Klarinet Archive - Posting 000282.txt from 2004/08

From: Bob Davenport <bob@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Objective of the Ligature
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 13:31:38 -0400

David McLune wrote:
>
>Sometimes I wonder if we substitute tweaks for practicing more.
[snip]
>We have to admit, that we musicians tend to be a bit paranoid about our
>sound and playing. However in the long run, get something that works
>for you and go out and make music. Charlie Parker played on garbage
>most of life, and yet made incredible music!

BBC Radio 3 broadcast an interview with Phil Woods a couple of months ago
in which he talked about his early (late-teens?) jobs in strip joints,
endlessly playing 'Harlem Nocturne' as he put it, and getting increasingly
discontented with his alto, his mouthpiece and his reeds. One day a friend
told him that Parker was playing across the street and suggested they go
and hear him. They found him playing a baritone, 'with a 90-year-old on
piano and his older brother on drums', and apparently struggling with the
horn. So Woods went up and said, 'Excuse me, Mr Parker, would you like to
borrow my alto.' 'Sure, kid, this thing's really kicking my ass.' So Woods
goes and gets his crappy alto and his crappy mouthpiece and his crappy
reeds - and Bird plays absolutely wonderfully on them. 'And from that day',
said Woods, I stopped looking for the magic horn and the magic mouthpiece
and the magic reeds, and started to PRACTISE.'

Bob D.
(who's nevertheless going to the local plumbers merchant tomorrow to get a
couple of O-rings to try as a ligature)

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