 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2003-03-23 21:35
It seems to me after listening to the Mozart concerto (Marcellus) that Marcellus had "superhuman" intonation. Was this due to his instrument being extensively voiced? Was it due to resonance or other fingerings? Was it just his brilliance and technique? What clarinet/reed/ mouthpiece combination did he use?
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Author: William
Date: 2003-03-23 22:26
No "first hand" information to offer, but only a story told by our college orchestra conductor about when he asked Marchellus (1960's), "how do you play so perfectly in tune?" His reply, "I constantly vent and lip notes until they are in tune." Key lesson: It was not so much the result of having a remarkably "tweeked" of voiced clarinet, but rather that he simply listened and played "in tune."
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Author: PJ
Date: 2003-03-23 23:02
Didn't he use Kaspar mouthpieces? I believe I read this somewhere.
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Author: cyso_clarinetist
Date: 2003-03-23 23:13
ARG!!! Note for all... Perhaps as william said, marcellus did it on his own. I hate to break it to everyone but people like Larry Combs, Jon Manasse, Sabine Meyer and such don't have equipment that has been blessed by god. They make their equipment work. You can mimic whatever they have but it doesn't mean you will ever sound like them or whatnot.
Sorry to be the bitter grinch..
- James
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Author: Ed
Date: 2003-03-24 00:11
While I agree completely with James that great players make the equipment work and there is no magic bullet, a player at that level does spend some time choosing good stuff and having it tweaked. In Marcellus case it was the Kapar-Cicero mouthpiece, Morre reeds, and horns which I believe had been worked on by Moennig. Once in a lesson I recall playing something and used the standard high F# altissimo fingering and failed to voice it enough to have it completely in tune. He reminded me to get the pitch up and said "and if you can't get it in tune on your instrument, go throw it into Lake Michigan"
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Author: HAT
Date: 2003-03-24 03:59
Clarinets don't play in tune, great musicians who play the clarinet play in tune.
Anyone who thinks there is any such thing as 'set it and forget it' in terms of clarinet equipment and playing in tune have no idea what it means to play in tune.
No one 'plays in tune' just like that. Anyone who is in tune all the time is working hard at it every second he or she is playing.
If you aren't concentrating on intonation DURING EVERY NOTE YOU PLAY, I'll bet big money you play out of tune a lot of the time. Probably way way out of tune.
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2003-03-24 12:15
I got fiddy dolla right-cheer says "you SO wrong"...
That is, so long as I can play the note whenever I wanna...
Now, to play the right note, at the right time, with the right dynamic...
.... I'll need another 40 years playing before taking THAT bet...
As HAT has said before, the players of most lasting memory transcend the instrument in front of them... they are great musicians, and the instrument is a means of expression- a TOOL, if you will.
I've listened to players of ferocious technique and brilliant intonation slaughter lovely pieces of music in virtuosic displays... I've heard rank amateurs connect to a piece and prepare well enough to express the sublime in 4/4 time...it's really about having something to express to an audience with sufficient tools to bring the idea across that makes for great playing...
Like Robert Marcellus, Buddy Wright, Lionel Hampton and Ella -
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2003-03-24 17:54
Ah, Ella.......If I could play my clarinet and sax instruments the way she played her vocal instrument, you guys would all be talking about ME on this BB the way you talk about Marcellus.........
S.B. and HAT et al make good points --- one should seek the most in-tune equipment possible, but ultimately it is the player who MUST listen and adjust his intonation all the time, to match and complement those around him/her. The great players will probably be in tune regardless of their equipment, but the worse the equipment, the harder they have to fight the instrument and the less they can concentrate on the "making music" aspect as opposed to the "playing the clarinet device" aspect.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2003-03-24 19:04
Top players have top equipment. They have to, and they have the connections to get it, the professional necessity for it, and the ability to use it to the full extent. As Marcellus said in Ed's story, if your horn isn't right, and you want to play at the Marcellus level, you throw it in the lake and get something better.
Marcellus would probably have sounded like himself on a Bundy with a Goldentone mouthpiece and a #1-1/2 Rico reed, but everyone knows he had the very best stuff when he sat down in the Cleveland Orchestra.
Flutists can get instruments from Powell, Haynes, Brannen and any number of small makers who do meticulous hand finishing. Unfortunately, there are no clarinets like that. Not even Rossi or Wurlitzer. All of them need expert tweaking when they come from the factory. (We're lucky though. I'm told that Heckel bassoons are much worse, and they go for 10 times what clarinets cost.)
Greg Smith will tell you that no two people play best on the same mouthpiece, and he finishes them for each player individually. It's up to each of us to play in tune, and no equipment is perfect, so, as HAT says, it's up to each of us to play in tune. Nevertheless, it's a lot easier for the best players to do when they have the best equipment.
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Author: HAT
Date: 2003-03-24 20:46
Ken makes it sound like certain people have access to certain kinds of equipment that has some kind of magic in it. That is not the case. Any worker who depends to some extent on his tools is going to select them with care, of course.
The clarinetist's most important tool is his ear. It has to be trained over years and years.
If you sustain a long single note and chords change over it, that note will move in and out of tune depending on what voice in the chord it represents. That is, unless you change the pitch on each chord change correctly, you'll be out of tune at least part (if not most of the time).
That's what I meant before. Intonation is 90% not related to the physical. It's about the ear and the brain long before you apply it to producing a sound at all.
Anyone who has done a lot of professional playing in various seats in a clarinet section will know that you have to tune differently based on where you are sitting. Ain't no piece of equipment in the world that can fix those things.
100% concentration 100% of the time will give you a shot. Of course, you also need rhythm at 100% for that intonation to do you any good. And proper dynamics. And a lot of other things.
Getting the idea that doing this well isn't easy?
Something to take note of: the difference between 'very good' and 'as good as possible' is even harder to bridge than from 'beginner' to 'very good.'
My advice, stop looking for the magic bullet. You can't spend your way to greatness, or even very goodness. And the time you spend shopping is much better spent playing Baermann III.
Of course, my advice is only worth what you pay for it, I suppose.
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Author: msloss
Date: 2003-03-24 20:52
I've sat next to plenty of people who stink on great hardware and vice versa. I don't think the "greats" have any special inside track on the best gear. Sure, Leblanc will tool an instrument to Eddie D's specs, but so what. It just means we can all have the same basic tweaks he would otherwise keep for himself if he had custom work done. We should all be so good as to get the factories building to OUR specs for everybody.
HAT is totally right -- pitch is a product of hard work and a good ear. Good tools make it easier, but the goal is constant. You do what it takes to get there. There are good clarinets to be had with decent scales, and a collection of great technicians out there to spec them to your satisfaction.
It also doesn't hurt to play with people who have good pitch. A little shame goes a long way to teaching you how to concentrate, listen and fix on the fly.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2003-03-24 20:59
HAT -
What I meant to say, probably at too-great length, was that better equipment makes things easier, and that top players insist on it. There's no magic bullet, but some instruments are better in tune and easier to play than others.
I got a "Lyric by Pedler" several years ago just to have out on a peg to pick up. Recently, I tried for 20 minutes without success to find an adjustment that would be even close to in tune. I'm pitching it and switching to an older Buffet, even though leaving it out might cause cracks, because I didn't want to train myself to play inherently out of tune. Of course every instrument has to be played in tune, but some are more impossible than others.
You start with something that's close.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2003-03-24 21:15
Hey HAT,
You sound like a disgruntled Rangers fan.
There's no substitute for playing as a team.
There's no substitute for ice time.
Talented, but lacking a work ethic? Better be a soprano.
The rest of us... practice(x3)
*****
KS - I know what you mean... I bark about the megabuck horns, but own one... it doesn't make me a better player, but I practice looonger widdit dan widdout. I think the point is that the best possible fit for the least $$?
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