Klarinet Archive - Posting 000104.txt from 2002/11

From: "Joseph Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] This thing on my front door
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 10:28:13 -0500

> I think I get it. Cheers if I do.

This is a bit of a late reply, but: I'm not sure you do get it.

> You, Tony, and others are asserting that the
> clarinet is by definition a closed system
> (e.g., the lock and key) wherein the variables
> of the chain are so inextricably linked that the
> relative contribution of each variable is
> impossible to determine except in terms of
> the specific system as a whole and in the
> instance under examination.

For starters, the term "closed system" is entirely inappropriate here for
reasons that others have already mentioned. But what you really don't seem
to get, and the main point of what I understand Tony Pay's comments to mean,
is that the clarinet and clarinettist *together* form *one system*, and only
one.

This chopping it up into different parts - mouth cavity, embouchure,
mouthpiece, barrel, body, bell - is entirely artificial. It may not seem
artificial, because you can take your clarinet and pull it apart into these
pieces, but it *is* really. After all, if you go back in the clarinet's
history, mouthpiece and barrel came in one piece. Further back, lower joint
and bell were one piece. Further back still, the reed was a part of the
mouthpiece. And even if you just want to talk about the modern instrument,
you can't remove any of those individual bits without destroying the whole
system. All these pieces are *essential*. You can't take any of them out
of the system and still produce music.

Now, as to whether there is a hierarchy: it's very easy to start by
thinking, "Well, the vibration starts with the reed. Then it goes into the
mouthpiece, then the barrel, then the body, then the bell..." and to think
that each of these parts takes what came before and adds or subtracts from
it. But as Tony has pointed out this simply isn't what happens physically.
The vibration occurs *simultaneously* throughout the length of the
instrument (and the player's oral cavity). All the different parts - oral
cavity, embouchure, reed, mouthpiece, barrel, body, bell - which you choose
to divide the instrument into, all act *simultaneously* to shape this
vibration.

So there isn't a hierarchy in any conventional sense. As I've mentioned in
an earlier post, reeds that work badly with one mouthpiece may work well
with another. A mouthpiece may work well or badly with a given instrument,
and yet both might work well with other equipment. The generation of a good
sound is the result of parts that *interact* well. It's not like a hi-fi
where the signal comes out of one component in a fixed state which is then
modified by the next component and so on; in clarinet playing the effect of
parts further down the instrument affect how the parts further up work, and
vice versa.

The other thing that one finds as a player, of course, is that it's a hell
of a lot more troublesome finding a good mouthpiece than a good instrument
(for example), and a hell of a lot more difficult to find a good reed than a
good mouthpiece. So it's easy to fall into the trap of saying, "Well, the
reed makes more difference than the mouthpiece, which makes more difference
than the instrument. And developing a good embouchure is more difficult
still, so that's more important than any of them." Another hierarchy of
importance, one might think. But actually all we're really finding out here
is that we're just better at designing bells and instrument bodies than we
are at reeds; and in the case of mouthpieces, you have to have something
which is sympathetic both to the instrument and the oral cavity, so the
definition of what is "good" immediately becomes subjective.

If there was something *wrong* with your barrel or your bell, you'd know
about it. It's just that, because we're better at manufacturing these
things than we are reeds, you're much less likely to have such a problem.
Indeed, if there's something wrong with *any* part of the system - oral
cavity, embouchure, reed, mouthpiece ... - the whole system is in trouble.
All these parts have to be working to produce the result we want. Certainly
a good professional will make a nicer sound on a student instrument than a
beginner will make on a top professional instrument. But s/he probably
won't make a sound that's good enough for performance. And your beginner
with the Buffet Prestige may not sound nice now, but will have a good chance
of getting better fast, because they won't have problems with the equipment
holding them back. It's worth remembering that part of the reason top
players have such good embouchure control is because they play on
instruments that respond to this. You can't learn a good embouchure on a
bad instrument because the chances are you'll have to put in place lots of
compromises to compensate for the instrument's shortcomings.

The end result is that *all* the parts that we choose to divide instrument
and player into are *100% important*. A genuine shortcoming in *any* of
them is a shortcoming in the *whole* system. On the other hand what is much
more common is not that there is anything inherently "wrong" with any of the
individual pieces but that the particular way they have been combined is at
fault. It's certainly *cheaper* and probably easier to try and correct such
faults, first with the embouchure, then with the reed, then mouthpiece, and
so on. But that doesn't mean that this is necessarily the *best* way to
approach a given problem with the system; and it certainly doesn't give us
any order of importance.

-- Joe

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