Klarinet Archive - Posting 000257.txt from 1994/11

From: Kirby Fong <u745%sas.nersc.gov@-----.BITNET>
Subj: My two cents about national sound
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 21:48:29 -0500

I have been waiting for the discussion of national sound to climax to see
if anyone else would voice the ideas I have been thinking. Lorne Buick and
Dick Williams have come very close to what I have in mind, but I guess I should
speak for myself. I propose the following three assumptions on the basis
of which we can consider whether there could be such a thing as national sound.

1. Clarinet teachers are very influential in developing the playing style
of their students, especially the younger, more impressionable students.

2. Sound, meaning the tone quality or the relative strengths of the
harmonics in a note, is only one of many factors that make up artistry
or musicianship.

3. A true musician should apply his or her artistry to serve the composer's
music.

A. My first claim is that few of us listen to sound alone. We are listening
also to intonation, phrasing, interpretation, and everything else that goes
into a performance. Martin Pergler happened to mention one of my favorite
examples - the Czech sound. It is not really the sound that is distinctive,
it is the way they attack the notes or start the sound that is distinctive.
I don't happen to like this manner of playing, but that's just a personal
preference. Henceforth I use the term "sound" not in the narrow sense of
the Fourier spectrum of a tone but in the broad sense of all aspects of
performance.

B. My second claim is that we greatly underrate the influence of our teachers.
How many of use play Boehm system clarinets because that's what our teachers
thrust into our hands rather than because we've made a careful study of
different systems and chosen the one that best serves our artistic ideals?
When we are young, we do what our teachers tell us to do. We play the way
they teach us to play. We sound like our teachers! Of course, as we mature
as musicians, all aspects of musicianship and playing should be reconsidered.
The most creative among us, like Reginald Kell, might derive an aesthetic that
is quite different than that of our teachers or colleagues. He must have been
an artist of great integrity to follow his own Muse. The rest of us just
differ in minor ways from the teachers we most admire. Getting back to the
Czechs, I suspect that many of today's generation of Czech clarinetists
studied with Vladimir Riha. What you are in fact hearing is not a Czech
national sound but the legacy of an influential teacher. If I'm right, then
it stands to reason that countries that are dominated by one conservatory
with a self-perpetuating faculty will tend to produce generations of students
that largely share the same aesthetic, resulting in something which appears to
be a national sound. A country like the United States with many schools and
many teachers cannot propagate such homogeneity; hence, there ought not to be
anything that could be characterized as the American sound.

C. Sound in the general sense is not an end in itself. While each of us is
free to pursue our individual ideal sounds when practicing scales and chords,
we need to take the composer's intentions into consideration when performing
music. As a young clarinetist, I remember admiring the recordings of Leopold
Wlach playing the Mozart Conerto and Quintet. I would describe the tone as
being relatively strong in fundamental and weaker in the upper harmonics,
somewhat approaching the warm fuzzy sound of a pure sine wave from an audio
oscillator. This tone quality seems musically justified to me for these two
pieces. However pieces such as Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol or Le Coq
d'Or to me demand a clarinet sound with much stronger high harmonics to give
the tone quality more edge or penetration. Warm and fuzzy won't do for these
pieces. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't make any significant
difference in the spectrum of my tone purely through embouchure changes. I
have to change reeds or mouthpieces to make significant differences. Although
I have not investigated the matter, I suspect clarinets themselves can have
great differences in tone quality depending on their bore diameters and flair
and that composers may have written for the clarinet with the tone quality of
certain brands in mind. I've played primarily Buffet clarinets, but I think
it would be enlightening for me to try a large bore Boosey & Hawkes or a
German clarinet. Anyway, we have an artistic obligation which we can partly
meet through our choice of reed, mouthpiece, and clarinet. And if we perform
a preponderence of Russian music, or central European music, or French music,
or English music, that can influence our choices.

In the light of the above, I propose that there is no such thing as
"national sound" but there is something which can be easily mistaken for a
national sound. That something is a school of playing passed on from teacher
to student. "Passed" is a mild word; in some cases "enforced" might be more
accurate. The impression I get from this list is that the Germans are among
the better organized in propagating their traditions. If I admired their
playing enough, I would go there to study. I probably would then be told to
switch to an Oehler system (or whatever they use) and be advised that the
best brand to buy is Wurlitzer (or whatever). If I did what my teachers told
me, I would no doubt end up sounding like my teachers. Upon returning to the
United States, would I be an American clarinetist or a German clarinetist?
I claim this is an irrelevant question because it is based on the assumption
that there is a national sound. Assuming that I did not rebel against my
teachers, I would be playing in the tradition of my teachers. That tradition
may or may not be associated with a particular nation, but it is the frequent
association of a tradition or school of playing with a nation that gives the
appearance that national sounds exist. America, unlike many European countries,

has benefited from the immigration of many fine clarinet teachers, each of whom
brings his or her own aesthetic ideals. But no one of their traditions
dominates America to the extent that it becomes identified as the American
sound.

In conclusion I congratulate all of you for being nearly right. Different
tone qualities do exist and are consciously propagated. I hope those of you
who believe in national sounds will accept my explanation of what you are really

hearing, and those of you who do not belive in national sounds will accept my
explanation of what you are not really hearing!

Kirby Fong