Klarinet Archive - Posting 000361.txt from 1998/06

From: <DGross1226@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Please Use Your Snip/Cut Whatever!
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 21:54:37 -0400

Those of us on AOL really would appreciate it if you would re-post only enough
of the original post to make your reply make sense.

Thanks,

Don Gross
La Canada, California

p.s. Here's an example of what we Klarinet-Digest folks on AOL receive all the
time:

klarinet Digest 9 Jun 1998 15:49:24 -0000 Issue 165

Topics (messages 2204 through 2214):

Normandy Clarinet
2204 by: Dee Hays <deerich@-----.net>
2211 by: "Sherry Katz" <slkatz@-----.com>

Serious music and entertainment
2205 by: Rich & Tani Miller <musicians@-----.net>
2207 by: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
2208 by: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock=modern-languages-
library.oxford.ac.uk>
2210 by: <Maestro645@-----.com>
2212 by: <Maestro645@-----.com>

Noblet bass clarinet vs Buffet Crampon Prestige
2206 by: Fernando Jose Silveira <fersilv@-----.br>
2214 by: Gary_VanCott@-----.com

Plastic Clarinets Was: [kl] Re: Normandy Clarinet
2209 by: "Sherry Katz" <slkatz@-----.com>

LeBlanc Sonata vs Selmer Centered Tone vs Buffet E-12
2213 by: <Maestro645@-----.com>

Administrivia:

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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 06:53:44 -0500
From: Dee Hays <deerich@-----.net>
Subject: Re: [kl] Re: Normandy Clarinet

Jay D. Webler wrote:

> Tristan,
> Sorry about that. Jason is the one I was trying to answer. Guess I've been
reading to many
> 64th note turns lately. Thank you for your comments. It seems that I have
flare for getting people
> going. I am fairly new to this clarinet email stuff. I becoming convinced
that probably the best thing to say is
> either Yea. or Nay and leave it at that.
>
> Jay Webler
> webler @-----.net

I wouldn't say that. We all learn from good, healthy, vigorous discussions.
Hang in there!

Dee Hays
Canton, SD

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 08:36:01 -0700
From: "Sherry Katz" <slkatz@-----.com>
Subject: Re: [kl] Re: Normandy Clarinet

>I've been watching all this talk about Wood clarinets for students and all.
>I'm a high school student, and I thought I'd voice my thoughts... I've
been
>playing for almost 5 years, and I've always been stuck with this el cheapo
>Bundy Resonite. Just recently, I was able to borrow some kind of Selmer
and a
>Normandy 4 (both wood) clarinets from the school! I felt a BIG improvement
>over what I was already playing....and the instructor is enforcing getting
a
>better clarinet if possible

---
You have been playing long enough that it makes sense to get a good
instrument. Despite what I've said about preferring plastic, at some point
a player will get to a point where a good instrument makes a difference.
There's plenty of junk out there that's made of wood. Your Bundy is also
probably pretty out of adjustment by now. I also have one of those old
Bundy resonite cheapies and think that it is good for a lamp and not much
more. However, since it would melt it probably can't even be used for that.
On the other hand the newer plastic clarinets are a lot more fun to play.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 08:59:30 -0400
From: Rich & Tani Miller <musicians@-----.net>
Subject: Re: [kl] Serious music and entertainment

Umm, . . . Mozart is the quintessential example of classical period music, not
baroque. Handel is baroque. Bach is baroque too(I agree, Bach belongs in a
category unto himself). Beethoven kind of led the way into the romantic
period. His early music, though is very classical.

I think that the term "art music" works well to distinguish what we generally
refer to as classical music from popular music. Obviously all lines are not
distinctly drawn, especially in the 20th century. Using this term then allows
for the term "classical music" to refer to music during a specific period in
time (I'm sure that someone else remembers the dates from Music History).

The classification of music into historical periods serves several purposes.
It
allows us to identify trends in various societies that influenced the way that
music was composed. It also allows us to more easily see the changes.
Finally,
for me anyway, learning about music history can make us better educated
listeners and performers.

Lee Hickling wrote:

> Carl Schexnayder is bothered by
>
> > the use of "classical" to refer to all serious music, since "classical"
> refers
> >to a period in history.
>
> and I think he's right. I'm bothered too. Beethoven is classical. Handel
> and Mozart are not. They're baroque. Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov are
> not. They're romantic. Bach, of course, is uncategorizable. Stravinsky is
> not classical. He's an early modernist. And so on. But "periods" and dates
> are unreliable, because Borodin is clearly a romantic, born out of his
time..
>
> And as Carl says, there's no use fighting it because
> >using more precise terminology seems to confuse so many people.
>
> Jazz musicians have, or used to have, a more useful catchall term - legit
> music. I don't hear the word any more.
>
> Carl and I part company, though, when he says
>
> >Actually, I'd like to hear serious music referred to as "music" and any
form
> >of popular "music" referred to as "entertainment"! The only problem with
> >that for me is that "entertainment" is not very entertaining!
>
> Serious? I can't believe he's being serious. Maybe he's thinking about the
> stuff most radio stations play today, some of it by groups whose names one
> wouldn't want to mention on a family mail list.
>
> But to grab various other names, very various ones, at random ....
>
> Was Miles Davis a serious musician? or Benny Goodman? Duke Ellington? John
> Coltrane? Bix Beiderbecke?
> Were Rodgers and Hart serious composers? Lerner and Loewe? Kurt Weill and
> Ogden Nash? George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward?
> How about Wynton Marsalis and his new Blood on the Fields?
>
> All these people and many more like them can't be dismissed as mere
> entertainers. They are musicians of towering achievement. Entertaining?
> Yes, usually. Was Mozart "serious" when wrote Cosi Fan Tutti and The
> Marriage of Figaro, or was he, like Lerner and Loewe, out to entertain
> people and make a little money? As for me, I can listen to Prokoviev's
> Second Piano Concerto, or to Goodman's Sing Sing Sing, over and over, with
> the same pleasure each time. In my book, Anton Rubenstein and Thelonious
> Monk were both great pianists and composers. Monk, of course, was the more
> original of the two.
>
> Popular music can rise to the level of high art. Of anyone who isn't
> transported by the delicacy and verve of Beiderbecke's famous solo on I'm
> Coming, Virginia, or the bitter sweetness of Kurt Weill's haunting Speak
> Low, or delighted by the masterful matching of words to music in Lerner and
> Loewe's On The Street Where You Live (its bridge alone could serve as a
> texbook for lyricists), I'm tempted to say he must have no music in his
soul.
>
> But of course, neither Carl nor I is right, because there are no fixed
> esthetic standards. They are always in a state of flux, so there are no
> rights and wrongs when it comes to taste. I like it and I don't like it
> are equally non-debatable statements. De gustibus disputandum non est, as
> the old lady said when she kissed her cow.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> For additional commands, e-mail: klarinet-help@-----.org
> For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 09:57:17
From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subject: Re: [kl] Serious music and entertainment

Rich and Tani Miller object to my calling Mozart baroque:

>Mozart is the quintessential example of classical period music, not
>baroque. Handel is baroque. Bach is baroque too(I agree, Bach belongs in a
>category unto himself). Beethoven kind of led the way into the romantic
>period. His early music, though is very classical.
>
>I think that the term "art music" works well to distinguish what we generally
>refer to as classical music from popular music. Obviously all lines are not
>distinctly drawn, especially in the 20th century. Using this term then
allows
>for the term "classical music" to refer to music during a specific period in
>time (I'm sure that someone else remembers the dates from Music History).
>
>The classification of music into historical periods serves several
purposes. It
>allows us to identify trends in various societies that influenced the way
that
>music was composed. It also allows us to more easily see the changes.
Finally,
>for me anyway, learning about music history can make us better educated
>listeners and performers.

Well ... In my book, if Handel is baroque, Mozart is too. But while I don't
disagree with what Rich and Tani say, or what a couple of off-list messages
said, I don't fully agree either.

The trouble with hard and fast definitions of artistic periods, genres or
categories is that their principal use, almost their only use, is in
teaching. Academics seldom agree, though, and even more to the point, what
they do is define their criteria first, and then make reality agree with
them. (I am about to do the same thing)

Bach, for instance, wrote in the baroque period, but from the standpoint of
his harmonic originality, and to a lesser extent his formal innovations, he
towers so high above baroque that he cannot be pigeonholed on the basis of
when he lived. Western European music did not catch up with some of the
things Bach did for well over a hundred years.

Another problem is that there is a seamless continuum in the musical art
that makes drawing lines a very risky venture. Mozart and Handel can fairly
be lumped with Beethoven, Brahms and their lesser contemporaries as
classicists, if musical forms are a major criterion - but in terms of their
harmonic practice and melodic traits they are still baroque. Their themes
are normally balanced, in multiples of two measures, and their chord
progressions are simple, predictable and almost invariably resolved to the
tonic. Call them high baroque, perhaps, the culmination of baroque.

Drawing lines is not really possible. It's an exercise in rationalization.
What label you affix to a composer depends on the structure of your schema.
Mozart idolized Papa Handel, and copied a lot of his best moves. He
surpassed his idol in some ways, but they are more alike than they are
different. Beethoven can equally well be called the first great romantic,
although I would award that title to Borodin, and there are other
contenders. The young Beethoven began as an assiduous Mozart and Handel
imitator. His late quartets and piano concerti, and his last symphony -
melodically and harmonically, and in some respects formally - foreshadow
many of the traits of the high romantics. And take Dvorak. Is he a
romantic, or an early modernist? Most of his work is clearly
folky-romantic, but in his last years he wrote a mong other things a cello
concerto that rivals anything by the young Prokoviev or Stravinsky in its
modernity, complexity and harmonic daring - to say nothing of its
difficulty for the soloist.

The classification I used is unabashedly subjective, but so are all the
others, unless one adheres to a strict dating of periods. That's useful in
making lesson plans for Music Appreciation 101, but apart from that I think
it's ridiculous. My categories are weighted toward an analysis of harmonic
structure and thematic material, and put less importance on musical forms.
They're as useful as anybody else's, more useful in some ways, and they are
defensible,

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>
Cobb Island, MD 20625
301-259-4483

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 16:15:12 +0100 (BST)
From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subject: Re: [kl] Serious music and entertainment

There are some highly contentious points in this.
1) The polyphonic style of Bach with which we are most familiar was
thought
extremely old-fashioned in his own day - and it was. Bach in this style
might well be thought of as the last *Renaissance* composer.
2) The Dvorak Lee knows is clearly quite a different person from the one
whose music I know. Culd we have some more details?
3) Mozart certainly did value Handel highly, but Handel here seems to
have
got confused with Haydn.
4) Mozart was around 3 years old when Handel died. (Haydn, of course,
outlived Mozart).
5) It would be interesting to know how many composers have really thought
of
their music as based on "chord progressions". Apart from jazz and various
crossover composers, I suspect the number is extremely small.
Roger Shilcock

On Tue, 9
Jun 1998, Lee Hickling wrote:

> Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 09:57:17
> From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] Serious music and entertainment
>
> Rich and Tani Miller object to my calling Mozart baroque:
>
> >Mozart is the quintessential example of classical period music, not
> >baroque. Handel is baroque. Bach is baroque too(I agree, Bach belongs in
a
> >category unto himself). Beethoven kind of led the way into the romantic
> >period. His early music, though is very classical.
> >
> >I think that the term "art music" works well to distinguish what we
generally
> >refer to as classical music from popular music. Obviously all lines are
not
> >distinctly drawn, especially in the 20th century. Using this term then
> allows
> >for the term "classical music" to refer to music during a specific period
in
> >time (I'm sure that someone else remembers the dates from Music History).
> >
> >The classification of music into historical periods serves several
> purposes. It
> >allows us to identify trends in various societies that influenced the way
> that
> >music was composed. It also allows us to more easily see the changes.
> Finally,
> >for me anyway, learning about music history can make us better educated
> >listeners and performers.
>
> Well ... In my book, if Handel is baroque, Mozart is too. But while I don't
> disagree with what Rich and Tani say, or what a couple of off-list messages
> said, I don't fully agree either.
>
> The trouble with hard and fast definitions of artistic periods, genres or
> categories is that their principal use, almost their only use, is in
> teaching. Academics seldom agree, though, and even more to the point, what
> they do is define their criteria first, and then make reality agree with
> them. (I am about to do the same thing)
>
> Bach, for instance, wrote in the baroque period, but from the standpoint of
> his harmonic originality, and to a lesser extent his formal innovations, he
> towers so high above baroque that he cannot be pigeonholed on the basis of
> when he lived. Western European music did not catch up with some of the
> things Bach did for well over a hundred years.
>
> Another problem is that there is a seamless continuum in the musical art
> that makes drawing lines a very risky venture. Mozart and Handel can fairly
> be lumped with Beethoven, Brahms and their lesser contemporaries as
> classicists, if musical forms are a major criterion - but in terms of their
> harmonic practice and melodic traits they are still baroque. Their themes
> are normally balanced, in multiples of two measures, and their chord
> progressions are simple, predictable and almost invariably resolved to the
> tonic. Call them high baroque, perhaps, the culmination of baroque.
>
> Drawing lines is not really possible. It's an exercise in rationalization.
> What label you affix to a composer depends on the structure of your schema.
> Mozart idolized Papa Handel, and copied a lot of his best moves. He
> surpassed his idol in some ways, but they are more alike than they are
> different. Beethoven can equally well be called the first great romantic,
> although I would award that title to Borodin, and there are other
> contenders. The young Beethoven began as an assiduous Mozart and Handel
> imitator. His late quartets and piano concerti, and his last symphony -
> melodically and harmonically, and in some respects formally - foreshadow
> many of the traits of the high romantics. And take Dvorak. Is he a
> romantic, or an early modernist? Most of his work is clearly
> folky-romantic, but in his last years he wrote a mong other things a cello
> concerto that rivals anything by the young Prokoviev or Stravinsky in its
> modernity, complexity and harmonic daring - to say nothing of its
> difficulty for the soloist.
>
> The classification I used is unabashedly subjective, but so are all the
> others, unless one adheres to a strict dating of periods. That's useful in
> making lesson plans for Music Appreciation 101, but apart from that I think
> it's ridiculous. My categories are weighted toward an analysis of harmonic
> structure and thematic material, and put less importance on musical forms.
> They're as useful as anybody else's, more useful in some ways, and they are
> defensible,
>
> Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>
> Cobb Island, MD 20625
> 301-259-4483
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> For additional commands, e-mail: klarinet-help@-----.org
> For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org
>
>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:33:58 EDT
From: <Maestro645@-----.com>
Subject: Re: [kl] Serious music and entertainment

In a message dated 6/9/98, Lee Hickling wrote:
> Beethoven is classical. Handel
> and Mozart are not. They're baroque. Tschaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov are
> not. They're romantic. Bach, of course, is uncategorizable. Stravinsky is
> not classical. He's an early modernist. And so on. But "periods" and dates
> are unreliable, because Borodin is clearly a romantic, born out of his
time..
>
>

I believe Mozart is Classical. That is what I have been taught all my life.
His music has the same kind of feel as Haydn, in some ways, and Haydn was also
classical. Bach is pure Baroque. He, of course, was the master of polyphony,
and polyhony was used extensively in the Baroque era, to name one example.
Basso continuo was used in Baroque times, and it disappeared in the Classical
era, although I recall a few EARLY classical forms use Basso continuo, but
still the style was much more classical than Baroque.
Chris Hoffman

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:34:37 EDT
From: <Maestro645@-----.com>
Subject: Re: [kl] Serious music and entertainment

Also, Beethoven could classify into early Romantiscism in his later years.
Chris Hoffman

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 10:17:00 -0300
From: Fernando Jose Silveira <fersilv@-----.br>
Subject: Re: [kl] Noblet bass clarinet vs Buffet Crampon Prestige

You can't forget you are comparing a old instrument with a new instrument.
It can do diference. With the time I belive that the Buffet will open the
sound and, maybe, with a reed found to play on Buffet can became the sond
diferent(maybe warmer then Noblet).
But, like I've been saying here, Noblet is a very good instrument, and, if
you fell it is better then Buffet, hold it!!!

Good luck

Fernando
======================================
Fernando Jose Silveira
Principal Clarinet - National Symphony - Brazil
fersilv@-----.br
Phone/Fax (55)(21)716-2248

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:48:15 -0700
From: Gary_VanCott@-----.com
Subject: Re: [kl] Noblet bass clarinet vs Buffet Crampon Prestige

I have a new Buffet Prestige Alto Clarinet model 1503. In this design,
Buffet has abandoned the "traditional" double register key mechanism (with
the lower key opening on middle B-C#). There still is a double mechanism,
but the lower key opens only for the throat Bb.

This instrument has four resonance keys. (I am tempted to say "instead" but
I don't have any factual information on why these design choices were
made). Almost all of the notes in the clarion register sound really good on
this instrument (There is a resonance key for the clarion D, for example).
The only exception is the middle B which does not sound as good as it did
on the previous model. I also have a problem getting the high C to speak
consistently, but maybe that is just me.

Roger Garrett (who is off the list for a while) said that the new model
Buffet bass clarinet was supposed to be out this month. I don't know if
that has happened. I had been told some months ago by a B&H sales rep that
it wasn't due out until the end of the year or early next year. It will be
interesting to see if some of these features are incorporated into the new
bass clarinet model.

Gary Van Cott
Las Vegas, NV

"Henk Raven" <hraven@-----.net> on 06/09/98 12:34:08 AM

Please respond to klarinet@-----.org

cc: (bcc: Gary VanCott/NHIN)
Subject: [kl] Noblet bass clarinet vs Buffet Crampon Prestige

One week ago I went out to a dealer to buy myself a bass clarinet with low
C.
I wanted to buy the Buffet Crampon Prestige 1193-2 .
I already own a Noblet (low Eb), so I took this to compare the sounds.
To my suprise, the Noblet sounded more open and direct, and had had a more
even reaction.
The Buffet has a double octave mechanism. This helps to open up b and c
with
octave but works against the d which sounds very muffled. This might be
the
reason why the Buffet can be ordered with extra resonance keys on certain
notes.
Even the shop owner admitted that the Noblet sounded more direct and
warmer.
In my opinion the extension to low C is working against tone openness. I
experienced the same effect on baritone sax going down to low A instead of
Bb. The bell is further away from some notes and this works against them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
For additional commands, e-mail: klarinet-help@-----.org
For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 08:28:04 -0700
From: "Sherry Katz" <slkatz@-----.com>
Subject: Plastic Clarinets Was: [kl] Re: Normandy Clarinet

>|
>|This student is very young and has only played for 6 months. I believe
>that this would be an excellent
>|instrument for this student and keeps him away from plastic.
--->
>But, I would like to say that your points about this student being new and
>young really wish you would have gone the plastic road. Plastic horns are
>much much easier to maintain, can withstand (well most can) the rigors of
>childhood (I'd like to see how a wood clarinet handles being accidentally
>dropped into a swimming pool), stand up to horrible technique and bad
>maintenence, and this list goes on and on...
>
-----
I commented on this already, but I'd like to elaborate. I think that
plastic clarinets are better than wood for student instruments. I have been
playing off and on for almost 40 years, but I still like a plastic clarinet
for situations where I am concerned that I might damage my wood instrument.
My main clarinet is a Yamaha YCL-72, but recently because I am joining a
community marching band and because my YCL-52 needs to go into the shop for
some work, I got a YCL-20.

The YCL-20 is a lot of fun to play. The keywork is great. The sound is not
bad at all, not the YCL-72, but one of its main attributes is that it
doesn't project as well - which is a big advantage when practicing. It is
also considerably lighter - which is better for young children. And the
intonation is excellent. It is actually better than the intonation was on
my older Normandy.

This mailing list has gone round and round that the attributes of wood
really don't have much to do with the sound, its the quality of the work.
I've tried a number of the newer plastic clarinets - including the Bundy 300
which had great sound but I don't like the keywork (just personal
preference) - and I think a plastic clarinet is a better choice for a
student. In fact I think plastic clarinets for the most part are better
than inexpensive wooden ones. They offer: light weight (important for a
child), durability, the ability to be played outside, decent sound, and good
intonation. Once the child has shown that he or she is serious about the
instrument and demonstrates staying power, then it makes sense to look for a
used professional level instrument.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:41:39 EDT
From: <Maestro645@-----.com>
Subject: Re: [kl] LeBlanc Sonata vs Selmer Centered Tone vs Buffet E-12

In a message dated 6/9/98, Shouryu wrote:
> I will tell you that the E-12 is a nice stick, and so is the
> Sonata (Hoffman is probably composing an email about it right now singing
> about how it can also cut french fries in seventeen different shapes...but
> all LeBlanc clarinets do that, we know).

Not only that, but it also makes fantastic pasta! ;o)
Chris Hoffman

------------------------------

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