Klarinet Archive - Posting 000798.txt from 2002/03

From: Mark Gustavson <mgustav@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Time for an outraged response
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 15:51:49 -0500

Dan I side with your ire and the problem is that many on this list do not
speak of their personal experiences or aren't able to formulate an
articulate statement about what they have experienced as a clarinetist.
Instead they fall back on old clichés and hearsay. I suggest that everyone
speak from their own experiences and from their heart and not like copy
editors who feed magazines misinformation which the majority seem to
swallow and you unfortunately have to gag on.

Mark

Daniel Leeson wrote:

> It's a bad time for me to get myself in trouble with an outraged
> statement because I'm leaving town on Saturday to attend the American
> Society of Eighteenth Century Studies in Colorado Springs and my ability
> to pay attention to any mail responses will be limited.
>
> But Kelly Abraham of New York has changed the picture with her statement
> about the Selmer 10G. She said:
>
> > I was told at ClarinetFest in New Orleans in August,
> > last year by the Selmer representatives that the 10G
> > was being discontinued also. I was asking about geting
> > a set with some added features, and was told that
> > delivery of 10Gs would be from already-made stock
> > only, and production was almost finished in Paris. Too
> > bad, as I REALLY love the sound color of those
> > instruments!
>
> I don't doubt for one second that Kelly likes the character of sound she
> gets from a clarinet, and it is probably a lush, wonderful, pleasing
> sound. If I heard it, I'd love it. But this idea that one can get the
> character of sound they want from a particular manufacturer's instrument
> (even down to the genus and species; i.e., Selmer's 10G) is a snake that
> just will not die, even when its head is cut off. You can given tons of
> rational counterexamples, and still some intelligent and probably very
> competent even expert clarinet player will maintain that what is not
> true is very much true. And worse, that same player will transmit these
> old wives tales to their students who, in turn, will go out and buy
> clarinet X under the belief that he or she sounds better on that
> particular one than on any other.
>
> I suggest that Kelly's sound is Kelly's sound on almost ANY clarinet.
> Her sound is a function of her teeth, her chest, her sinus cavities, her
> body structure, the amount of body fat, her total physical toute
> ensemble. And if she gets a sound that just likes when clarinet X is
> inserted into her mouth, she will get effectively the identical sound
> when X is removed and Y inserted.
>
> The validity of the notion that a particular clarinet is resonsible for
> the character of its sound has been battled on this list for years. But
> the minute someone comes on who has not been previously involved in the
> discussions (or who has been involved but simply choses to ignore the
> enormous amount of counter evidence), the first thing we hear is that
> manufacturer A makes a clarinet that sounds better than any other
> manufacturer. Gag me with a spoon, we're at it again.
>
> Oh, that the manufacturers say so is true enough. LeBlanc is the world
> champion in inventing meaningless words that describe the sound
> character of model abc as contrasted with model def, but I suggest that
> it is all marketing hype, nonsense that causes you to want to buy their
> instrument.
>
> Once the air has left the mouth, the character of that person's sound
> produced on a clarinet is a closed issue. It will be the same good or
> bad character if the clarinet is by almost any manufacturer and almost
> any material used to make the instrument.
>
> And while I am getting older as I see these comments on this list, I am
> not getting less feisty. It is my intentions to bitch, bitch, bitch
> whenever these assertions arise. That is, unless Kelly is able to
> describe the physical phenomena deriving from that particular genus and
> species of clarinet and which cause what she suggests is a particularly
> beautiful "sound color" (whatever that is).
>
> This list is getting a lot less feisty, too. Nobody challenges these
> statements anymore. The ones who know are just getting too old and
> tired to react any longer. How many times can everyone yell,
> "BALONEY!"? People -- good clarinet players too -- make outrageous
> statements and no one sets their house on fire or threatens them with
> bodily harm.
>
> Some guy the other day suggested a particular bass clarinet mouthpiece
> and added that the use of a Rovner Ligature was obligatory to achieve
> the proper sound. So I asked how he reached this conclusion, and he
> seems to have gone into out space, never to be heard from again. And
> I'm not a bigot. I used a Rovner ligature for years. It was nice, it
> was not terribly expensive, it held the reed on nicely, but unless the
> departed person has some evidence about which I do not know, I was
> unaware that only that particular ligature type would produce a
> satisfactory sound.
>
> Gag me with a spoon!!
>
> --
> ***************************
> ** Dan Leeson **
> ** leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************

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