Klarinet Archive - Posting 000063.txt from 2010/12

From: "Kathy Williams-DeVries" <kathleenwilliams76@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Practice your scales
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 18:50:15 -0500

Hello Dan

You make very valid points. I am well aware of the mechanics that go into
making the clarinet sound, and these mechanics are featured prominently in
my instructional videos, not only on legato, but also staccato, where you
want to achieve a legato tone, just with shorter notes. However, that said,
I am an extremely lousy teacher, which is why I work in an office. For me, I
take a philosophical standpoint, and that works for me, not necessarily and
probably not at all, a student. Teaching is a mystical art that is well
beyond me, but I have the highest admiration for those that make it their
life's work. My communication one on one is pretty awful, and I much prefer
sending template emails, with the power to bring down an entire Wide Area
Network at the click of a mouse button mwahahahahahahahahahaha... (I work
for Australia's biggest telecommunications company)

Kathy,

In the movie "The Music Man," Professor Harold Hill teaches the town's
children to play their band instruments not by giving them lessons, but
rather by telling them to "think about it." You statement about tone being
a matter of self-conception sounds to me like the same approach.

Now I am confident that you, as a fine instrumentalist, pay a great deal of
attention to the many physical factors that influence the tone's character,
and that you also pay careful attention to the sound that you and your
instrument produce. But your statement sounds as if these physicality's are
of seconday consideration to your own self-conception.

Concepts aid your personal measurement of sound character, but I don't think
that they are anywhere near as important as the physical things that create
the sound, some of which, like your body type, are not really under your
control. Besides, concepts are difficult if not impossible to express in
rational ways and are not really much different from Professor Hill telling
his charges to "think about it.".

Perhaps I misunderstood you.

Dan Leeson

Regards,

Kathy Williams-DeVries

BMusPerf (Hons)

Grad Dip Arts (Shakespeare Studies)

ATCL, LTCL

0404946839

www.kathywilliams76.com

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