The clarinet must be played with strength in the hands, not in the fingertips.

The shape of the hands can be thought of as defining a cylinder that has the clarinet running through the center. The fingers act as rotary levers, always retaining their
arched, architectural shape and moving from behind the knuckles as they glide downward. The fingers themselves must feel as if they are connected to each other by a webbing of skin tissue.

Take care that the hands and fingers are always clean before playing the clarinet. The fingernails must be cut short so as not to impede the action of the clarinet or disturb the sound by catching on the keys, clicking against the keywork or causing improper finger action.

Care must be taken that whatever jewelry is worn--especially rings--does not catch on the keywork.

Hand position is the shape of the fingers in their placement upon the clarinet. While playing, each finger must retain the gentle, arching curve that is the natural shape of a relaxed hand. The exact shape can be seen if you shake either hand from the wrist
several times as if you were drying it, and then merely allow the hand to come to rest naturally without any muscular tension.

Proper hand position can also be illustrated by observing the action of the fingers as you pick up a pencil off of a desk. If the clarinet is then slipped into this relaxed hand, the natural relationship of the correct position of the thumbrest and why the holes and rings must be covered with the balls of the fingers can be seen.

The natural shape of the left hand must be slightly adjusted in order to fit the instrument. By slightly lengthening, or straightening, the pinky and ring finger while gently arching the index and middle finger, the tone hole and key spacings of the
clarinet can be met without impeding the effectiveness of the normal shape of the hand.

One of the most important ways to learn perfect hand position is by practicing scales in thirds--slowly, with a metronome and throughout the entire range of the clarinet. This exercise is also perhaps the most valuable one, for it will loosen and warm up the muscles in the hands, teach smoothness and rhythmic accuracy, proper fingerings, legato fingering technique, voicing of intervals, purity of intonation, and blowing through the instrument with a beautiful sound and steady embouchure.

Correct placement of the tone can also be judged by the fingers. The tone must feel like it is impacting and vibrating the clarinet in the area between the upper and lower joints--midway between the hands.

One of the primary difficulties of switching back and forth between playing other members of the clarinet family is the difference in the hand positions. You must learn to instantly adjust for this change. To keep difficulties and inaccuracies to a minimum, the action of the B-flat and the A clarinets must be adjusted as similarly as possible.

After years of playing, if the hand position is improper, any variety of pain, inflammation or physical problems with the fingers, joints, hands, wrists or arms will result. These very
real problems are almost always due to tension that has physically manifested itself after untold thousands upon thousands of repetitive actions involving stress and tension.

The key to beautiful as well as long-lived playing is the proper balance of strength and relaxation.

Because of the size of the hand that is necessary to hold the instrument properly, children should generally be nine or ten years of age before they begin playing the B-flat clarinet. If a child starts too soon and his hand is not the proper size, he will naturally compensate by gripping the clarinet in a manner that becomes very difficult to correct later.

The holes or rings of the clarinet must be covered with the pads, or balls, of the fingertips for accuracy, efficiency and quality of sound. Neither the very tip of the finger itself nor so far back on the fingers that the tips extend beyond the holes or keywork will provide the best results. Improper closing of the holes will cause air leakage resulting in poor response and a diminishing of tone quality and power. It will also produce tension in the fingers resulting in loss of speed as well as cause the fingers to hammer the keys.

The register key should be played with only the upper left corner of the pad of the left thumb. This will allow the pad of the thumb to properly cover the ring and thumb hole to prevent loss of air.

The thumbrest must be positioned on the right thumb generally between the joint and the nail, never on the side of the joint closest to the knuckle. This will cause the fingers to become overly arched and the first joint to become bent inward, or "broken", in the effort to cover the holes and reach the keys. (Neither must the fingers in the left hand be broken, for this bending of the fingers will cause inaccuracies of rhythm, slow down technique and cause the fingers to hammer the keys.)

The position of the thumbrest on the clarinet often has to be changed because of the size of each individual's hand to provide for the correct placement, support and comfort.

The balance and weight of the clarinet are controlled by the lips and the right thumb.
As a general rule, when seated, never hold the clarinet between the knees in an attempt to take the weight of the instrument off of the thumb. You must strengthen the muscles in your right thumb so that the clarinet can be held in the proper position without any tension being transferred to the other fingers, hand, wrist or forearm. Strength in the thumb can be achieved only through many hours of practice. Relaxation in the arm, wrist, hand and fingers can be achieved through careful attention.

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