered - what works for other people? Do any of you clari players have any favourite finger-loosening methods or exercises that you'd like to share, please? I'm sure I can't be the only middle-aged learner with sluggish digits . . .

With fast passages it can help to play in different rhythms.
Break them down into smaller (overlapping) chunks too.
If you can identify exactly which bits slow you down then loop 2 or 3 notes.
Another thing about getting fingers moving is not actually moving them more than is absolutely necessary.

Then once your fingers are moving there's the issue of your tongue cooperating...

I havent been given any specific exercises so would love to know what you've been told to do.

One thing I have found has helped me is improvisation - it's not as scary as it sounds, just choose a Key (I find F Major is the easiest on Clarinet) and play some notes, you can center this in on certain fingers - like the little ones that have to do lots of work and for me the 3rd fingers which don't seem to like moving - After a while I found I started playing things faster un-impeded by the need to read music - so this helped finger speed & tounging speed.

I coupled this with lots of sight reading exercises using a duets book with a cd - basically I played 'part A' on my own 1st - just once then played the same part again along with the cd also playing 'part a' this meant I had to go at the right speed and it highlighted any timing errors and generally improved my 'brain' time.

So putting that together fingers, tounge and brain can now work faster.

Also at G5 I did Burlesque on the B list, and started playing it quite a lot slower than 'required.' By chance I had a long car journey for work and I put Burleque on in the car and sang along in a 'da da da' way - think of tounging against the roof of your mouth. It made a huge difference to my playing of the piece when I got back to the Clarinet.

My teacher just makes me practice the notes I struggle with beat to beat and over again until it's automatic then playing any speed becomes easier!

http://www.abrsm.org/forum/index.php?showt...mp;#entry152755

^ this is the best description I have for a technique which I frequently use on particular passages... I hope it makes sense and that it might help