Klarinet Archive - Posting 000442.txt from 2005/08
From: Robert Howe <arehow@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Re: Tuning
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 18:28:35 -0400
> It drives me to crazy to
> hear how far away from their reeds' natural pitch even good oboists
> around here bend to get the needle in the middle. Also, it's equally
> maddening to have to wait while they find A440. Since the note is often
> so out of focus by the time it settles on the pitch, many players,
> especially string players, don't take it seriously and the result is an
> oboist who is invariably sharper than anyone who actually took the 440
> and a string section that's all over the map. Used to be, as I remember,
> before tuners got so inexpensive and tiny, the oboist's job included
> coming in with a reed that actually played - wanted to play - at
> whatever the agreed-on ptich standard was and great oboists would have
> rather been caught dead than refer even to a fork, once they were on stage.
Let me resist the temptation, as an oboist, to flip you the bird...if I am a
little flat of a Tuesday night, and give an A438, everyone sees it on their
tuners, bitches and moans. If I use the Inviolable Tuner to make it an
A440, everyone ignores it because I've lipped the note. You guys tend to
play sharp, especially above the staff. Clarinet players don't seem to
realize that their instruments when fully assembled tend to play sharp (thus
allowing one to pull out to tune), my experience is that all but very fine
clarinet players tune down, then play sharp.
I did a job with Curt Blood, principle clarinet of the Hartford Symphony, a
few years ago, a wonderful Bruckner choral work with winds only. Curt sat
right behind me (I was oboe 1), we had many unison passages, and EVERY NOTE
was IN TUNE. So I called him for a lesson, he declined, told me to play to
the tuner without looking at it, center the note and learn to put it in
tune, centered, by ear rather than by eye.
Great advice from a master. I hae come to think that visual tuners are
tools of the devil. They use your EYES over your EARS. A fork makes you
LISTEN to the pitch.
Ciao
Robert Howe
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org
