First Exercises

Developing Your Dixieland Sound

Now that you’ve got a concept of tone and understand the role of the clarinet in a Dixieland band, it’s time to dig into some essential exercises. These are designed to help you build the right tone, articulation, and harmonic fluency for the style.

Exercise 1: Begin Working on Your Tone — Double-Lip Embouchure

In his book Benny Goodman’s Clarinet Method, Benny Goodman shares his thoughts on embouchure. Unlike the single-lip embouchure most players use today, many clarinetists and saxophonists in the early jazz era used a double-lip embouchure.

What is a double-lip embouchure?
Both lips cover the teeth—your top teeth do not rest on the mouthpiece like in the standard embouchure. This encourages a rounder, more vocal tone and allows for more expressive vibrato.

I’ll attach a PDF with Goodman’s explanation, but I also encourage you to do your own research. Try watching videos and reading articles to see which approach works best for you.

Why bother?
It might feel like an unnecessary change at first, but trust me—it’s worth it. The double-lip embouchure makes authentic vibrato and tone shaping much easier, which are crucial to sounding stylistically accurate in Dixieland.

 Assignment: Tone Work (2–3 Days)

Spend the next couple of days doing long tones using the double-lip embouchure.
Use your favorite classical tone and tuning exercises—you don’t need to reinvent the wheel here.

Focus on:

• Centering your pitch (It’s tricky at first!)
  

• Even air support
  

• Smooth entry and release
  

• Consistency across registers

  Goal: Get semi-comfortable with the double-lip embouchure before moving on

Exercise 2: Arpeggios Through Dixieland Changes

Once you’re comfortable with the new embouchure, we’ll start tackling arpeggios over common Dixieland progressions. This helps build fluency with the chord structures and prepares you for real-world improvisation where you won’t have time to think.

I’ve attached:

• A few lead sheets of standard Dixieland tunes
  

• A sample worked-out arpeggio sheet to show how you might approach each chord
  
  

Don’t write everything out.
I strongly encourage you to avoid writing these arpeggios down once you understand the changes. Dixieland bands—and especially brass bands—often throw charts together on the spot, and being able to play off your ear and memory is essential.

 And remember—these don’t have to be “jazzy” arpeggios. If you don’t understand the chords written in the music (like: C7b13#11), just use the simple triad or seventh chord version.  If you’re coming from a classical background, you already know what an arpeggio is. These are the same kinds of arpeggios you’ve probably played in Mozart, Weber, or any etude book: just the chord tones of a harmony, played in sequence. Don’t overthink it. What matters is knowing the changes and being able to clearly express the harmony with good tone and time. You’re not improvising bebop lines yet—you’re building a solid foundation.

➤ Assignment: Arpeggio Practice

• Choose 1–2 lead sheets to focus on
  

• Practice outlining each chord using root position, 1st inversion, and 2nd inversion arpeggios
  

• Play them slowly, in time, then gradually increase speed
  

• Try to connect the arpeggios smoothly through voice leading
  

Focus on:

• Clarity of each note
  

• Keeping the rhythm even
  

• Tone consistency with your new embouchure
  
  

Goal: Play through the full form of a tune using arpeggios without stopping or needing to look up fingerings or notes.