Klarinet Archive - Posting 000132.txt from 1999/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Good and bad, and an audition story
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 15:13:33 -0500

While I was writing the response I made to Ed, about the Mozart
concerto as an audition piece, what appears below kept trying to get
said, so I thought I'd post it separately.

I don't have much experience of clarinet playing in America, aside from
my contact with the good players. My *impression* is that 'bad' players
in America are 'generally' bad in a different way from the way 'bad'
players are bad in England and Europe -- but I might be completely
wrong.

My impression (or perhaps it's a prejudice) had its genesis when I was
in my third year as an undergraduate at Cambridge, and sitting on the
audition panel for CUMS, the university orchestra, of which I was first
clarinet. We needed a new second clarinet, and there was an obvious
candidate: my great friend David Marr, later to become a famous
neuroscientist, to work on vision at MIT and redefine the subject, and
to die, alas, of leukaemia at 35. David was full of music, which he
expressed in a characteristically flamboyant way.

Also in the audition was a young American, who made a good sound, much
more consistent than David. He was a more disciplined player all round,
the sort of thing, we thought, that would be more appropriate for a
second clarinet.

After much agonising, we decided -- *I* decided, really -- to give the
post to the American. I have to say that at that time, I was also quite
committed to making the *right* choice, morally, on the basis of the
audition. I've learnt, since.

(As an aside, David had made an agreement with his supervisor that if he
didn't get into CUMS, he would spend the time designing and implementing
a simple neural network. Since his later work was concerned with the
possibilities and limitations of such devices, before he moved on to a
more general viewpoint, perhaps my decision might have been of more
moment than I realised. But probably not.)

Anyway, the other guy turned out not to be really any good. When we got
him into the orchestra, he was just too inflexible. He always made the
same sound, and didn't try to blend with what was around him, or even
understand why that might be a good idea under certain circumstances.
David's way of being 'bad' would have been much more tractable, because
he understood, fundamentally, the point of what we were doing.

So, to summarise what I'm getting at, I think we, like you, have 'bad'
players who play 'badly', potentially good players who play badly (like
David, at that time), bad players who play 'quite well', like the
American above, and finally, some good players who play well.

I *think*, though, that you probably have a slightly different ratio of
the three first groups.

My 'theory' about this is that it's to do with your style of teaching.
It has the effect of making your 'bad' players tend to play better, if
you like, without necessarily making it more probable that they may see
the light, and become 'potentially good' players.

We don't really have a style of teaching. (I'm trying to develop one;-)

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

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