Klarinet Archive - Posting 000639.txt from 1996/05

From: Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns%cl.cam.ac.uk@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Re: darkness and brightness
Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 04:19:35 -0400

> At state solo & Ensemble festival this year, my judge was talking to me
> about how my sound was too bright, and how it should've been darker in some
> spots (I played Movement III of the Mozart Concerto) What exactly does this
> mean? My clarinet teacher has tried to explain it to me, but it's not
> working. Any descriptions?

Before Dan gets in ...

My reckoning is that the judge didn't like your playing, couldn't put
hir finger on what was wrong, and decided to use fuzzy-talk (in other
contexts, this would be called marketing-speak) to say this without
seeming a bozo.

Your chances of learning what the judge meant without talking to hir
direct are probably zilch. We had discussions of brightness and
darkness some time back on this list, and concluded it was a
humpty-dumpty concept: "when I use a word, it means what I want it to
mean".

R