Klarinet Archive - Posting 000040.txt from 2008/01

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Legato Finger Motion
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 10:49:09 -0500

On 2 Jan, Sean Osborn <feanor33@-----.net> wrote:

> Please let me know what you think, and if you found it helpful.
>
> Legato fingers are very important, and not minutia.

I have great admiration for your playing, Sean, so my response is that if you
find those exercises helpful in your own work, I think that's terrific.

But because I was never exposed to the great pedagogical controversy
(arising, I suppose, out of Legendary Teacher Syndrome) that seems to pertain
to this issue in the US, it seems to me that concentrating on legato fingers
(LF), and saying how important it is, overly exaggerates one small technical
aspect of legato. (Indeed, my own view of LF when I first encountered it was
that it was probably developed as a clever teaching trick to distract the
student from interrupting their airstream, which is the number one thing you
want to avoid. Little did I know.)

So, I suppose I'd say that 'more or less legato' occurs continually in
playing -- so though there is no actual gap in the first bar of the Mozart
concerto, the second and third notes are bound together (collegate) more than
the first and second. Indeed, that's how it is in the notation of the
Winterthur MS and the first edition. But even if all the notes were to lie
under a slur, as I imagine they do when they recur in the opening of the
Rachmaninov II solo (I don't have it in front of me), I find the structure
you play in the LF version (connecting first and second notes more than
second and third) not necessarily superior to your FF version, which is more
like the Mozart.

In other words, legato is a tool, rather than a guarantee of musicality. Its
value depends on how you use it.

There are some extended legato passages where I find I am gentle about finger
placement, and some passages where I am decisive, depending on the musical
character, as I mentioned in another post. However, in the light of the
claims for and against LF here, it's been interesting to me to investigate
that in detail.

So, for example, in the upward arpeggio at the beginning of Fantasiestuecke
III, I tried playing 'pianoforte legato' (PL) and 'superclarinetlegato' (SCL)
in turn, using first LF and then FF.

It feels more natural to me to use FF for PL, and LF for SCL; but I can get
almost the same effect using LF for PL by what feels like an 'address-lag' in
my embouchure/mouthcavity -- meaning something like that I don't 'quite'
match the 'address' to the next note until it's already started, and so
there's a slight 'kick' at the beginning of each note. (Perhaps there's also
some diaphragm modulation too.) Also, making sure that I 'follow' the
pitches carefully gets quite close to SCL even with FF, but (I feel) not as
completely as with LF.

So, I'm not quite in the other camp, but without being in your camp either.
I think it would be funny if finger speed had NO effect, but not surprising
if that effect were to be a second-order one.

With regard to the issue of support, I find myself (perhaps, depending on
what he actually meant) contra JC (sorry, contra Jonathan Cohler:-) when he
writes:

> ..if you are going from a long fingering (high impedance) to a short
> fingering (low impedance), you will have to lessen the air pressure at the
> same moment that you lift your fingers. Otherwise the upper note will pop
> out. Constant air pressure (support) is one of the great myths of clarinet
> playing.

I absolutely agree that the air pressure has to lessen as the fingers are
lifted, but this occurs as the result of the diaphragm having learnt how much
to change its resistance to the abdominal/back opposition that constitutes
blowing.

THAT occurs outside the player's consciousness, so the experience of
the player is indeed one of constant support -- and importantly so, I'd say.
What's the myth?

Tony
--

_________ Tony Pay
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