Klarinet Archive - Posting 000199.txt from 1995/06

From: John Baetens <JSBtens@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Old vs. New Clarinets
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 02:36:30 -0400

Ed Lacy wrote:

>On Sun, 11 Jun 1995, John Baetens wrote:

>> I have an interesting story about old clarinets. When my
>> daughter played in a clarinet quartet at the Solo and Ensemble
>> festival in Junior High school, believe it or not, one of the
>> members showed up without her clarinet! She had left it at
>> school and the school was locked. I ran home and got my
>> 30 year old Noblet to let her use. About ten measures into
>> their piece, the judge stopped them and had them tune up!
>> After a short time of tuning he asked the group if one of them
>> had an older clarinet. He then gave a lecture about how the
>> drilling patterns of clarinets seem to change about every
>> 20 years or so and it is difficult for someone with an older
>> clarinet to play in tune with newer ones.

(This is Ed now)

>I suggested a few days ago that it might be interesting to start
>a thread on judging/contest experiences. As one who has been >judging solo
and ensemble contests for about 30 years, I would
>make the following comments about your experience:

>1.) A judge is doing something very dangerous when he/she
>makes verbal comments on the intonation of a performer or
>group, or attempts to assist them in tuning. Undoubtedly, they
>will still be something less than perfectly in tune, and if the
>comment sheet reflects this, the judge willalmost without fail be >visited
by an irate teacher, or even worse, an irate "stage
>mother" (or father) who will say, "But you tuned them yourself.
>How could they be out of tune?"

>2.) The differences in intonation between old and new clarinets
>could not possibly be as great as those which a judge
>encounters in almost every event, and which can be traced to >not-yet-mature
ears, nervous tension, questionable teaching, >underdeveloped embouchures,
etc., etc.

>I don't doubt that your experience occurred as you recounted it,
>but there must be something else going on here. Perhaps the
>judge noticed tarnished keys on your older clarinet and the shiny
>nickel-silver keys of the plastic Bundys of the other three players?
>He may have been trying to impress the students with his acute >perception
of pitch. Or, is that just my barely-suppressed
>cynicism coming through?

Boy, am I glad you said that, because that is just what I was
thinking. I went away from that experience thinking, "Boy, what
a great musical ear that judge had picking my old clarinet
out of that quartet. It was only later on that I realized all he had
to do was use his eyes to see that one of the instruments was
obviously older.
I also thought it was very strange for a judge to stop a performance
because someone was out of tune. Although I have never been
a judge, I have seen many, many solo and ensemble performances
over the years and this is the only time I have ever seen a
judge stop a group to tune up. Now that I think about it (this
happened several years ago), I seem to remember that he
stopped them more than once before he asked if one of the
clarinets were older. Anyway, this unusual occurance got the
poor kids so flustered that they gave a generally poor performance
on a piece that they practiced very hard on to perfect. From
the looks on their faces, they seemed to be waiting for the
judge to stop them again rather than concentrating on the
music.

John Baetens.

   
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