Klarinet Archive - Posting 000469.txt from 2002/11

From: "Christy Erickson" <perickso@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Dark Sound
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 23:54:57 -0500

Paul, So how about all you clarinet "gurus" getting together and duking
it out to decide what some of these terms mean? You could record the
sounds you've labeled and then analyze them by electronic means. You
could develop a software program that students could use to check the
accuracy of their tone. For those who are visually oriented, you could
have a picture of Humphrey Bogart missing his teeth flash across the
monitor if the "wrong" tone is produced. If they produce the correct
tone, pennies from heaven could come floating down from the sky. For
the auditory students, perhaps a recording of "God Bless America" would
be appropriate to signal the "correct" tone has been produced.(sorry
Tony) If not, they would be forced to listen to 100 variations of
"Chopsticks" (played on an out of tune piano). The kinesthetic students
could receive a simple kick in the seat for producing the wrong type of
tone but perhaps a big hug if they get it right. Seriously though, how
did any of you learn to produce your tones? Did you have a fantastic
teacher along the way who was able to define and describe to you step by
step exactly how to produce your unique tone or did you have a tone in
mind that you wanted to produce and experimented until you were able to
achieve that sound? My daughter is 11 and has played clarinet for two
years. I have prepared her reeds for her and I did get her a good
mouthpiece. I also did have her start with my old Buffet Evette that I
purchased years ago as a "spare" clarinet. However, I have spent very
little time working with her. In fact, she doesn't like to listen to
any advice from her clarinet playing Mom. She has a beautiful sound for
a player of her age and level. I'd describe her sound as "big,"
"strong" and "medium dark." I know that her band teacher in school
(bassoon player) plays a clarinet during lessons and he has a very nice
clarinet sound (for a bassoon player)-even on his plastic Vito. I'm
wondering exactly how she learned to produce the sound she has. I
couldn't tell you and if I asked her, I'm sure she could not explain
this to anyone either. I've found that my students benefit the most
from advice and guidance on reed selection and preparation, mouthpieces,
ligatures, and proper clarinet maintenance by a good technician. The
discussion of breathing techniques is always good (I've also always been
able to detect a student with asthma who is not using their prescribed
inhaler), as well as some embouchure work. I tell them to listen,
listen, listen to recordings and when they begin a new piece I require
more than one recording to be listened to. That gets a bit confusing,
however, and depends on how good their stereo equipment is. Speaking of
that, we need more live clarinet performances for these kids to listen
to. I'd also love to watch you all in a forum discussing this issue in
person. I think we would all learn a tremendous amount. Do any of you
have specific words that describe your own clarinet sounds? Christy
Erickson

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Harris [mailto:pwharris@-----.net]
> Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 2:27 PM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] Dark Sound
>
> I think that most of us will admit that there are differences in the
> controllable sound we can produce from any given instrument. These
> differences have been for the lack of better terminology described as
> color
> of tone and the consensus is that the word color is appropriately used
in
> this context. The term color is a graphical term and therefore to
> describe
> difference in tone color, we borrow graphical terms to do so. Warm,
> bright,
> dark, etc.
> It seams to me that we have a consenses already of the description of
the
> these term as aplies to sound whether we can quantify them
mathamaticly or
> not. When as a group of clarinetist we meet together at the
Symposiums to
> talk about each others' playing, we use the terms dark, bright, light,
> warm,
> excetera and we understand what we are saying. This is comunication,
and
> we
> probably could describe these term in a dictionary faction were it
> necessary. That we haven't to now doesn.t mean we can't, it just
means we
> haven't.
> Maybe bright means a richer more involved overtone series, maybe it
means
> that the pitch of the note is on the high side of being in tune
(assuming
> that in tune can be a range of acceptable pitch. (A=439.5 to A 440.5
> would
> be an example of a range of acceptable pitch to be called in tune and
> A439.5
> would be on the low side and therefore dark in color)
> Maybe the color is provided by vibrato (both in amplitued and pitch)
where
> more vibrato is considered warm or bright and a straighter tone is
dark.)
> We use the terms of color to decribe all of the above variations as
> apropriate to the context we are talking about and the context defines
> what
> is meant by the terms. This is evolving language and an example of
the
> flux
> of todays world.
> My opinion, I could be wrong.
> Paul Harris
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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