Klarinet Archive - Posting 000136.txt from 1997/07

From: Roger Garrett <rgarrett@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: clarinet playing
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:31:56 -0400

I will follow the advice of Lawrie Bloom....that is....most of the people
who criticize others for the sake of their own egos tend to remain on this
web page. I don't see the finest performers teachers here...I see a group
who play for fun, a group who are striving to achieve (I hope Nick is in
this group), and a group who work to blather on and on to spread their
work. I place Neil in this group.....not persuasive.....but with a lot to
say.

If Mr Leupold wishes to continue his daily retoric .......that's ok by
me...but I have watched hundreds of college age students (check out Yip's
email) fail because they are unable to adhere to a discipline...they are
coddled and spoon fed...and they work at Kinkos....eventually going the
route of 90% of all clarinet "students"......students who had talent but
failed. Failure is the result of the student.....usually not because of a
single teacher...and in Yip's case....FIVE teachers!

Condesceding? No......realistic yes! Pedestal and tomatoes...?? I am
laughing at the ego that wrote it. Neil speaks to a person who is asking
for help....yet he turns away from it ......for many years. This is not a
person looking for an individual style...this is a student who is
searching for a teacher to tell him he is wonderful now. To mention
Marcelus, Mazzeo, Hadcock, Russky, Leister...etc...as examples....they
were never where this young man was...and they didn't switch teachers
every year in their 5th - 10th year....! Great speech Niel....but...not
helpful. Want to be a great performer/musician/clarinetist....etc....quit
looking for the perfect teacher and the quick fix.....find out what real
music is and imitate it. Spend 3-4 hours applying what your teachers ask
you to do...you won't need to ask the people on this web page....you will
discover for yourself...and if you can't do that....you won't achieve.

Neil's insight is as uninformed as it is wordy and romanticized. Take a
look around Nick.....Philosophy is fine...until you take the audition and try to
compete against the folks who listened to their teachers. Nick is at
a point in his life where it is time to get into the practice room and
apply what he has been told.....the variations in instruction are not
that far removed. But.....wait for the luck and the perfect teacher, and
you will be 40 years old with nothing to show (musically) but
a...."gee...if only I had...." Thankfully, I avoided that.....Niel.....

Hmmmmmm..........superior intellect? Geez......I see it as superior
ego...nothing more.

I stick to my intial recommendation.......pursue the clarinet in a serious
way....accept your instructors and glean from them what you can without
making excuses. Otherwise...take up an instrument you feel you can
sightread on.......music is a serious business...not one to be piddled
with. If you can't get serious about it....leave the instrument in the
case until you are ready. And I mean at all levels.....

RGarrett

On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Neil Leupold wrote:

> On Fri, 4 Jul 1997, Roger Garrett wrote:
>
> > Perhaps taking up the trombone? Tuba parts are not as hard to read as
> > clarinet parts...that might be better! That many teachers can't be
> > screwed up....perhaps it is your ability to learn from them?
>
> Frankly, I find the above comments derisive and condescending. Rather
> than merely sit on a pedestal and throw tomatoes, however, I'll offer some
> insight of my own.
>
> Nick Yip indicated that he has experienced confusion over the course of
> his training as a clarinetist, due to the disparate advice given by each
> respective instructor. Depending on how far you hope to go as a
> clarinetist and a musician, there are some basic ideas which begin to
> reveal and clarify themselves over time. One of these ideas is that
> there are many more ways than one to accomplish a goal. This applies to
> pretty much any given field or discipline, and can be easily witnessed by
> observing and comparing the top-flight practitioners in whichever subject
> you're studying. There's little question that Stanley Drucker and Karl
> Leister are representations of the pinnacle of orchestral clarinet
> playing, yet their styles, their qualities of tone, their musicality
> -- the fundamental elements which identify them as the musicians that
> they are -- are strikingly different.
>
> One of the wonderful things about achieving technical mastery over
> an instrument is the ability to adapt one's playing to a given context.
> If we were unemotional beings, there would be no need to alter our
> performance styles. If the music we played were all of a particular
> emotive quality, again there would be little need or use for the
> ability to adapt and diversify our repertoire of musical nuances and
> expressive gestures. Needless to say, there is enormous diversity
> in the music that we play, and even greater diversity in the kinds of
> feelings we experience when we hear and/or perform that music.
>
> All of the above having been said, hopefully it is instructive to
> cite the correlation between the expressive process and the learning
> process which accompanies it. Since there is such diversity of
> expression in the music that way play, and because this expressiveness
> is also tied to a lineage of scholarship and tradition, we are beholden
> as performers to develop adaptive abilities which will enable us to
> realize these properties convincingly. This entails much more than
> technical mastery of the instrument, but technique is vital to the
> endeavor, so that's where teachers typically begin. I'll not say
> whether this is good or bad, but that's how it's usually done.
> Where there is lineage and tradition in the creation of music
> (composition), there is a counterpart of lineage and tradition
> in the way it is taught and performed, including on the clarinet.
> The Bonade method. The Russianoff method. The Marcellus method.
> The Mazzeo method. Ken Grant. Peter Hadcock. Fred Ormand. Larry Combs.
> Kalman Opperman. These names and dozens more comprise the people of past
> and present who have taught and/or are teaching students how to master
> their instruments and realize their individual goals as clarinetists and
> musicians. Most of these people would probably agree on certain
> fundamental areas of technique and performance, but none of them plays
> quite like any of the others, and their approach to teaching -- even in
> those areas on which they agree -- was/is different for each.
>
> To make all of this relevant to Nick, I'll say the following. Amidst
> the confusion of disparate teaching and performing styles, the common
> thread is the individual. The acknolwedged masters are not revered as
> a result of their ability to emulate a past master, but for their
> innovations and ability to make their music in a way completely unique
> to them. This involves many different areas of approach, the sum of
> which results in an individual musician's identity. When you take
> lessons from any given teacher, you're learning not just from them,
> but from all of their past teachers as well. Some teachers even like
> to quote their mentors for inspiration or credibility during lessons.
> YOUR goal is to take the lessons you learn from your various teachers
> and synthesize that knowledge into an approach which makes sense to
> Nick Yip. In cases of seemingly contradictory directions from two
> different teachers, we come back to the individual: you. These are
> the times when you make a decision to either accept the information and
> try to incorporate it into your current understanding and knowledge, or
> dismiss it until such time that somebody gives you a new way of looking
> at the problem which makes sense to you. In all cases, your objective
> is to absorb as many new techniques and concepts as you can, applying
> those which fit your current level of development (as well as your
> personality), until you arrive at a unified approach which reveals
> the artistry of Nick Yip.
>
> Somebody on the list has said at least a few times over the years
> something to the effect of, "It's not how you hit the ball. Just get
> it in the hole." It's a golfing analogy, but it's very instructive.
> Ultimately, whatever teacher you're with will (hopefully) be more con-
> cerned with the sound and musicality you produce, rather than fretting
> endlessly over how you achieve it. Some teachers insist mercilessly
> that you do it "their" way (how pompous, as if they invented the approach
> they currently use and never took a lesson in their lives), while others
> at the opposite extreme simply say, "Put the mouthpiece in your mouth and
> blow," meaning you're on your own as far as figuring out how to achieve
> the musical effect they're after. Over the course of multiple teachers,
> it becomes a game of trying to please everybody, when everybody wants you
> to do something differently than the others. My suggestion? Play the
> game. You already know that you are free to switch teachers when a
> particular one isn't working out, but until you switch, make it a game
> between him/her and yourself to see if you can do it the way they ask
> you to. If you don't already have any ideas of your own on a given
> issue, following somebody else's lead should be easy. When you disagree
> with a teacher's approach, suspend your disagreement initially, giving that
> person's idea the benefit of the doubt. Even if you reject it in the
> end, you will have learned that there exists a way of achieving the end
> which is different from the one you currently use. Every teacher has
> something to offer. You can pick and choose as you grow, but never
> fully dismiss any approach out of hand.
>
> Coming back to my initial point, your goal is develop diversity in your
> own approach to performance. This comes about by learning how to adapt
> your playing to the demands of different music, different conductors and,
> in your present case, to different teachers. If you stick with it and
> use your own individual judgement, your identity as a clarinetist and
> musician will begin to emerge of its own spontaneous energy. First things
> first, nonetheless. You need to fill a grab-bag of technical and musical
> concepts, from which you can pull the ingredients which will result in
> your own brand of performance and musicianship. Best of luck to you.
>
> 'Hope this helps.
>
> Neil
>
>
>
>