Klarinet Archive - Posting 000049.txt from 2005/03

From: ormo2ndtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: RE: [kl] Germansound Boehmclarinets
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 21:43:59 -0500

Dan wrote:

> There are indeed different schools of clarinet
> playing, but calling an instrument a
> Germansound clarinet implies that the player
> is not responsible for the sound (which would
> be very much influenced by his or her
> attendance at schooling associated with that
> culture), but rather the clarinet itself.

Don't we need to make allowance for two possibilities, not just one:

(a) the same instrument can sound differently when played by
clarinetists of different schooling/skill/culture/etc

and

(b) two instruments with noticeably different intonation/timbre/etc can
sound identical in the hands of a skilled clarinetist.

It seems reasonable to me that instrument models can differ noticeably
from each other, and also that musicians from different
cultures/schoolings can play differently also. These two possibilities
are not mutually exclusive.

The issue of naming a musical sound is a different problem altogether.
Many of us agree that words such as "dark" and "German" cover too much
territory, aren't specific, and they often describe the listener as much
as they describe the sound. But choosing (or rejecting) a name does
not change the sound waves themselves. I don't see why both (a) unique
instrument models and (b) unique musicians can't exist simultaneously?

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