Klarinet Archive - Posting 000131.txt from 2002/08

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Are you a mover & a shaker?
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 10:31:08 -0400

We often bring different sets of criteria into use when evaluating live
performance from those we apply when we're listening to recordings. The
visual ambiance (or perhaps persona) created by the performer becomes more
of a concern for some than for others, and these differing criteria come out
in the comments "for" or "against" a performer's moving beyond the small
motions necessary to play a clarinet (or any other instrument, if you want
to expand the discussion farther). What sometimes happens, I think, is that
the line between our *expectations* and actual fact become blurred, and we
attribute problems as inevitable consequences of motion when they may not be
inevitable or even consequential at all.

Many of the players I have seen in live performance who move excessively
*DO* wind up moving the instrument, particularly the mouthpiece, enough that
the sound changes, and to me there is no good excuse for a player's
destroying a legato line because he/she can't resist weaving like a snake
charmer while playing it. Many students whom I've taught had a tendency to
move the instrument in a more or less sharply up-and-down motion when
playing very regularly pulsed music, a tendency which always seems to be
associated with a noticeable accenting of each beat and frequently a loss of
focus and response (because of uneven breath support) toward the end of the
beat. In the second case, it's arguable whether the poor legato and response
come from the undulations or both come from the same mental misconception of
how to apply breath support. In the first, I suspect it's caused by the
player's inattention to the sound he/she is producing, because it's not
impossible, if you really want to insist on gyrating, to keep the mouthpiece
stable in your embouchure, but you have to work at it.

Many people found Heifetz's lack of any obvious emotive activity a
distraction, while Meyer's apparently extreme amount of movement seems to
have caused Michael (in another post on this thread) and probably others
some distress. In a teaching situation, the bottom line, I think, is whether
or not a student's motions affect the *musical sound* that he/she is
producing. But our visual *expectations* at a live performance are probably
something we should not be trying extra hard to pass on to our students,
because they are personal and may be as much a part of the expressive
experience as the sound. However, to extend a suggestion Michael made
seemingly without enthusiasm, if we as teachers close our eyes - literally,
if necessary - and can still *hear* the motions (hear an unwanted aural
result) in a student's playing, that absolutely falls within our tether as
coaches and teachers to call to the student's attention and try to correct.
The important thing is whether or not there *is* a musically unwanted
consequence of whatever movement accompanies the student's playing. Same
thing when we ourselves perform - is the *musical sound* affected (which is
a question someone else may need to help us answer). If tension is the
result of excess motion, there will be an audible effect in the music that
comes out. If the motion is instead the result of tension, the same thing
will happen. In either case the solution is obviously to target the source
of the tension, or, more broadly, of the unwanted effect on the musical
sound. If the music comes out beautifully, don't interfere with the
processes that are producing it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Karl Krelove

> -----Original Message-----
> From: IR & KA Alexander [mailto:blanerne@-----.au]
> Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 4:53 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] Are you a mover & a shaker?
>
> I have to eat humble pie as I type this....
> I have always firmly believed that movement while you play (other than
> breath and slight movement ) will detract from the sound quality and pitch
> of student performers. <snip>
> I am now in a dilema. Obviously , the movement was not harming her
> performance - so my teaching is based on an untruth. I was taught by a
> perfectionist Czechoslovakian who was very sure that movement detracted
> from pure musicality and I do not move when I play. ...... maybe we all
> should.

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