Klarinet Archive - Posting 000262.txt from 1994/11

From: Dick Williams <dwilliams@-----.EDU>
Subj: national schools
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 18:34:26 -0500

I am probably confused about this schools of clarinet thing because we
are all right but none of us has it all right.

It has been pointed out that tone is important but not everything. May I
point out that there is also no clear demarcation between the quality
of tone and intonation. Playing a little on the sharp side is often
perceived as "edginess." When playing in an ensemble, variations in
pitch can introduce resolvents which effect tonal color. I recall
H. Owen Reed rehearsing a section for a long time in order to produce
the intonation which would result in a resolvent; once we heard it
it was easy to produce the next time.

Because transients can influence the perceived tonal color (even with a
legato attack), attack cannot be completely separated from tonal color.
I seem to remember an experiment (cited I believe in Taylor), in which
a tape of a clarinet was altered by deleting the attack and release.
Most listeners could not even identify the instrument! I have wondered
if the transients were what made it so hard to simulate clarinet. And
then we have the piano; without the transients, what is there?

I don't see how releases could effect the perceived tone color.

Different music, It seems to me, calls for different tonal color. I
often try for the sound Wright got; other times I try for that which
Sabine Meyer gets. When playing with a large section in a Band I aim
for the sound that my first teacher got (a somewhat metallic sound
with few overtones). I am probably most successful at the latter.
By the way does anyone know who taught McLane?

But I rave on and on. I don't think that every performance even of
an unaccompanied compostion (even by the composer) will be the same
as the next performance by the same performer. I try to perform any
piece more right each time I perform it. Sometimes I am more right
than at other times. I think we are all somewhat right with each
performance. Some are just more right more of the time. With the
decline in access to LIVE performance our society seems to have
missed this; how sad.