Klarinet Archive - Posting 000858.txt from 2001/06

From: "Tony Wakefield" <tony-wakefield@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Thumb and Wrist, Breathing, Print, Composing Problems.
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 05:20:29 -0400

To all who have contributed, all interesting to read, and to everyone else.

> I've been thinking about your post on difficult clarinet parts. My
> experience through college helped form an attitude of "if you can't play
> it, someone else will."

So do we have a never ending cycle of composer and player "out-manoeuvring"
each other so to speak. Is that what has been happening since music was
first written down. Composer, slyly, "This will sort these precocious little
s###s out - they think they can play anything". Clarinettist, "This music is
so "way-out" man, that it must be written by some genius, therefore I have
to acquire some reverent, and conscientious commitment to getting it right".

There is not enough street wiseness amongst young students in college. It is
in college that the "perfectionist" syndrome is rife. Not wholly their
fault, but they are young, have the world at their feet, are talented, and
they want a million times over to be successful come audition time, as the
competition is indeed fierce. Hence, it is easy to overlook immediately,
whether a "bit" of music is intelligently, or otherwise written for <their>
instrument.

Some one mentioned that the musicians` of Beethoven`s era complained. I feel
that todays` younger composers do not have the same intensity of "being at
one" with the instrument, - clarinet or trombone - whatever. Beethoven
wrote for <instruments> and he knew how to ensure that what he wrote was
indeed practical. Today`s "hack" writers, and we see an awful lot of them, -
I could indeed describe myself to a certain degree amongst these, only hear
sounds. The intensity of applying that sound first and foremost as a, for
e.g.. clarinet sound, appearing jointly as an idea in the inner ear (brain),
as opposed to a "tune" which only after it has matured and been written
down, which then has the composer floundering round searching for a suitable
instrument to play is disappearing somewhat. This "new" way? (and it is a
fact that some modern synthesised sounds are indeed extremely attractive),
is NOT the way forward when composer and orchestrator (same person) need to
come together to think/engineer the composition into a whole, as a vehicle
for human beings to play/perform. With the advent of computers, young
composers are ever more tending to think of the tune first, then trying to
apply a suitable instrument afterwards, instead of realising a tune AND an
instrument as one thought process. My "tunes" cannot be realised at all,
unless I also associate an instrument at source. I <enjoy> writing for
instruments. I do not enjoy looking at, nor playing "tunes" where only
"sounds" (not a good word, "noise"? - possibly worse) have the upper hand.
That can be very dangerous and encourage bad orchestration.

We have just had a "bush" fire here, last night I had to drive past it when
the whole of Chobham Common was alight. Dozens of fire-fighters and police
diverting traffic. So I was late for my rehearsal. But it at least let me
hear a live performance of Peter Maxwell Davies` Antarctic Symphony on the
radio, as I was pushing 3 miles per hour. (He spent a month in the Antarctic
listening to total silence, then wrote 3/4(?) hour of sounds - work that one
out). This work <has> "sounds", or "noises" if you like, but it was very
evident that those sounds were written for instruments (humans) to play. I
wouldn`t mind betting that, given that the aural inability's would no doubt
be an insurmountable problem, Beethoven`s musicians` <would> have been able
to cope with the technical demands of the instrumental writing. It <sounded>
human, which I certainly find keeps <my> feet on the ground as far as <for
ever and ever testing technical abilities to the limit> is concerned, when
I`m composing.

Printers also need a kick up the yes money is tight all over these days, so
one could argue that even printed badly, it does at least give an
opportunity to have the work available. But should we not just be <only>
criticising, but also be ready to return music, demanding our money back if
is proven to be badly printed. We return bad products generally in ordinary
life with quite a lot of success.

Music is NOT art. It <becomes> art in the eye (ear) of an beholder. It
<should> be a commodity which we judge to be good or bad or indifferent, to
be treated as such. It needs to have "quality control" exercised upon it
much more so than what it enjoys at present.

Tony W.

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