Klarinet Archive - Posting 000186.txt from 2004/05

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Re: sound--character ([kl] Walterh Grabner New Mouthpiece)
Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 20:29:25 -0400

Well, if you say that this is the case for you, there is nothing
that I can say to contradict you. But somehow, if you were to
take a blind test with 20 musicians behind one vast screen, some
playing oboe, others, flute, others bassoon, others clarinets,
others brass instruments of one kind or another, I find it
difficult that you would fail to "clarinet" when those
instruments were playing. It is true that people will be
uncertain if a basset horn or a clarinet is playing depending on
the register, but I find it very hard to believe that someone
would say, "that's a saxophone" or whatever.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: ferengizâde daniêl shawqy [mailto:rab@-----.de]
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 4:58 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] Re: sound--character ([kl] Walterh Grabner New
Mouthpiece)

Dan,
funny you say that, because (honestly!!!) I often think "what
bleeding
instrument is that" if I hear someone playing a Boehm-system
clarinet; it
just does NOT AT ALL sound like a clarinet to me. I don't
recognise it.
Sounds like a kazoo or ill-serviced oboe. But even with
Austro-German or
"early" clarinettists, some of them (like Kloecker in case you
have heard of
that guy) simply sound like anything BUT a clarinet. Even worse,
when I put
on a less then ideal reed (like these ghastly ready made one's)
or tie it on
with a less then perfect Blattschnur (reed lace? twine?), the
sound that
even the most cylindrical, authentic Kruspe Clarinet emanates can
hardly be
recognised as that of a clarinet. I am not saying this in order
to provoke a
flame war or anything, it just startled me to read your comment
because my
chief experience with clarinets (I do have some collection) is:
they all
sound totally different and the true clarinet sound is somewhat
of a
messianic anticipation rather then granted by merely buying and
blowing
something that the seller fancies to call a clarinet!
Best wishes,
danyel
(auld fail Europe)

P.S. (I think Mezz Mezzrow was in fact worse than Pee Wee
Russell...)

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Leeson
To: klarinet@-----.org
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 8:04 PM
Subject: RE: [kl] Walterh Grabner New Mouthpiece

...I want to comment on your use of the word clarinet "sound."
It's
a subtlety to be sure, but what I think that what you like in
Walter's mouthpiees (or anyone else's for that matter) is the
"character" of the sound that you achieve with it. No matter
what you do to a clarinet, it is going to "sound" like a
clarinet. That is what clarinets do; i.e., they make clarinet
sounds. A B-flat clarinet sounds like a clarinet as does an A,
as does a C, as does an E-flat, and as does the basset horn for
that matter, or even the contrabass. They all have a common
clarinet sound. Even Pee Wee Russel, the old time dixieland
player with the worst sound character I ever heard, still sounded
like a clarinet. No one would have ever said, "What is that
instrument he is playing?"

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