Klarinet Archive - Posting 000861.txt from 2000/05

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Tone -- a neurological approach
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 21:04:35 -0400

At 06:08 AM 5/18/2000 -0700, Paul Miller wrote:
>Bill --
>
>If you ask any five clarinet teachers to demonstrate a "dark" sound, four of
>them will oblige, and the other will begin to discuss why it's wrong to use
>"dark" to describe tone color. There will certainly be differences between
>those demonstrations, but I think that there is a general consensus when it
>comes to tone color. Even you probably know what to do when a conductor
>asks for a darker tone in a given passage, and I'm certain that you don't
>argue terminology with him (or her). So, really, it's not the terminology
>that is so important, it's the student's conceptualization of what a
>clarinet is supposed to sound like in most situations (according to our
>"classical" tradition), and that conceptualization, and tone, is developed
>over time. I'm writing a piece right now and in it I mark "bright." Why?
>because I don't have a better word. I could say, "emphasize the overtones
>and reed sound" or "overblown" or "shrill" or something, but those wouldn't
>be what I'm looking for -- "bright" gets the point across. It's perfectly
>clear to 99.999% of all performers, even though there are some that would
>quibble over terminology.
>
>I guess what I'm saying is that for most musicians, terms like "dark" and
>"bright" have a real meaning, and one that can be used in the day-to-day
>musical situations. The fact that a test audience of non-musicians were
>suggestible as to thinking one sound was dark, or bright, is indicative of
>the fact that they were (duh) not musicians, and therefore never educated as
>to what a dark or bright sound is. A lack of agreement is, of course, a
>given. Our terms to describe tone color are fairly specialized, and perhaps
>there could be better terminology, but every one of my colleagues at school
>knows exactly what I'm talking about when I say "dark" or my friend says
>"bright."
>
Actually, *I* know what "dark" means to ME, and I agree with you that
probably 4/5 of our fellow musicians would agree with me, if describing the
tone in words. The correlation would probably be lower with demonstrations
or in the experimental setting, yet still statistically significant. But I
also agree with Dan that that is not good enough to avoid considerable
confusion in discussions of tone, and therefore, the words should be
avoided if at all possible.

By the way, in Dan's original posting, he did say "a test done using an
audience of musical people." Using non-musicians really would not have
been either fair or useful for the experiment, but they did not necessarily
have to be clarinetists, either.

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
Essexville, MI 48732 ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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