 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2016-11-17 00:40
A student once asked me why they can't sound like me. I once asked Leon Russianoff who I should sound like when i was a student. I told my student the same thing he told me, you can't sound like me because you have your own voice, you need to sound like you, you have to love your sound. To many people think they can sound like their teacher or another player by using the same equipment and trying to copy someone else embouchure, angle, etc. Ask yourself this, why don't any two singers ever sound alike? The difference with a singer and a clarintet player is that we have an extension to "sing" through, they don't. But it all begins in the same place. The diaphragm, the "voice" box, the throat, the tongue, the mouth, the lips, the teeth and any other part of the body that is involved in getting the air from the beginning to the end. I love my tone. It may sound conceited, but when I'm playing, clarinet or bass clarinet, I feel like I have the greatest sound in the world. The listener may not agree but I took what Russianoff said very serious. I sound like Eddie Palanker. I worked with the placement of my tongue, my embouchure, my throat position etc. I experimented many time with the advise of others as well as my own trial and errors. I worked hard at finding the mouthpiece for me, I even changed from time to time as my concept changed slightly over time. About five changes in my 50 plus year career on clarinet, only twice on bass clarinet. I did what Russianoff told me to do, I sound like Eddie Palanker, and I love my sound.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2016-11-17 04:41)
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Author: gwie
Date: 2016-11-17 11:05
Love it!
This coming from one of my violin teachers, but in a similar discussion, he asked me: "why would you want to sound like a second-rate version of someone else, when you could be a first-rate version of YOURSELF?"
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Author: Steven Ocone
Date: 2016-11-17 17:25
I love your sound too.
I had a high school girl as a customer that came from a great distance. She wanted to sound darker, darker, darker (whatever that meant for her). In her quest she ended up with a stuffy unattractive sound. It had nothing to do with the clarinet and everything to do with her being self-critical.
So many teachers for young students are hard task masters. It seems that the most important thing at that age is to install a love of music.
Steve Ocone
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Author: BflatNH
Date: 2016-11-17 21:09
What you hear close, in a practice room (near field, and ignoring lack of reverb) is often different from what a listener hears in a performance space (far field).
How do you know what to practice for (in terms of sound quality) in a practice space to achieve what you want for the listener in performance (or should you care?)
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2016-11-17 21:24
I sound like me. Which is probably why I'm not playing with any professional orchestras.
Instead, I would like to sound BETTER than me. Perhaps more like you sound, Ed! Than perhaps I would have more musical opportunities.
Self-love is as bad as self-hate. We should all strive to improve, and often that means emulating someone else who in fact IS better.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2016-11-18 18:41
There's a wide range of "professional" tones David. In my opinion not all are to my liking. I've heard many non professionals whose tones I've admired more than some pros. My point is that you have to work to try to find your tone, the tone you love. It's not a matter of which space you're playing in as BflatNH said, because in order to love your sound you have to try to sound good everywhere. not just in your practice space. All I'm suggesting is that you stive to find the tone in your inner ear that you love. Not everyone can do that but that's what I believe people should try to acheive. I'm lucky, I have, but I worked at it. I found the tone quality I wanted to find for me. That's what i tried to teach my students, with my guidance and encouragement of course.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2016-11-18 21:23
Quote:
What you hear close, in a practice room (near field, and ignoring lack of reverb) is often different from what a listener hears in a performance space (far field).
How do you know what to practice for (in terms of sound quality) in a practice space to achieve what you want for the listener in performance (or should you care?) This is tough. You're right. What you hear close quarters, no reverb, practice room, and adding in the vibrations of the clarinet through your teeth do NOT translate to what an audience hears.
Best case scenario, take a friend (or many friends) who's opinion your value and who is honest, and take a bunch of potential candidates for a setup in a potential performance space, seat them in the audience, and play and listen to their feedback.
In my limited experience, a sound that some people perceive to be "bright" as they play it in close quarters, comes across much better, cleaner and crisper articulation in a performance space than a sound that they perceive to be "dark" in the practice room.
Another potential scenario, set up a recorder a distance away, announce what setup you're using and record yourself. Listen to it the next day (give yourself time to get any perceptions out of your head cause you JUST finished practicing). Problems with this is the quality of your recording equipment and the quality of your playback equipment.
Myself, I usually just ask random musicians (not clarinetists) or my wife (not a musician). I mean, chances are your audiences are not always going to be a room full of professional clarinetists, they may include other musicians, or (GASP!) non-musicians just going somewhere to hear music! So why not get some of THEIR opinions on whether your sound is something they'd like to hear again?
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2016-11-18 22:30
I quit playing in college because I could not stand to listen to myself, literally. Saxophone was my primary. The set-up I was playing, Selmer SA-80 II saxophone and Vandoren C*, was exactly the opposite of what I liked, wanted, or needed. I can't stand the modern "classical alto" sound, even if I like the player. My teacher didn't have the insight to see that I needed a change. It was too hard for me to control, I bit like mad, and the sound was too bright for me. In an effort to compensate, I was darkening the sound so much with my throat that I could easily press the octave key and stay in the lower register.
By contrast, when I started playing I had a Buescher and Buescher Mouthpiece. I got complimented on my sound all the time, and I didn't even know why. I got a C**, which was way too much, but I still got compliments. After I got my Selmer I never got another compliment on my sound, ever. My saxophone teachers (all three of them, two university professors, one of which was Julliard graduate and a student of Joe Allard) insisted on the Joe Allard approach. I wanted to sound like Johnny Hodges or Cannonball Adderly, but they wanted me to sound like Marcel Mule!
My clarinet teachers never tried to put me in a box, and always encouraged me to try things, but I had saxophone on the brain and gave up.
- Matthew Simington
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