I joined band halfway through last year, not knowing how to play clarinet or read music. Well less than a year later, here I am competing for 1st chair and squad leader next year. Two questions:

1. My Clarinet teacher told me to put a little bit of vibrato on my high notes. Now I know what he`s talking about but I can`t do it very well. Any tips?

2. When I play really high notes, I move my bottom lip down on my reed. (I would squeak if I was playing low notes.) This helps me hit really high notes. Is this a bad habit to get into?

Thanks

As far as the vibrato is concerned, I have no advice because I myself cannot do it. But with the 2nd question, it is definately not a bad habit to push your lip down on the reed for higher notes. My teacher tells me to do it all of the time.

the two best ways of producing vibrato i have found are these.

1. slowly moving your lip up and down the reed...this is difficult to explain but does work.
2. tightening and loosening your embouchure at the desired speed as if saying `vum vum vum vum`

either way the hardest thing to do is actually make it measuredd and controlled. practice it very slowly at first, i.e. pick a tempo and do the vib every minim, then crotchet, the quaver, then triplet etc.

the ideal vibrato starts a little way into a long note slowly at first and then builds up to about 3hz (3 vibs per second)

hey..what exactly is vibrato?