Klarinet Archive - Posting 000349.txt from 2004/03

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@------.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] How I got started on the clarinet
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 20:05:32 -0500

I started on clarinet in what I thought was merely an accident, but it may
in fact have been a fairly clever selection by my high school band
director. As a senior in high school (1968-69), I decided I wanted to join
the band. Since I attended a parochial school with a no-pressure,
non-competitive, non-marching band, and since the director knew me, and
knew that I had previous musical experience on piano, guitar, and years of
choral singing, he figured I was worth giving the chance. He asked me what
I wanted to play and I replied, "What have you got?" (I DID know one
instrument from another, and probably secretly wished for trombone). He
brought a clarinet out of the instrument room, an old wooden
Penzel-Mueller, as I recall. He showed me how to put it together and which
end to stick in my mouth, and banished me to a practice room to learn to
play it while the rest of the band rehearsed. In the meantime he did let
me play percussion in the pep band, usually cymbals. I even played the
claves during "Mission Impossible," which should have calmed any fears he
might have had about my rhythmic abilities

In any event, after about two months I "hatched" as a third clarinet. Here
is where the choice of the clarinet looks so brilliant in
retrospect. Granted, we were playing literature that might have been
considered fairly simple by the standards of more advanced HS bands (one of
the most challenging, and my most favorite, was Mozart's "Abduction from
the Seraglio Overture" arranged by Merle Isaac). But the fact that, even
with my minimal training, I could keep up with the 3rd parts of these
pieces (with their limited range) and actually CONTRIBUTE, rather than sit
in confused silence or, worse yet, blat out a variety of interesting but
WRONG notes, did amazing things for my rather limited (at the time)
self-esteem. By second semester, when he started a jazz band (they called
them "stage bands" at that time) I was even able to join that, playing the
1st tenor sax part on clarinet, since we had NO tenor sax and it seemed a
bit premature to have me start doubling! One piece we played had a rather
prominent tenor part that I struggled with, but was able to successfully
negotiate in performance, in spite of its frequent crossing of the
break. What I found out much later is that the part lies very NICELY on
tenor sax!

At the end of the year, the band director awarded me a band letter, which
normally was not given until after TWO years in the band. When I asked him
why, he said, "You LEARNED more in one year than most learn in two."

That summer I nagged my folks to buy me my own clarinet. I had to assure
them that, yes, I WOULD keep playing, and they finally bought me a used
wooden Rene Dumont for about $75. I used it to audition for the University
of Notre Dame Marching Band that fall. I passed the music audition, but
did not make the marching cut. That was the only semester I was NOT in the
Notre Dame Band, and the only year I was not a member of all THREE (at the
time) performing bands there. At the directors' suggestion, I took up bass
clarinet, and played that in the touring concert band. I LOVED the bass,
and had a brief flirtation with the Leblanc paperclip contrabass. I was
going to double on it on tour my sophomore year, but 2 weeks before we
left, the other bass clarinet player broke two fingers so I had the solo
bass clarinet spot to myself.

I quickly determined that I was dragging myself through the school day just
to get to band practice in the afternoon. I therefore decided to major in
music.

And to give you an idea of how a seemingly insignificant event can change
your whole life: Had that high school band director decided NOT to take a
chance on me, I would, of course, never have been in the Notre Dame Band
that marched in the 1970 St. Patrick's Day parade in Cleveland, OH. And
not being there, I would not have met that local college girl at the mixer
they held for us. And she and I would never have gotten married and had
three beautiful children.

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!