Klarinet Archive - Posting 000395.txt from 2002/03

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Technique vs. materials (was Gonzalez reeds)
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 05:11:44 -0500

On Sat, 16 Mar 2002 16:56:25 -0800 (PST), w6w@-----.net said:

> The lesson that I learned when Tony Pay played my "bulbous bell" was
> that he could accomplish the same shift in tone with an ordinary
> flared bell. His final comment was (paraphrased):
>
> "I can imagine situations where this sound would be nice, but you can
> hear [....and I could hear it] that I can get the sound simply by
> adjusting my embouchure/oral cavity/etc. So why should I complicate
> things with an extra piece of equipment?"
>
> Of course, I can't do what Tony can, and therefore I _need_ the
> equipment. I suspect that for many of us, reed choice is a similar
> sort of necessity, which virtuosos don't need. So - do you do
> without the sound that you want, in hopes that, someday, you'll be
> able to achieve it unassisted, or do you go for the equipment which
> gives you want you want today?

If I remember rightly, we were dealing with the B natural just above the
break in this experiment.

I think the point I was trying to make -- and I have to admit, thanks to
your hospitality, I might have been a bit, how shall I say,
incoherent;-) at the time, because I certainly couldn't play anything
demanding technically -- was that the bulbous bell might be thought of
as having the effect of putting one of the problems of playing the
instrument in a different place.

The question is, what do you want the B natural to sound like? Well, if
you're playing the first solo in the slow movement of Brahms IV, then
having the bulbous bell might be an advantage in securing the right
focus and intonation for the pianissimo B that begins it. But actually,
quite often you want the B natural to be much lighter, because you're
playing in keys where that's what's required. So you'd be working, not
very hard, admittedly, *against* the bulbous bell in those
circumstances.

Compare the throat G on the A clarinet. This note tends to 'leap out'
at you, perhaps, I don't know, partly because it's close to a mouth
resonance. (That would be like a bulbous bell at the other end of the
instrument:-)

*Sometimes* that's what you want, if the G is an important note in the
music.

At other times, though, you need to choose an 'address' (mouthshape and
embouchure) that minimises the leaping out -- for example, so that a C
major arpeggio sounds even, and therefore heard as 'one thing', rather
than being segmented by a sudden change of tone colour on the G.

So because you need to be able to do each of these things, depending on
the musical context, in the end, it's a question of 'where you want your
problems'.

Apropos al this, Tom Ridenour, a couple of years ago on this list, was
promoting the Leblanc clarinet as an instrument largely 'without
problems'. And I can see what he meant. But I feel -- and other people
have felt -- that you then have the problem that the instrument is
somehow 'too inert'. It never 'suggests' anything to you.

I suppose that's a problem on the next level up -- a 'meta-problem', if
you like.

Of course, it's OK to prefer your problems to be of the 'meta-' sort.
Larry Combs does alright, after all!

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... You're twisted, perverted, & sick. I like that!

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