Klarinet Archive - Posting 000980.txt from 2000/01

From: "Bryan Cholfin" <cranked@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Why?
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 00:55:37 -0500

I have a general question that I kind of want to ask because I've heard it
quite a few times in the past few weeks.

I'm 35 years old, I have a decent job in the book business, and a couple of
months ago I bought a clarinet. Kind of on a whim. After a little while of
practicing scales and finger exercises and so on, it became clear that there
was more wrong with the horn than just my technique (a cheap plastic
clarinet bought used). So I took it down to the local repair guy, and while
he's working on it, he asks me, What on Earth possessed you to try to teach
yourself clarinet? A reasonable question really, with no simple answer. Part
of it really, was just to be doing something non-book related.

But I think the question, or part of the question, I actually want to ask
here, is was there a particular player whose music was inspirational to your
deciding to be a clarinet player? For me, the answer ends up being Pee Wee
Russell. I discovered him almost by accident--as he's nearly forgotten
now--and partly I connected with the feeling almost of desperation that's in
his playing, playing like life itself depended on getting it all out, which
for Pee Wee it almost literally did.

So I was kind of wondering if anyone else had been struck the same kind of
way, and who did it to you.

--Bryan

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