Klarinet Archive - Posting 000810.txt from 1999/01

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Subjective and Objective
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 22:54:50 -0500

On Sun, 17 Jan 1999 12:52:35 -0500, klarinet@-----.net said:

> I just wanted to elaborate on subjective and objective elements which
> dictate our selection of clarinet and add a little reflection on the
> relationship of clarinets and pedagogy for your consideration.

I'm very much in agreement with your project here, Tom. I think it's
important to be clear whether we are saying something objective about an
instrument, or whether we are expressing an opinion as to whether we
like it. I thought that your analogy in the previous post that I
applauded, the one that went:

> Whether chocolate cake or lemon pie is best depends upon the
> subjective tastes of the individual, but the cake and pie, however,
> are, objectively, what they are. If this were not true a person would
> never had the reasonable expectation that his tastes might be
> satisfied; he might pick up a lemon pie and find it tastes like
> strawberry-rhubarb cobbler, or begin testing an R-13 and hear sounds
> he associates with a Rossi small bore clarinet (a very good
> instrument).

...captured that very well. (As an Englishman, I don't know know what
strawberry-rhubarb cobbler is, but let that pass. Wouldn't
raspberry-rhubarb cobbler be even better, though...:-)

> The individual clarinet is objective; it is what it is.

Yup. You do something to it, it responds. If you then do the *same*
thing to it, it responds in the same way.

> We come to the clarinet with certain needs. Some of these are
> subjective; that is, related to us in a unique manner. Some of these
> things are more objective.

This paragraph confuses me, so let's leave it aside, for the moment.

> What we might desire in an instrument regarding color, shape, tuning
> docility, general blowing resistance and flexibility are very
> individual.

Yup. And 'desire' is the crucial word here.

> These things are difficult talk about, and telling someone they are
> wrong, that they don't want a free blowing clarinet is like telling
> someone they are wrong, they don't really like chocolate cake.
> (Personally, I think I might shoot the man who tried to tell me
> that;-))

These things or dimensions: colour, shape, tuning docility, blowing
resistance and flexibility, are surely in one sense objective properties
of the instrument, in that a player finding that an instrument, A,
stands at a particular place with respect to these dimensions would
find, on playing other instruments B, C etc, and then returning to
instrument A, that it still stood at that place, for him.

And even different players tend to agree more or less on these sorts of
dimensions. I'll come back to that in a minute.

Without wanting to make too much of it, I think it's a mistake to say
that because it's difficult to give scientific definitions of these
dimensions, they aren't objective. It's difficult to define chocolate
cake scientifically, too. (We can say how to make it, but that's not
the same thing.)

Whether we like instrument A because of its qualities *is* however
subjective, like whether we like chocolate cake. And going on, *that we
want to say we like* it is objective once more. As you say, no one can
tell me that I don't like chocolate cake.

> What, then is left?

This also confuses me, so perhaps it goes with the other one.

The idea I think you're trying to get at in these two bits that confuse
me -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- is that with regard to some
dimensions, good players tend to be in agreement, and with regard to
some other dimensions, good players exhibit some disagreement.

But we need here to distinguish between two sorts of disagreement: one
sort of disagreement which occurs whent the instruments is given a
different assessment by players P1 and P2; and another sort of
disagreement where players P1 and P2 agree about the assessment, but one
likes it and the other doesn't.

Consider: I say this chocolate cake is bitter. You say, no it isn't.

Compare with: I don't like this chocolate cake, it's bitter. You say,
Oh, but I like my chocolate bitter.

Now, the sort of disagreement you want to consider, is, I think, the
first sort. You want to say, there are some sorts of judgement that
good players might disagree on, but let's leave those aside.

You want to say, let's instead look at dimensions such that if good
player P1 says that an instrument has such-and-such a quality, then it's
quite likely that good player P2 will say it has that quality too. And
this agreement persists *even if P1 likes it being so and P2 not*, or
vice versa. Is that right?

> What is objective and in some degree quantifiable in an instrument?
> What can most skilled clarinetists agree upon, whatever their tastes?

So this seems to fit in with what I'm assuming, as do the things that
you list below.

But, I've deliberately tried to put aside the notion that these things
you list below are all things that everybody would require in an
instrument. I hope that reflects your intentions accurately. They are
however qualities of an instrument that all good players would
recognise.

On the other hand, we *might* want them -- in fact several of them look
like clarinet heaven! Let's see.

> 1. Whether the instrument responds evenly without the need to adjust
> embouchure or air pressure over the middle and high break.

> 2. Whether the tone color and shape are consistent from register to
> register and hand to hand without having to fudge embouchure, air or
> tongue position.

> 3. Whether the tone color, pitch and shape remain stable in dynamic
> changes.

> 4. How much "hold" there is in the clarinet to help maintain pitch
> shape tuning so the embouchure can relax.

> 5. General tuning tendencies. (Players might get some variation in
> results here, but the general contour of tuning relationships will
> remain basically the same; ie, if the clarion "G" or third space "C"
> is sharp for one skilled player it will be the same for another; if
> the high "F" is flat, it will be flat for both, and so on, with
> perhaps the degree of sharpness or flatness varying somewhat due to
> particulars in voicing, mouthpiece/reed set up and tone production
> subtleties.

> 6. Whether you can slur from note to note with no embouchure/air
> exchange and get instant, predictable response and a matching dynamic,
> tone color and shape.

> Notice here, I am insisting upon the clarinet being played correctly
> here (which leaves a certain room for a plurality). Playing the
> clarinet with bad tone production and voicing habits and all this
> information goes in the toilet anyway.

> There is more, but let's leave it at that.

So, I agree that all these are objective facts about an instrument that
good players would agree on. It's unlikely that player P1 would say,
this instrument under category 5 behaves like this, unless I compensate;
while player P2 disagrees.

> Now I would like to bring up this image of playing an instrument as
> being similar to a relationship which results in marriage. When you
> first meet a person your first impression is how they look. This
> might be analogous to the tone of the instrument. Tone is what first
> attracts us to a clarinet.

> How a person looks may attract you to them initially . But how they
> act, how easy they are to get along with is what really determines how
> long you remain with them or how happy you really are in the
> relationship.

> The list above is concerned with those things which are more or less
> quantifiable, and are analogous to "how easy the clarinet will be to
> get along with."

Well, here we part company a little bit. And your analogy helps me to
explain why. (I also have a particular background, of playing period
instruments, that makes it spring to mind.)

There are several ways you can hear 'easy to get along with' in human
relationships. Some people, and not just young people at the beginning
of their marriages, either, might say that that was rather a boring way
of looking at a relationship. They might say that *their* relationships
were very turbulent, full of passion and argument, but nevertheless very
exciting and creative.

Of course, we could *include* that in our definition of 'easy to get
along with', but you can see that that would be stretching it a little.
And when we turn to instruments, it can really be true that I want to
say, well, my boxwood clarinet is a pain, it's always giving me trouble,
that note isn't reliable, why won't it stay in tune, and so on. And it
can feel a real relief to get back onto a modern instrument.

Nevertheless, there's something about playing on the boxwood one.... I
dunno, I just love her.

This doesn't alter the value of what you are saying, by the way. It's
important that instruments respond well, and consistently.

And I know very well that I'd be completely lost if I had to try to play
Daphnis on a boxwood instrument <shudder>.

It's just that we have to be careful not to slip from saying that all
those things, 1 through 6, are objective facts that we should consider
when we are trying an instrument, to saying that if an instrument has
those, it's necessarily an instrument that serves us better.

But I'm sure that you more or less agree with this anyway.

> Tone itself is largly a matter of conditioning. I find that many
> clarinet players either ignore this matter or are to some degree
> unaware of it.

> The fact is, just as two people can be very different and both be
> beautiful, two tones can be very different and both be beautiful. So
> the tendency to say, "This new model has a different tone from my
> clarinet (to which I am not fully aware I have been condition and
> have come to erroneously regard it as an absolute)....... so it must
> be BAD different.".....this tendency needs education. The question of
> tone should not be , "Is it different?" but "It is also beautiful?"

You mean, "Is it also beautiful?" I'm sure.

> If two girls you know are both attractive which one do you ultimately
> want to be around? The one you get along with best.

Usually:-) (You see why I wanted to put my oar in, above.)

> I would like to encourage players, at the outset of choosing an
> instrument, to take the rose colored glasses off, and develop methods
> of testing which gives them real information about the more
> quantifiable, objective aspects of the clarinet, some of which (but
> not all) I mentioned above.

Yes, I agree with that, definitely. And I'll just..

[snip]

...a lot of other stuff I agree with, too, to save space.

> Finally, one might reflect upon the matter of pedagogy; the clarinet
> is played in all sorts of wierd ways. One might exclaim in this age
> of radical relativism, "How can anyone say one way is better than
> another?"

> On one hand, you cannot.

Yes. They said Bjorn Borg played tennis rather badly:-)

> On the other hand, you can say that playing a certain way with a
> certain technique will cause someone to play this or that area out of
> tune, cause these notes to spread, go very sharp with you play softly,
> play flat when you play loud, force you to change from one area to
> another if you care to play both areas in tune, cause this area not to
> speak, and on and on.

Yes.

> In other words, a common and objectively defined pedagogy of tone
> production cannot be defined in relation to the subjective tastes of
> each player, but it can be defined in relationship to the nature of
> the clarinet itself when looked upon as a sound making machine,
> subject to the objective laws of physics and acoustics.

I'd want to say, up to a point. Transmitting a subtle skill like
playing an instrument is a delicate job that I'd want to say edges into
the realm of the indefinable. That doesn't mean it can't be done, it
means that it needs to be done with our eyes and ears open all the time.
'Definition' sounds much too fixed for my liking.

[snip]

> With the acoustical perfection of clarinets and the mechanical
> perfection of tone production based on objective principles in physics
> (for embouchure, tongue, air, reed, mouthpiece, and the clarinet
> itself are in reality simple machines which must work interdependently
> to create sound in all its' aspects according to the laws of physics)
> the clarinet can then enter into a stage of authentic developmental
> maturity.

I think 'simple' is too strong. There's a lot of complexity there that
we don't understand. But we can make progress.

Thank you for your good work up to now.

As I said, I look forward to trying your instruments.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

Believing Truth is staring at the sun
Which but destroys the power that could perceive.

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