 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Beth R.
Date: 2001-08-21 20:27
Yesterday, while perusing the music section at my local Barnes and Noble, trying to find some of the clarinet artists recently mentioned on this board (yes...I actually wrote them down and took the list with me. A geek? Maybe. But don't tell anyone), I noticed precious little in the way of clarinet music. I asked the guy at the guy at the desk, "I found the the flute solos, the Baroque recorders, and even the Gregorian chant. But where are the clarinet CDs?"
His response? "Well...the clarinet is really sort of a forgotten instrument. You won't find much."
Huh? Did I miss something? Has the piano gone out of style too?
I almost said to him, "Tell that to Sneezy." But I don't think he would have understood...
:-)
Beth R.
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Author: Sue B
Date: 2001-08-21 20:34
I don't know I think it's coming back into style at least in everyday use.
Just listen to commercials (new Dunkin Donuts one up here), music in television shows, etc.
They even have some older gentleman with a clarinet advertising home delivery of nebulizers (some kind of breathing device). Ends with him playing with a group of musicians.
Just a couple of thoughts...
Sue
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Author: Kirk
Date: 2001-08-21 21:45
I couldn't agree more...I have been hearing clarinets on a lot of tv commercials and shows.
Squeaks and broken reeds to the foolish one at B&N for his remarks !!
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-08-21 22:20
Nowadays, the clarinet is everywhere. Publicity uses it all the time. Quality children programming likes the clarinet tone (sometimes real, often "synthetized" - remember the Gentle Giant? A fine clarinetist and a competent recorder player). Films are full of pretty clarinet melodies. My recent favorite: the beautiful gipsy theme (with a nice combo) in the movie "Chocolate", one of my very favorites. "El Postino" (another absolutely beautiful movie) has a nice clarinet theme also. Naturally, the recent "Mid-Summer night dream" with Michelle as heroine ends with fabulous clarinet playing.
It would be interesting to collect on this thread other such occurrances. Where have you heard the clarinet lately?
A few weeks back, I walked into one of my colleague's office. CBC FM is always on there. Spohr 1 was playing (last movement) with Leister on the horn. I said: "Do you know what it is? "Nop", he answered. I said: "It is a clarinet". He replied: "Wow - I hear this instrument all the time - it is beautiful. It sure does not sound the way my sister sounded a few years back."
I often play in an informal group of very amateur musicians (but keen amateurs of fine food - I will play anywhere in order to partake in a "festin"...) in the venu of musical soirees where we all have to play something (irrespective of our level - sing something, play chop-sticks, whatever...). The daughter of one of these amateur musicians has a PHd in voice, but dabbled with the clarinet in high-school. After hearing me for the first time, he said: "This is amazing - I never realized that it is the way clarinet sounded"
There are thousands of people out there who only remember the clarinet from their contacts with beginners (often associated with the school band). Knowing how we sound the first few years, we should not be surprised to be looked at with puzzled eyes when "discovered". Junior clarinet playing sounds very bad. People think that is the way we all sound and cannot understand why adults would spend time on this weird excentricity. It is up to us to educate our friends about the beauty of our instrument and to expose our acquintances to its lovely tone. In front of the un-initiated audiance, squeeking is bad, very bad.
Yes, yes, yes, I know. Other instruments sound equally bad at first (if not worst - take the violon). But these other instruments are better recognized in in people's ears. Since people cannot relate to fine clarinet playing readily, they only imagine the worse.
Our instrument need MARKETING (here is this word again from the same guy - will he ever give up on the "M" word?). Marketing is everything.
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-08-21 23:10
But before jumping on our horns and starting to indoctrinate the uninitiated...
We amateur musicians (who make mistakes) face a formidable challenge. A few posts back, we discussed the fact that the brain is wired for music. People recognize mistakes in music instantly, even in the most bizarre pieces. Around us, we are drowned into a sea of music which might be superficial, but is always played at a perfect level of technical proficiency. So, we have the vast majority of the population capable of figuring out that something is going wrong (without knowing what and why) and using "musac" as reference points for technical execution. It is hard for amateurs to win, even with family and friends. It takes so much work to play reasonably well - the effort and the process, the fragility of the performance - is not understood and we tend to be teased a bit (trying to be diplomatic here).
When I initiate non-musicians to the clarinet, I do it with CDs. I have learned the hard and humbly way to never play for them. I only play for audiences of other musicians (not necessarily advanced, but impassioned by music). It is an interesting twist: Advanced musicians will listen to amateur performances and appreciate the effort, progresses, dedication, etc. The general public can only be served by accomplished musicians with flawless execution.
Just as a comparison, visual arts are not wired into the brain (another thread for another day). So, the way we react to visual arts is entirely learned. If you do not get trained, you tolerate the most hideous pieces of visual art in your environment without feeling bad about it. Look around - the world is full of the visual arts equivalent of squeeks - can you spot them? How about this master piece from Mom who is taking up painting at 60 years old and frame it in the living room for all to see all the time? Wonderful! What a talent! Please, do another one! Yes I know, it is a matter of taste - that means it is learned. But nobody would argue that a squeek is bad. This is definitely NOT a matter of taste. It does not need to be learned.
It is amazing (and great) to see how many people start some visual art business late in their life and actually succeed to sell some of their work - painting, sculpture, potery, decoys, cabinet making, gardening... It takes as much effort, dedication, practice, commitment to excel at the visual art as it takes to succeed in music, so there is no way about it: this late 60 year old bloomer is not operating at a professional level - yet we love her work.
But you can never imagine the same late bloomer (picking up the clarinet at 60) actually getting paid for his/her public musical performance. Again, it is because the general public has rock-bottom standards for visual artists, but stratospheric ones for musicians.
This first painting is like a first little tune. While we readily accept to have the painting in front of us at all time, we would not stand hearing the same first tune over and over, wouldn't we. Even the most unsophisticated consumer of the worse piece of sculpture will only put on his/her CD player music that is technically well played. His choice of music will be based on taste (learned), but his/her technical expectations will not waver.
In general, people spend much more $$$$ on their stereo system than on their TV (although the movement toward home theatre might be altering this). It is because they have no tolerance to what is pumped in their ears, but accept lousy visuals all the time.
It is not fair, but that's life. Music is "life" (like dance for that matters, where everybody intuitively can tell who dances well and who does not). Visual arts are "culture". Since life is most basic and universal than culture, art genuinely based on life have high demands placed on them by the general public.
When we play, we serve life in its truest form: "In the key of life", as immortalized by Steve Wonder.
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Author: Keil
Date: 2001-08-21 23:33
How odd because the last time i visited my local B & N they were playing mozart's clarinet concerto.... of course i had to stop what i was doing and absorb... Gosh, that piece never gets old... !!
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Author: Beth R.
Date: 2001-08-22 00:04
Gosh darn it! I should never re-read what I've written AFTER clicking the post button. Why is it typos are suddenly crystal clear only after it's too late to fix them?
Anyway....
Thank you all for your thought-provoking comments. I agree - clarinet music is everywhere more than ever (commercials, movie themes, etc.) I also agree that the general public is not even aware of what instrument they are hearing. THAT blows my mind. But really it shouldn't surprise me, considering the priority given to music programs in public schools these days. (It'll NEVER happen to football. But that's a whole different subject.)
Every time I'm in the car with my children, we listen to a classical music station and play "Name That Instrument." They are pretty darn good now. My oldest can even make good guesses about the composers. But I noticed their friends (around age nine) can not even identify an oboe or a sax.
And Mario, I only partially agree with what you've said about the public being served by musicians with flawless execution. That certainly doesn't hold true for today's pop musicians and singers. Unfortunately, my daughter AND her friends are convinced that Britney S. has a beautiful voice. (If you don't know who I'm talking about, you haven't been around many eight- or nine-year old girls.)
But I don't know. Maybe it is all just a matter of taste.
Regards,
Beth R.
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Author: koh kah huat
Date: 2001-08-22 00:12
Sad to say, I must agree to what Beth has written. I am from Singapore. I could only find very few cds on clarinet at music shops in Singapore: HMV, Tower Records. Not only that, is difficult to find method books, music scores for clarinet too. And to top it all, I have great difficulty in finding qualified clarinet teacher in Singapore.
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Author: Steve Epstein
Date: 2001-08-22 00:54
Interesting post, Mario. I quite agree.
As I've mentioned in other posts, I'm an "amateur" who gets to play with "open" bands for certain forms of folk dancing. Only for contra and English country dancing; once in a while for international folk (balkan) dancing. We have other kinds of dancing going on here in Philadelphia, e.g: Scottish set, Argentine tango, swing / lindy, ballroom (in non - franchised studios as well as the franchised "Arthur Murray" kind). Yet there is little interest in developing pick - up bands for any of these. The dancers, who are of course, all amateurs, think they are entitled to professional - level accompaniment. Since pros are expensive, much of this dancing goes on to recorded music. This just kills me. I'd play for free! Well, at least at first:-) Even in contra dancing, the crowds have become so spoiled with exceptional out - of - town bands, they've become disappointed with the local really excellent semi-pro bands. They wonder why a guy who has a day job can't play like a guy who does it all for a living. And yet, if you play well, people will groove to it and not remember your mistakes.
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Author: Micaela
Date: 2001-08-22 02:38
Maybe Barnes and Noble is conspiring against clarinetists. My local B & N also has a paltry clarinet selection but the also local Borders has an excellent selection (and their classical sections are about the same size).
Instruments do go in and out in the public awareness and in numbers of players. The cello is in- can we blame Yo-Yo Ma? Instruments with famous players tend to be better known...the average person, maybe even the average string player, can't tell you who Robert Marcellus was. But everyone (wind players included) knows who Yo-Yo Ma is. Then again, the world needs a celebrity bassoonist even more than a clarinetist.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-08-22 03:03
Today's shops sell only what more customers buy to minimize inventory using computors. So, the B&N man said the literally true thing.
There seems a background for this phenomenon. IMHO. Top level is becoming down and average up. People like to listen to real 'fabulous' playing. This is very rare these days.
The number of real virtuosos are becoming few and few every year. After Maurice Andre dies, there will be almost no true virtuoso of trumpet. No one matches today late Benny Goodman. Where is a Leon Goosense of oboe? There is no Dennis Brain of horn or a Lubinstein of piano. Looking at the more mediocre levels, some of the present amateurs - like Mario? - are better than mediocre pros because of availability of time, money, and instruments.
Another thing is the advent of CDs. Their sound quality are obviously worse than that of old LPs. Engineers did not know what impact cutting of higher signals will have on human brains' sound recognitions. This is why Sony or Phillips recently started Super Audio CDs. In short many people do not know the real sounds.
I would suggest to Beth to look up clarinet CDs at mail order shops like Amazon. They have plenty of inventories. That's why their annual earning is red.
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Author: clarinet713
Date: 2001-08-22 03:29
Isn't this funny? Last week when I was at the doctor for my nice tendonitis problem, they were playing the 2nd movement of Mozart's concerto while I was sitting there waiting to be seen. I thought they were teasing me but then I realized that none of the doctors in there knew what it was or was even paying attention to the music! :-)
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Author: David Kinder
Date: 2001-08-22 04:15
You can't get away from the clarinet at Disneyland! It's in all the music around the park - and there's even 4 clarinets as props throughout the 2 parks!
B&N may need to get their act together, but they're not really in the music business - just coffee and books. I'd actually go to Tower Records or Amazon.com for my musical recordings because I'd actually find clarinet stuff there. The last time I went to Tower Records, I found Orchestral Exerpts on the clarinet by Larry Coombs. I also found "Trio Indiana" with some of the staff at University of Indiana.
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Author: Josh
Date: 2001-08-22 04:20
You mean Kim Walker isn't a celebrity bassoonist? I thought EVERYONE knew who she was...*stoopid giggle*
This is a very interesting topic, and one I was discussing with a friend just yesterday at lunch, about how some instruments are just inherently always going to be popular amongst the laypeople (violin and piano, especially), and how others go in and out of fashion depending on who they've got batting for them in the public arena. (I guarantee you people cared a HECK of a lot more about the clarinet back in Benny Goodman's day...) It'll be interesting to see where the clarinet is in ten years popularity wise. But then again, we can't be doing TOO badly as far as public recognition, since there are about 500 trillion school age kids playing it...(granted, that doesn't exactly expose their parents and friends to the best that the clarinet world has to offer, but still, people can identify it...ever show someone a picture of an English horn and ask them what it is? Try it sometime...it's good for a laugh.)
And again ,great posts, Mario!
Happy clarinetting!
Josh
(maybe what the clarinet needs is its very own Vanessa Mae...electric reeds, anyone? :P )
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Author: Jim
Date: 2001-08-22 04:32
Mario,
You may well be right, and there is quite a bit of sadness and loss of humanity in that. No live performance is flawless of course, no matter the level of achievement of the performer. Rather, our canned music is subjected to a legnthy process of multiple takes and editing that create the illusion of perfection, rather than any sense of reality. This is the auditory equivalent of the airbrushed and retouched photos in certain magazines. They're nice to look at, but in a way quite sureal.
However... There is a metaphysical something in a live performance that can touch the listener in ways that no recording ever will. Music to me is the ultimate development of language. Please, play for someone! (Then if, you must, let them enjoy the "perfection" of a recording.)
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Author: willie
Date: 2001-08-22 04:38
Since the reduction of music education in schools a few years ago, the percent of non-musicaly educated people in todays society is at an all time high. I hear clarinets all the time on TV and on the radio, even if its just a commercial. Others will hear it too but not associate the sound as being a clarinet. Down here if you bring up the subject of music, they start telling you about a relative who plays the ghee-tar. If you bring up art, they will show you the fancy labels on their beer can collection.
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Author: SALT
Date: 2001-08-22 05:56
So, who's this yo yo ma person? You say everybody has heard of them but obviously not....I've never heard the name before.
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Author: Josh
Date: 2001-08-22 08:37
Yo Yo Ma is arguably (Or maybe not so arguably) the most famous cellist who has ever graced the soils of this flying mudball we call Earth. (and a hell of a nice guy, to boot!)
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Author: Roger
Date: 2001-08-22 11:47
The person in the store may have been refering that fact that the clarinet was perfected later than a lot of instruments so that earlier music was not written for the clarinet. I do not belive the original (not the Mozart score) of Handel's Messiah (or most of Handel's music) had a clarinet part.
Of course, there is even less classical music for the sax, as it is basically a late 19th $ early 20th century instrument.
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-08-22 13:27
In a book published about 10 years ago (sorry, I forgot about the actual title and author, but I believe it was something like "The destruction of American Culture", the author stated that today's education should actually be called "advanced training" with only one goal: to produce technocrats (in the most generic sense of the world) capable of mastering extremely complex task, but with no ability/interest in dealing with meanings, values and ideas... Individuals superbly capable of dealing with the challenge of the new economy, of getting wealthy quickly, but oblivious of the deeper aspects of life. Perfect workers at last...
In the same book though (and this is the idea that shook my mind at the time), young americans actually develop whatever value they end up with by LISTENING TO POP MUSIC (not from home, not from school, not from their friends, but from their IDOLS - if it is true, we should worry more about what they listen to than about who they hang out with...). Contrary to common belief, the author argued that pop music and pop stars carry value message to the young brains, while TV is in fact the medium of older (tired) adults (with values already well entranched) really used only as a soothing tool.
Britner Spears the other day said: SEX IS POWER. She is talking to the girls of course. In a world where (at last) women have won (at least legally) equal rights and opportunities, Britney is telling them to "flaunt it" in order to get what they want (from boys of course). Look around and notice: Young girls are paying attention to Britney.
Shania Twain, on TV, said recently: "When a beautiful woman walks into a bar, men simply cease to function. Once you understand that, you can get what you want". Have you listened to Shania's lyrics? They are incredibly powerful messages to girls. While we boys look at her, girls pay attention to her.
Boys will hear the most hideous rappers and develop models of relationships from their lyrics. Boys look at pretty female pop stars and stop right there. But they learn the lyrics of the worst, most violent pop singers out there. It is creating a strange dynamic between girls and boys. It sure teach strange single-minded values.
And yes, on stage and on CD, Britney's act (the music, the dancing, the staging, the works) is technically perfect. The successful pop stars actually work extremely hard at their trade and execute in an amazing fashion. Have you even seen Celine Dion live?
It is a sad observation that, while pop music determine society's value, music education is being taken out. This is a mind-boogling contradiction. Those civil servants deep in government offices that make that kind of flabbergasting decisions are essentially performing criminal acts of destruction of budding minds, with absolutely no understanding of (no interest in?) what they are doing.
A last statistics. According to a recent survey that I read (about Canada though), people have nevery felt so happy (the level of happyness is at an all time high). People are richer than ever. They have lot of toys to play with. It turns out that this advanced training is actually creating society of happy folks... Ignorance could be bliss...Or as the Romans used to say: "du pain et des jeux".
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2001-08-22 13:42
Clarinet recordings are sparse in many music stores because clarinet music is not popular, at least in the sense that those who buy most CDs prefer listening to things like the Backsync Boys or guys that curse to a beat or prefer looking at Britney's belly button. (Easy boy!) This, despite the fact that you do hear clarinet and (ahem!) bass clarinet music in many places such as TV commercials, dentist's offices and movie theaters. Until someone dares to put a clarinetist (or bass clarinetist) in a popular music group, this is the way it is going to be. Remember that Benny Goodman was well known and popular because he was playing the popular music style of the day. If a clarinet breaks into the popular music scene, then there may be a ripple effect of people looking for clarinet recordings of other types.
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Author: Terry Horlick
Date: 2001-08-22 14:40
Don,
Right on, look at how popular the soprano sax is now. It sells CDs, e-bay is full of knock off Chinese horns. Everyone recognizes a sop sax (straight ones, not curved ones) because of Kenny G. Fortunately lots of more creative folks get to ride in on the coat tails of the popular folks.
If you want clarinet to be more popular, then find yourself somone who has great marketing sense to perform light rock or jazz with apropriate electronic enhancement, a freaky look and then get him/her onto the talk shows.
Being technically perfect and a great musician is only a help, not manditory.
Terry
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Author: Josh Schultze
Date: 2001-08-22 15:42
This thread is extremely intersting. I had never thought how we accept medocre art we would never accept a poor musical performance. Thanks for the insight Mario.
About 2 and a half years ago I decided to learn to play a wind instrument after spending a week with an alto sax. I went to the music store in NYC and bought many CDs, each with a different wind instrument featured. Bassoon, Oboe, Clarinet, Flute, Recorder, Shawm, Piccolo,Tuba, Sax and French horn concerti. I gradually learned the sound of all these instruments so that now I can identify them within a larger musical ensemble. I chose the clarinet because the sound reminded me sometimes of an expensive french Bordeaux wine, passionate and profound and sometimes like B&B, transparent and lighter than air.
But only after that process of listening to each instrument individually could I begin to distinguish the instruments in everyday music. That process took effort and an active desire to learn. It's true that in America, to be a success means HAVING lots of money, a big home and not having to work.
Individually we WORK to learn and play our clarinets. Nowadays you have to be crazy to work at anything other than work. As a culture we want to be entertained. It might have been the historian Arthur Schliessenger who said "The American public is the best entertained, least informed public in the world."
I have no doubt that once a band comes around with someone playing a clarinet and they are a big hit, then the kids of America will ask their parents for a clarnet. It happened before with Benny Goodman and it will happen again.
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Author: Kyle Jubenville
Date: 2001-08-23 16:40
lol you guys crack me up. I have read quite a few times that someone identified the Mozart Clarinet Concerto playing in various stores or doctor's offices. and they said that they had to "stop and absorb" it. lol. I am not making fun..honest..but I mean dang. I mean don't get me wrong. I love playing the Mozart Clarinet concerto..but I would never ask a doctor what song was playing...because in stores and doctor's offices, they don't play the music because they know what it is...they play the music to either entice the consumer(who can differentiate that there has been more than one classical song written and they all don't sound the same, and of course that not all of them are Boring and terribly easy), or to relax the consumer into being in a thought provoking mood so that they will buy the meaningless books that no one else buys, and the only reaosn that they are buying these meaningless books is because when the general public listens to at least 10 minutes of certain classical songs...their visual-spatial ability increases..which in turn puts them in a very thought provoking mood. and in doctor's offices it is merely to relax the patient because most people don't like to be at the doctor's office and hense tend to be quite tense, therefore the classical music eases them just like the 2nd movement of the Mozart Concerto..that is a very slow and graceful movement especially when compared to the 1st...but anyways lol I am sure that everyone is tierd of hearing the mindless ramblings of a 18 year old..so I will get off my soap box and let someone(who inevitably will with the way things are going which is evident of my last post which i was the original poster of the "patricola Clarinets" thread which has about 55 postings and after the 6th one..none of them have to do with Patricola clarients..however I might write a book using the info from all the responses lol) else step up to the podium. :-) by y'all
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2001-08-23 19:25
We clarinetists will all be happier, better-adjusted people if we understand and accept certain sad facts about what we do:
1) The clarinet is NOT a "popular" instrument, as are, say, electric guitar, synthesizer, and soprano sax.
2) Most forms of music played on clarinet (with the possible recent exception of klezmer) are NOT popular music --- the vast majority of the public neither knows anything about nor gives a rat's arse about classical music, concert band music, or real jazz.
3) Mario makes an extremely good point about people's perceptions of, and standards of, technical perfection in music vs. other forms of art and entertainment. The public IS spoiled by the electronic, technical "perfection" of pop music, and IS very intolerant of the imperfections of amateur or even semi-professional performing musicians. So basically, nobody wants to hear YOU play except maybe your parents and a few sympathetic friends.
4) Very few people are willing to go out and pay money to hear live music any more, other than the highly-promoted pop mega-concerts at arenas and such. The only people attending classical concerts these days are senior citizens (who want to be there) and the wealthy (who are probably mostly there for appearances or out of some sense of obligation), with a smattering of other folks. Most people exposed to live music in bars or clubs spend most of their time yakking with their friends and are oblivious to what's being played up on stage. Most people listening to outdoor band concerts were just passing through the park and have stopped to listen for a few minutes before moving on. Most people listening to indoor band concerts are relatives of the musicians.
5) Except for a couple of dozen people a year who have an extraordinary combination of talent, perseverance, luck, and connections, the rest of us will NOT be able to make a decent living solely (or primarily) by performing on clarinet.
The bottom line: Play clarinet for your own enjoyment, period! Forget about impressing/entertaining/pleasing anyone else, and forget about making a living at it. Just play because you want to, and forget the rest --- otherwise you're doomed to a lifetime of frustration.
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Author: Carmen Izzo
Date: 2001-09-02 05:51
Clarinet-dead? Afraid not. Not in our town of chicago. Probably the best placein the US to find clarinetage
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The Clarinet Pages
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