Klarinet Archive - Posting 000852.txt from 1997/11

From: Terri Kimiko Oda <as648@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: two is company, three's a pain in the ears
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 19:10:35 -0500

Just a note:

I was talking to a beginner trumpet the other day when i went to rehearse
wind quintet music with some friends, and she was commenting that the
clarinets in her class are always better than the rest of the group. Since
her comment was half a question, I tried to explain: clarinet is a fairly
easy instrument to get a sound out of and the tuning isn't too erratic... so
much easier than, say, a horn, that many beginners never bother to really
work at it and get the sort of good sound that they ought to be working for
before they start playing important parts in an ensemble... so though the
clarinets may be better at getting the notes, she'll probably find (later
on) that she knows really good flute players, trumpet players, timpanists,
but may be hard pressed to find a good clarinetist among her friends.

Maybe it's the illusion that beginner players get (that they're better than
the rest of their music classes) that means some never learn and practice as
much as they probably should... This seems to be true of my school groups in
junior ensembles... (by the time you get to a community band or, if you're
lucky, even a senior school band, these are the clarinets who *did* bother
to practice and do care about what they're doing. :) And it shows! Maybe
not the same class as a well-known orchestra [I don't know of any community
orchestras to compare], but still not something to scoff at out of hand.)

Does anyone else get this impression?

On another side note, isn't it awful the kinds of instruments school kids
have to learn on? This girl's trumpet looks like it's been run over or
dropped off a high building... it's a wonder she can get a tolerable tone
out of it, and I doubt she'd ever be able to produce a really good sound
with an instrument that battered... I remember the clarinet I learned on in
grade school: a bundy, partially, with other parts mixed in at random over
the years, no cleaner until I went digging through the back room to find
one... the school had a clarinet with a silver-lined bore that had turned
green from neglect...
. . .. ... ..... ........ ............. ....................._=_v
Terri Kimiko Oda || spot@-----.com
v_@-----.