<\/p>\n
My real estate job is pretty easy physically.<\/strong><\/span> I just boss custodians and repairmen around\u00a0 and do paperwork: pay taxes, pay cockroach killers, and argue about security deposit refunds.\u00a0 The only physical part is climbing the stairs and going on roofs.\u00a0 None of my buildings has elevators.<\/p>\n Playing the clarinet . . . that can injure you.\u00a0 You know where?\u00a0 The right thumb.\u00a0 The right thumb holds a disproportionate weight when you’re standing.<\/p>\n I had a pain in my right thumb that lasted 18 months.\u00a0 The pain took a long leisurely trip through my body. Went from my thumb to my shoulders to my neck.<\/p>\n Physical therapists love musicians, particularly violinists, flutists, pianists and clarinetists.<\/p>\n I drove to Cincinnati to see a specialist<\/strong><\/span> for clarinet pain.\u00a0 Then I did Alexander Technique, and every other technique short of amputation.<\/p>\n Some clarinet players use a neck strap.<\/span> I do.\u00a0 At KlezKamp, the music conference, I met a clarinetist who wore a neck strap.\u00a0 He said, “The pain eventually goes away.”\u00a0 That was my mantra for more than a year.<\/p>\n The clarinet is the agony stick.\u00a0 Musicians call it that.\u00a0 Not simply because the clarinet can be painful to play, but because it’s difficult.\u00a0 The fingerings are harder than the sax, and a clarinet has the “break,” the awkward leap from A to B in the middle register.\u00a0 The clarinet squeaks.\u00a0 And the clarinet’s register key raises the note a twelfth, not an octave.\u00a0 This is extremely odd physics. \u00a0The clarinet’s sound doesn’t typically come out the bell, like on a sax.<\/p>\n You mic a sax by clipping a mic on the bell,<\/strong><\/span> but on a clarinet you surround the clarinet with mics like on Wagon Train<\/em>.\u00a0 I had a mic rig for my clarinet that was so complex and heavy — and cost more than my axe — I\u00a0 gave up on it.\u00a0 Plus, it was hurting my thumb.<\/p>\n I asked a sax player in a big band if he played clarinet.\u00a0 He said, “I have<\/em> a clarinet.” My real estate job is pretty easy physically. I just boss custodians and repairmen around\u00a0 and do paperwork: pay taxes, pay cockroach killers, and argue about security deposit refunds.\u00a0 The only physical part is climbing the stairs and going on roofs.\u00a0 None of my buildings has elevators. Playing the clarinet . . . that can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klezmer","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8989,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions\/8989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n—-<\/span>
\n1 of 2 posts for 9\/30\/09.\u00a0 Please see the post below too.<\/span>
\n—-<\/span>
\nA version of\u00a0this post will appear in the upcoming (Dec. 2009) issue of The Clarinet<\/em>, the magazine of the International Clarinet Association, www.clarinet.org<\/a>.
\n<\/span>—-<\/span>
\n Apparently some people don’t know there is a comments section to this blog.\u00a0 Click on the “comments” link\u00a0 below the “Tell A Friend” link. If there are few, or no, comments, go to the end of the “Sanctuary” post — two down from here. There are a lot of comments there. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"