It ain't all about fingers

Over the last few decades, I've listened to many young (compared to me) clarinetists.

It's AMAZING what they can do! 

They play incredibly difficult passages with incredible facility far beyond my abilities even when I was playing full time sometimes 10 hours a day, practicing relentlessly and performing several times a week.

Remembering a very old joke, they can "play the 'Minute Waltz' in thirty seconds"!

But I rarely bother listening to them again because I don't consider most of them very good musicians, and to me, there's nothing attractive about their playing. 

To me, they're merely technicians.

Their sound is often dull and uninteresting. They play so fast that the music ceases to be music. Their playing is often rough and noisy, their fingers slapping down or flying up so that there is no smoothness: you can actually "hear" their fingers.

They make lyrical passages into finger exercises. Worst of all, they play so fast that the music ceases to be music. 

Sometimes they even play "fast" passages so fast that they sound like smears. 

Listen to some renditions of the cadenza in the second movement of the Mozart concerto! Surrounded by beautiful adagio passage, some players rip through the cadenza fast, creating what I think of as "musical whiplash".

"Fingers" and speed aren't as important as sound and musicality! 

Practice phrasing and dynamics, your sound, your articulation, and smooth progressions from one note to the next, and leave finger speed to the last.  You may never have the technical facility to play many pieces, but those that you will be able to play can be made into music, not just a passle of noise.

Don't confuse playing ability with finger speed!

EOF.