I'm doing a new piece on my clarinet and it has 'growl' and 'sub-tone' in it and me and my teacher have no idea what this is. Please could you leave a message explaining to me how to!!! Thnx a lot

Daisy x x x

Sub tone is when you play so quietly that the tone sounds vague, distant, far away, usually in the lower register. Only the clarinet is capable of this. I can't explain "growl" though. Sorry.

Is the piece 'Hard Rock Blues'? I really enjoyed that piece! For the growl, I think you are supposed to literally growl while you're playing the note - I couldn't do that, so I did some rather wide vibrato on it instead - just experiment and try to do something a bit wacky! I got a very good mark for it in my exam (Grade 6? Grade 7? I can't remember now), so it obviously doesn't matter much if you can't 'growl', as long as what you do sounds musically convincing!

We have "growl" written in some of our band music on some of the lower notes. We all overblowed(blew?!) so that the tone came out really harsh instead of perfectly in tune and nice sounding. In some other music "growl" wanted us to pitch bend (slide up to the note) so if it's jazzy, it could be that?!

I dunno! Play and see what sounds cool!

QUOTE

I'm doing a new piece on my clarinet and it has 'growl' and 'sub-tone' in it and me and my teacher have no idea what this is. Please could you leave a message explaining to me how to!!! Thnx a lot

Well you could ask the publishers of the music.

I've never heard of these expressions for clarinet and, bearing in mind that music should have internationally understood markings, you should let the publishers, printers know that about this.

You could also ask your question at www.woodwind.org

I guarantee an answer within 48 hours!

Steve

I think it's literally that you "growl" with the back of your throat as you blow. It makes me feel sick doing it so I've never done it properly in a piece.