Klarinet Archive - Posting 000411.txt from 2000/01

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: RE: [kl] Old Style Clarinets
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 13:28:19 -0500

On Wed, 12 Jan 2000 09:48:32 -0800, kevinfay@-----.com said:

> -- obviously, the fingering is quite different -- lots of
> cross-fingering etc. There's also a difference in tone quality. Is
> that primarily due to the change in instrument, or a conscious
> decision to blow differently? How does one know what tone to aim for?

It's a difficult question to answer categorically.

The instruments, because of the different construction, have a different
sound -- more noticeable in the concert hall than on recordings. In
general they're less powerful in a live concert -- but that doesn't
mean, paradoxically, that they don't communicate intensity. In fact, in
some ways the reduced power can actually *help* communicate intensity,
particularly in the case of an orchestra.

On the clarinet, mostly people use mouthpieces that take smaller reeds
and have closer lays, because those were the characteristics of the
mouthpieces of the time. But then, as with modern instruments, you have
to learn to play the instrument appropriately in context. Here, because
you're dealing with the different sound-world of the other period
instruments -- like fortepianos, and string instruments set up with
lower bridges, gut strings and lighter bows, and hand horns etc -- it
means that the sound that you judge to be acceptable is a bit different.

So the different process generates a different path, and I'm sure that
the end result is that we do blow a bit differently. But I don't
personally start out with that as a goal -- unless I find it useful.

For example, it can help control the reed to hold the instrument more
horizontally (the embouchure control is nearer the tip) and choose
therefore a slightly different style of reed to make it work. Such a
solution might help to explain both contemporary drawings and also the
lack of a thumbrest.

But if it didn't work according to my lights, I'd try something else --
just as I would on a modern instrument.

> -- what changes in embouchure are used, if any?

I've mentioned one, above, but people differ.

> -- do you find it difficult to "switch back" to modern instruments,
> or is it like doubling on saxophone (which I find to cause few or no
> problems)?

I've consistently found it difficult to play satisfactorily on standard
'French-style' mouthpieces on my modern instrument ever since my first
experience of playing for an extended time on the old instrument. So in
one sense, I do find it difficult.

On the other hand, an appropriate modern instrument with a different
sort of mouthpiece (more similar to the old one) responds more reliably
than the old instrument.

Just recently -- or rather, some time ago, actually -- Gregory Smith was
good enough to send me some of his mouthpieces, because I wanted to try
to see if I could 'go back' to a more normal mouthpiece. But I haven't
succeeded in doing so yet.

He's been very patient about my keeping them for some time, but I'm
beginning to suspect that the experiment may not work in the end, even
though his mouthpieces are obviously very good of their kind.

> -- do the limitations of the instrument lead to any insights on the
> pieces themselves? Said another way, do some of the quirks of key
> selection that seem random to today's players "make sense" given the
> old horns?

Technically, not really. I do think the fact that you're forced to be
creative about fingerings on the old instrument sometimes means that
you're more willing to do that on the modern instrument.

'Having to' play a forked fingering may lead you to a musical solution
that you wouldn't have considered otherwise. But equally, you may learn
to play the forked fingering so that it gives a less 'veiled' sound over
the course of time, seemingly quite naturally.

One of the most striking things about learning something new like
playing a really unfamiliar instrument, or even learning to touchtype,
is how quickly what you have to do becomes automatic. (You wouldn't be
able to achieve the slope of the touchtyping learning curve from scratch
on a clarinet, of course; you'd need to be something of an accomplished
player to start with.)

Naturally, it can't happen over a period of hours; but over a period of
days and weeks the problems really start to yield, provided -- and, of
course, this is the proviso that counts -- provided you have a clear
idea of what you ultimately want within a given context, and a clear
perception of how what you are currently doing differs from what you
ultimately want.

After my first serious go at playing the old clarinet, I said to
someone, "really, what's required is the willingness to go on being bad
for long enough." And you have to read that from both ends: it's not
just that you don't give up playing the thing -- you don't give up
*being bad at it*. (In other words, you don't lower your standards,
which after all is the most important part of doing anything.)

> -- finally, how on Earth do the bassoonists survive with no/fewer
> keys?

The short answer is, dunno.

But another answer is that some simpler fingerings work better. Also --
and this is true on the clarinet too -- because you don't have
complicated key connections you can occasionally have 4 or 5 different
acceptable fingerings of slightly different pitch and response for one
note.

For example, if I have to play an A in the clarinet register, I can put
down a finger of my right hand to lower it slightly in pitch, if I need
to, without changing embouchure or address. You couldn't do that on a
modern clarinet.

And it's much simpler music than what we mostly have to play on modern
instruments.

Doug Sears wrote, in part:

> I've been wondering if there also might be some ways that the
> clarinets of Mozart's and Beethoven's times might have been easier to
> play. Arthur Benade wrote, "many of the clarinets before about 1820
> ... were able, in a relatively easy way, to perform the tremendous
> leaps and bounds that were common in the lighter-weight music of the
> time." (Benade's NX Clarinet: Its Genesis, The Clarinet, Feb.-Mar.
> 1994). Can players of early clarinets confirm this claim?

It does seem to be more flexible in this regard, yes. Also, staccato
can sometimes be a lot easier.

But it can also be a lot harder, if the reed is less responsive.

Effective staccato is not just a question of tongue action. It's also a
function of how quickly the reed starts to vibrate when the tongue
releases it, and that's influenced by the reed/instrument relationship.
If notes are less satisfactory acoustically, they respond less promptly,
and that can slow staccato markedly.

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

.... Writers do it on paper...

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