Klarinet Archive - Posting 000529.txt from 1996/12

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: I'm at it again
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 19:01:37 -0500

I also have read with considerable interest the various postings that
have been made in the last week on bass clarinets, but I am not in
agreement with one poster who felt that the information being posted
was uniformly helpful. In fact, I felt the exact opposite was the case.
It was, in the main, useless, though very interesting, as are the
majority of such postings.

What seemed to be the substances of almost every posting was that
person's reaction to playing a specific instrument, perhaps even two
or more. And it was the articulation of that reaction that contained
no valuable information that I could discern (with the exception that
some commented on intonation and that, being a measurable item, deserves
being noted as it was).

The comments of one poster was that one instrument was not dark and
the other horn was less so. Recognizing that I don't think that the
transmission of "not dark" has any value to anyone (except the person
who said it), the idea that another instrument is "less so" is not
much better and could be argued to be much worse.

I remember reading reviews of clarinets by Lee Gibson, and he
invariably tried to restrict his comments to specific measurements,
not his personal preferences about the character of the sound. Keep
in mind that we have had about 3 years worth of discussion about the
character of the sound being generated by a person, and not by the
instrument, to say that this clarinet brand has a better or worse
sound than that clarinet brand suggests exactly the opposite; i.e.,
the player has limited influence on the sound character generated,
only the manufacturer. I consider that bad science, bad
psychology, and flat out technically incorrect.

The bottom line is that, if I were buying a low C bass clarinet -
which I am not - very little of what has been written here about
the choice between the Selmer, the Buffet, and the LeBlanc would
be of much objective value. It would be of value if I were trying
to understand how the poster feels about something, and there is
some pleasure in reading that, but not much information.

This business about communicating useful information from person
to person about the clarinet itself and its role in performance
is a weakness in the whole business of clarinet pedagogy. We
just don't do it well, mostly because of two things: (1) we do
recognize how much of clarinet playing is due to personal physical
characteristics that cannot be duplicated from person to person, and
(2) a gigantic series of assumptions that are rarely questioned,
about the very vocabulary that we use in speaking about important
elements of the clarinet, such as the character of the sound.

And 14-16 year old beginners come on this list and hear older
players talking about "dark sound" and "bright sound" and presume
that this is the correct and viable orthodoxy that they should
use, even though they have no idea what is being spoken of and no
one can tell them how to achieve it.

Moral: clarinet players are mystics, not objective observers and
reporters.

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