Klarinet Archive - Posting 000741.txt from 1997/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: Gary Young's long and (yech) philosophical question!
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 09:36:44 -0400

I have been in think mode for about a week and I could probably
continue to be in think mode for another year, but a reasonable
question was asked of me, and I am obliged to respond to the best
of my ability. Please. I don't want to have to defend my position
or argue it. Read it and ignore it if you wish. Talk about it if
you wish, but please don't ask me to get into a debate. I'm not
voicing this because I think the world needs it, but in response to
a specific question. It is what I think. I have no idea if it is
true but I would not say it if I didn't think that it was correct.
Also, I am convinced that some elements of my answer require a
great deal more thought to enable them to coalesce. That's the way
ideas happen. They come fast but they take forever to get
expressed just right.

For example, I need to be able to describe the specific and
objective differences between sound quality and sound character.
On a superficial level, I think of sound character as the thing
that enables me to know that a clarinet is playing, even when the
sound quality is awful. The minute I hear that sound I know I am
not hearing an oboe or a flute or a tuba. A much more difficult
notion is that of sound quality, mostly because we speak about it
in so many ways. When conductors would ask me to change the
character of my sound ("covered" for example) I would try to do
that to the best of my abilities, but, to a large extent, if he
asked me to make it sound like a trombone, I could not do that no
matter how much I wanted to please him. However, if a conductor
asked me to change the quality of my sound, I would get very
worried, because I had limited control over that and what I
produced I believed to be of good quality. So I'm still debating
these issues in my head and it may be some time before I can say
anything intelligent on that matter.

The question that brought me to this epiphany, if I may paraphrase
it, was something like this: "You keep asking for specifics
whenever the sound of the clarinet is spoken of, and each time we
respond in what appears to be a rational way, you say, `There is no
evidence to support the use of that term.' OK then, if you don't
like the words we use, tell us which words you would find
acceptable."

That's a paraphrase mind you but it's the essence of what was asked
and is an entirely reasonable request.

Let me begin with the subject of pornography. That should get your
attention.

About 25 or more years ago, the question rose to the Supreme Court,
"What is pornography?" Arguments arose about banning something for
which there was no clear and unambiguous definition. The danger
was the potential for banning human anatomy books along with copies
of "Deep Throat." The nine learned justices beat their brains out
on that one. They watched dirty movies. Can you imagine that?
The nine old men (there were not yet any women on the court) sat
there and watched Debbie do all of Dallas and then some. And when
they got done, one of the justices came out with a memorable line.
It should have won the Nobel prize for literature.

He said, "I find myself unable to define pornography, but I know
what it is when I see it."

And that is precisely the position that I would like to take for a
moment (though I will come back to it - there was a point in using
this example other than titillation) while I give you an
illustration of the madness that has arisen as a result of giving
the quality of the sound of a clarinet descriptive names.

I quote 20 descriptions of sound quality excerpted from a marketing
catalog that advertised the complete family of clarinets from the
French/American musical instrument company, LeBlanc. The material
in quotes is exactly what the catalog said. I am not making this
up, nor did I edit the text in any way except where clearly
indicated and in brackets [].

1. The 1190S and 1190AS Opus models were said to have a "mature,
rich tone [that] possesses great evenness, directness and power."

2. The 1189 Concerto model "tends to produce a tone that is more
flexible and lyrical than the Opus." (A personal comment: notice
that the 1189 Concerto does not do this thing. It "tends" to do
this thing.)

3. The 1142 and 1142A Enternite models are said to have "a clear
tone."

4. The 1188 and 1188A Infinite models offer "a more youthful tone."

5. The LX2000 is said to have "a tone of remarkable clarity and
center, yet is flexible, deep and mellow. [It] responds instantly
with perfect tonal clarity."

6. The 1040, and 1040A are said to have "more definition in tone."

7. The 1020 is said to be "remarkable for its roundness of tone."

8. The 1176 is said to have "a rich, full-bodied tone quality."

9. The 1606S is said to deliver "a full-throated tone that Pete
Fountain describes as his famous `fat' sound."

10. The 1010 "possesses a full-bodied tone quality."

11. The 45 and 45A "[have] a beautiful, full-bodied tone quality
that is exceptionally flexible, responsive, and easy to control
throughout the clarinet range."

12. The 40 has "a full-bodied, rich, warm tone quality."

13. The 4 has "a beautiful tone quality."

14. The 7820 has a "warm, mellow tone quality."

15. The 1190EbS (an E-flat soprano clarinet) "has the deeper tonal
characteristics of the B-flat soprano clarinet. The high tones of
the E-flat are particularly fine, keeping their roundness and
depth, and are free of the thin, tinny and strident traits that
most people associate with the E-flat soprano clarinet." (A
personal comment: I know of no studies or surveys that would allow
anyone to make an assertion about what traits "most people
associate with the E-flat soprano clarinet." This appears to me to
be an invented marketing declaration that exists for the sole
purpose of praising one brand at the expense of another. It is, in
effect, meaningless marketing mumbo-jumbo and useless hype.)

16. The 1756S (or basset clarinet in A) has "an extended range to
low C providing fuller, richer tone for notes in this normally
weaker register." (Another personal comment: The assertion of a
"normally weaker register" on an instrument that has been generally
available for only a few years and, prior to that, had not been
heard by anyone for two centuries is, in my opinion, another
example of media hype that permits one marketer to say that "My
product is better" without having to resort to direct
confrontation. It is known as "setting up a straw man." I know of
no authority or any responsible authority who has ever suggested
that the lower range of a basset clarinet is a "normally weaker
register." If anything, one could argue that it is stronger and
more penetrating than any other register on the instrument.)

17. The 300 alto clarinet in E-flat has a "mellow, full-bodied
sound [that] blends well."

18. The 430S bass clarinet has "a beautiful dark, robust tone
quality."

19. The 350 contra-alto clarinet has a "deep, dark resonance and
clear tone quality."

20. And finally, the 340 contrabass "has a deep, rich, solid tone
quality."

What we have here is a manufacturer's suggestion that a clarinet's
sound character is capable of being described as mature, rich,
clear, youthful, flexible, deep, mellow, with definition, having
roundness, having remarkable clarity and center, is full-bodied,
full-throated, fat, flexible, responsive, warm, robust, dark,
beautiful, and solid, and that these personalities may be achieved
by the simple expedient of having a specific kind and model of
instrument. (It also creates an unbelieveable scenario; i.e., that
a prospective purchaser will know exactly the adjective that
describes what s/he wants and will immediately gravitate to the
clarinet that produces it by default.)

I add at once, that I have nothing against LeBlanc clarinets. They
are excellent instruments, and if I ever decide to play again, I
wouldn't mind trying and even owning one. But that said, I suggest
that the madness of these 20 clarinet sound-quality-describing-
statements is an absolute consequence of using terminology that has
no meaning whatsoever, outside of the mind of the person who said
it. The next player whose tone quality I like will be said by me
to have an "urgathomic" sound, and that is because I have a
conception of urgathomicness that I understand very well, and if
you don't then you are an uncultured dilletante and couldn't hold
a seat with the Ellis Island Opera Company.

The bottom line is this: outside of beautiful (with all kinds of
qualifications such as less beautiful or more beautiful, all of
which have no meaning outside my head) no adjective has a technical
foundation to describe the sound quality of a clarinet, because no
word has a universal standard for something as abstract, ephemeral,
and subjective as sound quality.

On this very list, I saw notes criticizing "the English clarinet
sound" (whatever that is, but it may be hangover anger having to do
with the Boston Tea Party) as "that ugly English sound." Now
whoever said that statement has every right to say it because I
believe that s/he is honest and hears English clarinet players in
that light. I think exactly the opposite.

And the point of the above paragraph is to nail down the notion
that no word or collection of words can or will ever be able to
describe the quality of clarinet sound that you want to achieve or
that you want your students to achieve.

It's just like pornography. (You see. I'm back to it.) You will
know a sound that pleases you when you hear it. And each person
need strive only for a sound that pleases him or her. If that
person, in arriving at that sound, thinks that it is "dark" or
"bright" or "robust" or "urgathomic" that is absolutely terrific!!
But please don't ask me to accept that what has been spoken of is
something that all clarinet players (or even any one other clarinet
player) have a universal understanding of.

I see all these people talking about getting that nice dark sound,
and there is often general agreement that player X has that nice
dark sound. What is being expressed is, in my opinion, a herd
mentality, so expertly exploited in the above-quoted LeBlanc
advertisement of their clarinets. If you don't talk dark and
bright sounds then you are simply not with it.

To be blunt, such descriptions are dangerous precisely because they
have no universal meaning or even a good definition, and this leads
individuals with perfectly satisfactory sounds to become insecure
because they don't hear what they do as being "dark." They hear it
as "gnofforific" or "zulptitudinous" and they are browbeaten into
the "dark" and "light" camp because everyone says that that is what
you need to have, and if don't have it (or admit to not knowing
what it is), then you can't possible play very well, or know
anything, or do anything, or be anyone. You must have a "tin ear."

So to answer the question that was asked: No. I will not give you
a word that I find acceptable for everyone. I can't. No one can.
And the striving insistance that the very word must be spoken
borders on medievalism when alchemists used words that had no
meaning for the sole purpose of intimidating the listener. I don't
suggest for a minute that anyone does this deliberately in order to
assume a mantle of unearned intellectualism, but Gilbert and
Sullivan expressed a similar notion brilliantly in a patter song:

"If this young man
expresses himself
in terms too deep for me,
why, what a most
particularly deep young man,
This deep young man
must be.

In effect, it is precisely because music appeals to the emotion
that one must guard against using just any vocabulary to talk about
it.

For the young students out there, it is perfectly OK for you to
say, "I don't understand what you mean when you ask me to play with
that kind of sound. I don't know what it is. I don't know how to
created it. And I wouldn't know it if I got it. But my sound,
though not yet beautiful to my ears, is getting better and better.
I'm pleased with it at this state of my clarinet playing
sophistication. So is my teacher, but s/he says it is urgathomic.
What's that? Next year, I'll be more pleased with it. Perhaps
I'll even be able to describe it as `fruity' even if I am the only
person in the world who will know what I'm talking about."

End of soap box lecture. I have responded to the question that was
asked of me and now, I'm going to sleep. I will have a blanket over
my head and my thumb will be in my mouth. Wake me at your peril.

=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
=======================================