By Kody Myhra January 8, 2022
When I was a beginning musician, I had no idea what resonance fingerings were. To be honest, I thought that, since I’d been playing clarinet since fourth grade, that I sounded the best that I possibly could already. When I got to college, those thoughts were definitely shot down (in a constructive manner of course), but I became more aware of how certain notes on my clarinet sounded. My throat tones were almost always out of tune or sounded airy, and I had no idea how to change them. That was when I was introduced to resonance fingerings.
What Are Resonance Fingerings and Why Use Them?
Resonance Fingerings are special fingerings we use on our throat tone notes to make them sound more full (or resonant). Naturally, these notes sound a little pale or transluscent, but by adding resonance fingerings, the notes will give us more tone rather than air. The notes you can apply these fingerings to range from G4 to Bb5, shown below:
What Are These Resonance Fingerings?
In my time in college, I have found these fingerings to be the most beneficial in my playing. By no means will they work for everyone the same, but fingers can be added or subtracted based on the tone quality and if you are in tune. My best advice is to ask your music teacher or private instructor to listen to you playing these fingerings and give feedback on what sounds best for you and your setup. A list of the fingerings I use are shown below:
Open G  | G#/Ab  | A  | A#/Bb  |
The black fingerings are the normal fingering without the added resonance fingerings, and the green is the resonance fingering added with the black keys. Feel free to save these images as you wish!
How To Implement Resonance Fingerings In Your Playing
Of course, adding new fingerings into your playing is going to take some time. Writing reminder fingerings into your music to start can help reinforce the habit. Another thing is practicing slowly. Resonance fingerings work best in slower music that features the throat tones quite often, which allows for a lot of slow practice anyway. Lastly, practicing switching between the regular fingering (black) and adding the resonance fingerings (black + green) can help with feeling them out as well.
Implementing resonance fingerings in my playing has helped me a lot with my confidence in my sound, and I hope it can help you too! It may take some patience, but will be worth it in the end. Happy practicing!
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