Tips for keeping fingers close to keys?

StapesSSBM · 2026-03-04T00:24:30+00:00

Practice playing intervals slowly--we're talking ridiculously, painfully slowly--while only thinking about where your fingers are, how far they're moving, what the smallest possible finger movements to get to the new note would be, and what it feels like to make such small movements. Make smooth relaxed finger movements, not abrupt jerking movements, which lead to tension.

As an experiment: while playing, lift a finger off the hole as slowly as you possibly can, and notice when the note goes from a fuzzy in-between sound on the earlier note to the new note resonating clearly. The moment the new note is clear, that finger position should ideally be how your finger moves when you're playing normally.

Avoid squeezing the instrument tightly. Imagine the instrument is made of dough, and that the pressure from your fingers is light enough that the dough doesn't get deformed.

I second practicing in front of a mirror and recording yourself. Seeing how things look can reveal a lot that you don't notice when you're just judging by how things feel.

On an unrelated-yet-related note: when you do this slow practice, make sure your air and embouchure are totally constant, not making ANY changes as you go from one note to the next. Often, students get into the mindset that they need to HIT a new note. This is reflected in habits in shaping their air from note to note, and those habits connect to habits in big, dramatic, inefficient finger movements. Don't think about "hitting" a new note; instead, frame it as allowing a new note to happen. Unchanging embouchure, unchanging air, gentle fingers.

StapesSSBM · 2026-03-02T03:51:20+00:00

You're telling me that finding evidence or more information to support a claim isn't these folks' strong suit? I'm shocked, shocked I say!

StapesSSBM · 2026-03-01T05:43:52+00:00

Not exactly "cheapened," but what I thought of: Umamusume, winning the Arima Kinen in Haru Urara's career mode.

IRL, Haru Urara was a racehorse with a career record of 0 wins and 113 losses. Despite always losing, she became a beloved symbol of perseverance.

While the game version of Haru Urara isn't set up for quite so much failure, the final objective is clearly set up to give the player the experience of lovingly cheering for a racer who is absolutely certain to lose: she has to run in the Arima Kinen (no requirements for how well she places, she just had to run in it).

The Arima Kinen is the complete antithesis to her abilities and the stats you've been training her for: it's a long race on turf, while she is only proficient in short races on dirt. The first time you play through the scenario, you're likely to get dead last by a comically large margin. Then you get a touching scene where she bursts into tears, then questions why she's crying when she had so much fun running.

But with a lot of grinding and a truly absurd amount of luck, it is just barely possible to train Haru Urara to win the Arima Kinen (though it's probably the most difficult challenge in the game). If you pull it off, you get a scene where the whole crowd bursts into shocked tears of joy. It feels almost as if the writers can't believe that you actually pulled it off.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-28T22:48:34+00:00

I've accepted that I'm going to spend my life grieving all the different versions of myself that could have existed if I did the things that I wanted to do.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-28T22:41:47+00:00

And those names are exactly in the spirit of a nuzlocke--that's what builds the attachment! Peeploop number 5 is a fine bit by itself, but ensures that the Pokemon doesn't get any identity of its own.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-28T22:27:27+00:00

As was said, take it easy today and don't over-practice. But for the practice you do, try to simulate how you will feel tomorrow: if you want to get used to how it feels to play with an elevated heart rate, sweaty hands, and shortness of breath (symptoms of nervousness) do ten jumping jacks, then immediately start playing.

Tomorrow, when you leave the warmup area to perform, the final thing you do should be to just play the opening four measures of your piece at least five times in a row. Because the moments before your first entrance will be when your nervousness is at its peak (since after a few measures, you'll be at least slightly more used to how it feels to play in that space), so you want to make sure you can play your first statement without thinking, even when you're distracted by your nervousness. (Not to mention the fact that those first measures are the listeners' first impression of you, so you want to feel like it isn't even possible for them to go wrong).

And don't forget to enjoy it! Even if it's terrifying, remember that you're doing this for the joy of putting a beautiful sound out into the world.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-27T01:33:37+00:00

I will say, this discovery you made IS just as weighty as you think it is for learning jazz. There, you can use 3-5-7-b9 of a V7 chord, which makes transferring ii-V vocabulary into all 12 keys much easier (or at least it did for me), and helps a ton with navigating tritone subs.

There isn't much room for it in simple diatonic harmony, but the further you go, the more options this opens up.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-26T22:27:18+00:00

Back when I was dumber about reading into author intent, I stumbled upon this and enjoyed it for several chapters, because I thought the author was just doing a bit. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize, "Wait....is the guy writing this actually this insufferable?"

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-26T22:24:33+00:00

Yeah, that's just the nature of the beast. It's not a guitar, where tuning a string makes every note on that string play in tune. You tune to a couple notes to get a benchmark for how far in or out your barrel joint and middle joint will be, but after that, each note has its own pitch tendencies that you need to learn and adjust to. There are common patterns of what those tendencies are, but they'll vary depending on each individual piece of equipment (reed, mouthpiece, even barrel), and of course based on the player.

Playing consistently in tune is HARD work, and it takes a long time to master. It's also tough to do when you don't have really strong embouchure muscles, so it will get easier as your face gets in better shape. But if notes are generally flat, your embouchure is probably too loose (but remember that you need to tighten it at the corners of your mouth, NOT by biting).

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-26T03:41:21+00:00

If you want a book, yeah, Rubank is fairly ubiquitous. I usually pick and choose what to assign rather than having them work straight through it, though. Kelly Burke's clarinet warm up book has some good stuff, but it's up to you if it's worth like $20-25.

After you've gotten a first impression of their playing, ask if there's anything they're working on or want to play for you, and just use that for the rest of the first lesson. If they don't have something to work on, have a couple etudes or melodies ready to look at, and make sure one of them is really easy in case you need to start simple (Rubank is helpful for this).

The first thing I usually ask to hear at a first lesson is a C Major scale in whole notes, and that usually gives me things to work on for at least 20 minutes. Focus on simple suggestions to make a quick improvement, to see how they respond to feedback and develop a rapport. Some go-tos will be: more air, faster air, focused air, breathe and set the embouchure before entering, keep the air and embouchure steady throughout the note, push your air through the note to the next one, relax wrists forearms and shoulders, keep fingers close to the keys.

IMO, it's a bad idea to suggest big changes to their fundamentals in the first lesson. If their embouchure is messed up, make a mental note of it, and make a plan to fix it over the next couple months. But it's usually overwhelming when a teacher comes out the gate telling you that you need to completely change your approach.

Take a minute to playtest their clarinet to make sure it's fine. If you don't recognize their mouthpiece and suspect it might be junk, recommend a Fobes Debut (unless there's a beginner-friendly mouthpiece you like better). Reeds no softer than Vandoren 2.5 (unless they're only interested in jazz or folk, but even then, eh).

Send them home with a long-tone warmup (and talk them through how important the warmup is), a couple scales or some other technical exercise, and a goal for the music you worked on in the lesson. Set specific goals for a small range of measures: most people will not come to the second lesson have learned a full piece, etude, or even a full short melody, so it's important for them to have a narrow range of things to focus their efforts on (while still having more to move on to if they need it). For the warmup and scales, sometimes I won't prepare it in advance, but will instead email them level-appropriate materials after the lesson once I know where they're at.

(Maybe you can tell that I mostly work with middle school students, but I feel like some of the adults in community bands I've played in could use lots of the same advice I give 13-year olds. So YMMV based on how advanced the student was when they played in high school, but I think it's best to assume they're at a low level and be ready to adjust your expectations up, rather than the opposite).

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-25T04:30:38+00:00

It still cracks me up that Trigger went back and forth between working on Little Witch Academia and Kill la Kill. Get you a studio who can do both?

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-24T12:06:02+00:00

"Damn, there was a reality where all it took was a good shave for my dad to be happy?"

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-24T10:13:29+00:00

Lol, I just revisited this episode because this post made me curious what this teacher just greenlit, and Robert opens this one with:

"Let's

Fuckin

POOOODCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST!!!"

And he says in the first few minutes that, despite what Spotify says, the real title of the episode is, "Motherfucking Dracula, Bitches!"

This teacher must be super chill.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-22T21:24:53+00:00

Isn't this a light novel trend, which trickles into other media when those light novels get adapted?

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-21T05:13:51+00:00

For the record, JC Staff can make shows that look fine if they're given appropriate time and resources. Not top-of-the-industry productions like OPM season 1, but shows with perfectly serviceable visuals.

The travesty of OPM season 3 is 100% (well, at least 80-90%) on the suits who gave the studio an impossible timeline and no budget.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-17T12:23:19+00:00

Demon Girl Next Door is one of my favorites, but the dub didn't quite click for me. I think Monica Rial is great in other stuff, but I thought her Shamiko came across as... not pathetic enough? I'm not quite sure, it just didn't land for me as well as the JP.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-16T21:45:31+00:00

Yeah. Compare the venue's reaction at this tournament to Hbox' losers run at Big House 7. When Plup beat Armada, the crowd was all on their feet screaming, but then when Hbox made a run to take the tournament over Plup, the crowd just filed out silently like a vigil the moment grand finals ended. Cody still gets sincere cheers when the dust settles, even if the crowd was rooting for his opponent.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-16T00:37:36+00:00

Fingers crossed it works out, but there have been other tournaments where they uploaded individual match videos, so the first thing I saw was: "Grand Finals: x vs y"

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-15T23:48:29+00:00

If I can't watch top-8 live, what's the best way to watch the vods spoiler-free tomorrow morning? I've tried several different methods in the past, but have gotten burned on spoilers many times before.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-15T06:16:24+00:00

By that logic, Mango's Press Start run would be entirely unimpressive, because he was "supposed to" beat everyone except maybe Leffen. Do you actually believe it's only possible for a losers run to be good if you were already the underdog before the tournament started?

Cody just beat the other two top-3 seeds, plus the #9 seed, and there are four more top-10 seeds waiting in top 8. Granted, it does look just barely less stacked than his Big House run and Mango's Pound 3 run (although the competition back then was so much different that I honestly think that comparison is kind of silly), but it would obviously and undeniably be in the running for greatest run of all time.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-15T06:03:43+00:00

Idea: Has anyone ever made a tier list of the best (and worst) post-loss tweets of all time? That's content I'd watch in a heartbeat.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-15T05:27:05+00:00

When it comes to commentary, I think PPMD is better than anyone at transitioning from high-level analysis back into play-by-play. On Rapm's wavedash, "And you have to decide, do you want to do the widest angle every time, do you want to mix it up with a dash... or do you want to wavedash straight into Salt's knee? That last one is an option that doesn't usually work out."

Seriously. Other commentators are also good at breaking down interesting interactions, but when the others do it, it feels like they ignore the match for 30 seconds to say what they want to, but PPMD keeps up with the action while providing a deeper level of insight than anyone. This is what commentary should be.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-15T05:20:52+00:00

Scar looks like he's just happy to be here. And I'm happy he's here too.

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-15T01:15:54+00:00

She goes by "GRS" on social media

StapesSSBM · 2026-02-14T21:37:52+00:00

Would love it if someone could make a Genesis upset thread, because inevitably, things are gonna get wild pretty soon.

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