Klarinet Archive - Posting 000636.txt from 1996/05

From: "Joie Canada , Jcanada713@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: from a klarinet member
Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 01:17:28 -0400

Interesting subject. As a flute and clarinet player, I have often enjoyed
the unaccompanied flute works available. I have found a few good, fun pieces
for unaccompanied clarinet--the Stadler Caprices (see my previous message
from a few weeks back--I finally got copies of them. Of course, there is the
Stravinsky and a few others, but I have enjoyed working out variations on
opera themes for private use--as a player who does jazz, folk and classical
I like to experiment with different sounds from growls to purrs and sweet
pure tone. I have also heard (on radio and don't ask me who thought this one
up) a rendition that was pure fun of the Polka from l'Age D'Or played on an
Eb clarinet. I was inspired to go home and work it out for Bb and found that
it went all over the place and was wicked but fun to play. Perhaps this is
the source of some of the unaccompanied pieces available--people just fooling
around, "playing" as it were, and coming up with something worth keeping. I
have found that playing, say, the Meditation from Thais unaccompanied has
drawn the comment from some jazz players that it sounds like French Blues,
which it more or less is. I think the clarinet has more variety of available
tones than the flute but that players tend to isolated themselves, perhaps
for economic reasons if they are professional, into one range of possible
tones or another and to either refuse to use a vibrato or refuse to stop
using one. People with day jobs and no aspirations to making a living with
music don't have as much time to practice but are freer to goof around and
try things that might mess up their embrouchures and hence their livings. A
lot of really good stuff probably never gets written down or played in public
but remains for the individual player something from and to the heart.