Klarinet Archive - Posting 000849.txt from 1999/10

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] should the embouchure move?
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 21:09:44 -0400

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999 08:50:15 -0500, daniel.paprocki@-----.edu said:

> Should the embouchure move with playing in different registers? I've
> heard arguments on both sides. If so, why? or if not, why not?

As will be no surprise at all to anyone who has read several posts I
made last year here, about 'shoulds', I find this sort of question
highly naive, misleading, and therefore well worth challenging.

David Niethamer made, I would also say unsurprisingly, the intelligent
response, namely, 'yes and no'.

It all depends on what you want. We have many variables at our disposal
when we play the clarinet: air pressure, embouchure pressure, tongue
position, embouchure position, and more, including choice of reed and
mouthpiece. All of these, in combination, determine the output, not
only for one note, but for intervals, and groups of intervals. The
tonal variety within a group of intervals (sometimes called a 'passage',
the notes of which may lie in different registers, or within the same
register) is what determines, and enables us to produce, a given musical
effect.

Given that there are many possible musical effects that we may want in
such a situation, how can anyone possibly say what we should or should
not do?

If you're a director of a play, say, you discuss with your actors *what
result you want*. You don't tell them how they should move their
tongues and lips when they speak. Or, if you do (most unlikely, I would
say), you do it *face to face*, in particular cases, and not in
generally dogmatic pronouncements.

Please excuse my frankness (or actually, in several cases, don't), but
promoting such an approach is simply bullshit. And there's a good deal
too much of it here, in my opinion.

I have talked to a number of professional clarinettists -- or rather,
professional musicians who play the clarinet -- in the US. Several of
them tell me that they cannot read this list for any length of time,
because they become too angry when they do.

Perhaps this is why.

(Of course, you write what you must;-)

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

... Meandering to a different drummer.

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