Klarinet Archive - Posting 000372.txt from 1995/03

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Andrew Grenci on dark and bright
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 08:55:01 -0500

What a remarkable, articulate, intelligent, and thoughtful reply on
the subject of dark and bright. How well presented and how carefully
thought out!! I applaud and admire Andrew's sensitive approach.

I do not disagree with Andrew that one's entire life is filled with
words that have either an ambiguous meaning or else one that has no
standard with respect to another human being. And in that sense your
analogy of the lemon, grapefruit, orange, and jelly donut was a good
one. On the other hand, words are used in a variety of circumstances.
With some, I really don't care how imprecise the use is. With others,
it is absolutely essential that the words being selected to describe
something are universally understood by all. Would you want your
surgeon and anesthesiologist to be imprecise in the phrase "Is he
'under' yet?"

I don't consider it life-threatening if sweet/sour descriptions are
imprecise, but a good chef might. That's his business. He is
expected to be precise when discussing the details of his affairs of state.

Our affairs of state include the character of our sound. I don't
care if my orthodontist neighbor who doesn't play clarinet or anything
else says that I have a "bright" sound. For him and people like him,
there is no requirement to be precise. But I would care very much if
I had to describe a student's sound to him/her in a way that disabled
that student from understanding what I was saying. Such dialogue
perpetuates chaos and encourages imprecision when exactly the opposite
is necessary.

It is not enough to say that all words are subject to infinite
interpretation and nuance thus rendering it unneccessary to be
clear and unambiguous in all professional dialogue. That is
nothing more or less than a copy out. In the arena in which
one chooses to be a professional, a great deal more discipline is necessary
for those words that are part of that arena of professional competence.
And where no words exist to explain the phenomenon that one is
attempting to explain, then one goes with the flow and avoids all words;
i.e., as I described the character of sound to be one that pleases the
player, rather than the subjective dark or bright.

In every human discipline there are probably concepts so subtle that
no words accurately describe them in all their nuance. That is no
reason therefore to throw up one's hands and choose an undescriptive
term in the hopes that this will clarify the problem somehow.

We are in a very subjective business, music. There are many things
we do in our playing that have no rational basis. We do them that way
because some inner voice tells us to do them that way. But that is
not a licence to have no discipline at all, to assign to all aspects
of our profession - even the most critical ones - an attitude that
the subjective nature of our business tolerates our right to be
imprecise simply because we can't find a good word to describe what it
is we want to talk about.

Even so, Andrew, I liked your thoughtful response very, very much and
am saddened that we don't see eye-to-eye on this matter.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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