Klarinet Archive - Posting 000730.txt from 2001/01

From: HatNYC62@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Re: klarinet Digest 22 Jan 2001 21:15:01 -0000 Issue 2849
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 19:21:12 -0500

Respectfully, Dr. Lacy, I have to disagree with what you say. I believe very
strongly that the amount of information put forth by an excellent clarinetist
actually playing rather than explaining how one ought to play is drastically
higher. As clarinetists, we are really singers, we have to conceptualize
everything we do, including tone production (especially tone production)
before we can play it on the horn.

As one earlier post said, and I paraprhase: teacher and student could play
the same reed, mouthpiece and instrument and sound totally different from
each other.

This is exactly the reason the student needs an aural tone concept implanted
firmly in the brain! No matter what equipment you use, it is a private
internal sound concept that produces the individial character of each player.
What is considered a 'good' sound must be enforced in the brain.

I know, I know, who are we, as teachers or even as professionals to define
what 'good' is? Well, that is an interesting conceptual point, but my
personal experience suggests that students (most especially younger students
and beginners) respond and improve more quickly in lessons when I am
demonstrating for them a lot.

The suzuki method, based almost entirely on aural communication, is one of
the most successful musical training programs in the history of music. More
professional musicians today grew up on Suzuki than any other one individual
musical training concept.

The point about reading music poorly or without comprehension is a valid one.
And it is solved by addressing it as a seperate issue. Since you are the
teacher, you can also make sure the student is given special assignments if
music reading skills are slow to come. You can make them write out scales and
arpeggios for their own practice or all kinds of things that will work very
effectively for solving that particular problem.

But a poor or underdeveloped sense of sound concept, real musical prhasing
and especially articulation will make the music reading issue relatively
unimportant. I say especially articulation because the entire mechanism for
its execution is internal and 99% unobservable. It is also an area of great
difficulty for most young clarinetists. . .it certainly was for me. My
principle in teaching articulation is: it is far far better to be able to do
it than to understand how it is done. It just is. 'Knowing' how it is done
without being able to do it effectively would have to be an awfully
frustrating thing anyway.

I respect your opinion, though. I simply wanted to present my argument for
the contrary view.

David Hattner, NYC

<< But, if you think you sound exactly or very nearly like your teacher, or
that your students sound exactly like you, there is a better than even
chance that neither of these are happening. We have to remember that the
sound of an instrument to the player is very different from the sound to a
listener, and also different to a nearby listener and a more distant one,
such as in an auditiorium at an orchestra concert. If you sat next your
teacher, listened, and then tried to make a tone that sounded to you exactly
like the teacher's example, you would be producing a different tone quality.

However, in my opinion, there are even more and better reasons for NOT
playing along with students in lessons. It is true that they need to hear
good examples of the tone of their instrument, in addition to matters of
musical interpretation. But, if the teacher is playing along with
everything or nearly everything the student does, then a student with a good
ear isn't really reading music, but is merely recreating what the teacher is
doing. I have seen many examples of students who have been instructed in
this manner who have very little idea of what music reading is all about.

Someone told me something early in my career which is somewhat
controversial, but which I have found to contain some truth. He said, "If
you are playing, you aren't teaching." True, you are giving examples of
various kinds, but this falls in the category of rote learning. I would
like for the students to take a little more initiative, so that they can
also play to the top of their ability when I am no longer sitting beside
them. When I play in lessons, I find that I can never concern myself 100%
with what the student is doing. There seems to be no way for me to totally
ignore my own playing. After all, as the teacher, I want to play as well as
I am able for the student, so I find myself thinking about how I am playing
the music, how I am sounding, how my reed is working, etc. >>

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