Klarinet Archive - Posting 000723.txt from 1997/12

From: Dee Hays <deerich@-----.net>
Subj: Re: Practitioner vs. Musician
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 09:42:19 -0500

Neil Leupold wrote:

> .....An example: personally, I find Stanley Drucker's tone thin and edgy
> and thoroughly unappealing. It is sometimes hard for me, as a trained
> practitioner of playing the clarinet, to suspend my developed notion
> of what constitutes good clarinet tone and listen for the music which
> Stanley Drucker is making. Violinists, flautists, trumpeters, per-
> cussionists -- when these people hear Drucker play, they're quite
> impressed with the music he is making, and I feel it is a weakness
> on my part that my tool-based bias inhibits me from recognizing
> the music beyond the manner in which Drucker utilizes his particular
> tool.
>
> How do others feel about these ideas?

This will always be one of those nebulous areas. What is music to one
person will be noise to another. Unfortunately each of us will filter what
we hear through our own individual biases. No two of us will ever hear
quite the same thing. My own belief is that if the person is able to move
people with his music then he is a musician even if he leaves me totally
cold.

Dee Hays
deerich@-----.net
Canton, SD