Customer Reviews

Learn To Play The Clarinet: Level 1

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There is great info in this teaching guide, but as a complete adult beginner, I am having far more success with Essential Elements 2000 Clarinet book. This book introduces concepts that Essential Elements takes a slower pace to introduce. I like how Essential Elements introduces one or two things at a time and gives exercises to practice those before moving on. This book introduces many concepts immediately and seemed overwhelming to me at first.

Example - a whole note is not introduced in Essential Elements until you have had practice making sounds and doing simple quarter notes over and over and over. This book jumps right into the whole note and fermata, which required some practice for me due to the breathing technique development required for newbies.

Essential Elements also includes audio so you know how long a whole note sounds. This book has no audio, so a beginner is left guessing if they are sustaining the note long enough.

Looking back at it now, I understand what this book is talking about, but again - if you are a complete beginner teaching yourself, this is not an ideal start.

This book does show a better Playing Position than Essential Elements. I had been holding the clarinet completely wrong for weeks due to the Essential Elements photo of how to position the clarinet. I finally confirmed which one was right through a professional player/instructor who has some excellent videos on YouTube.

This is a book I may revisit after I have completed the Essential Elements book.

I am a novice clarinet player. I am enjoying using this book, but I am using it in tandem with another beginner book called Abracadabra Clarinet. Between the two of them, I feel I am getting a more complete introduction to clarinet playing.