Klarinet Archive - Posting 000357.txt from 1994/10

From: John Dohrmann <jdohrman@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: National Schools
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 12:44:50 -0400

How about looking at the national sound issue from the other end. Would
any of us argue that there are "national" styles in music? We typically
differentiate between russian symphonies, german operas, english, etc.
And there is an actual set of keys, chords, rythmns, instrumentation, etc
that allows you to assign a composition student an assignment to write
something that sound like "fill in the blank." I would argue that this
represents a sound, a music-induced feeling that we have agreed to
associate with the nationality of the composers who achieved that sound
or mood. So, there are national "sounds."

We have also talked about how we as clarinetists develop a mental image
of the sound (tone, style) we seek to achieve and practice, study, and
change mouthpieces, ligatures, reeds, and horns to acquire the desired sound.

How big a step is it to say that artists from particular regions
(nations), brought up on a heavy dose of their national compositions,
choose a matching clarinet sound as their goal.

So not for racial or language or somethiing-in-the-food reasons but
because our environment effects the mental images of ideal behavior, we
clarinet players seek sounds that reflect our backgrounds. And we can
expect that russian players and french players might pick different goals.

And any individual french clarinetist might grow up wanting to sound like
the great russian compositions and vice versa. And we of the US would
likely be the most confused (because we play everyone's music and have a
comparatively short and electic compositional history) but might then all
sound vanilla.

Was denken sie daruber?

<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>
John Dohrmann
Puget Sound Water Quality Authority
Olympia, Washington
jdohrman@-----.com

   
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