 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-08-13 04:56
For those of you who play more than just the clarinet (and not just for fun, but are as serious about it as the clarinet), do you feel that it prohibits you from progressing as fast on the clarinet? Let's say you are equally trained on both the clarinet and the piano, sooner or later do you have to make a choice between the two? Do you have to devote all your time to one instrument in order to be a successful musician? Sometimes I think if I added my piano time onto my clarinet time I would be twice as good as I am now. Or vice versa. In college, can you succeed with both instruments, or do you have to pick one and stick with it? It is more common to have good piano players than it is to have good clarinet players. I think there is more competition in the piano world. Any advice or experience in that area?
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Author: jangjiman
Date: 2005-08-13 07:01
I'm not sure exactly how many good people there are. But you really can't classify anyone as "good"because people have many different opinions. As for me, I think playing a few instruments is a good thing. I play the drum set and it helps me with a lot of things.
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Author: mkybrain
Date: 2005-08-13 07:28
It really depends on how talented you are yourself. Many people cannot even be succesful on just one instrument. However some people( I just read in the article provided by David Blumberg about the new Principal Cellist who is also a winner of several piano competitions) can do well on many. One of my band directors at the high school I just graduated from was quite succesful on many instruments, particularly alto saxaphone and oboe, but also flutes, clarinets, the other saxes, and who knows what else. For some people it seems that they were made to play multiple instruments, some just one, some none. Just be realistic. Also, I don't know a whole lot about piano players, though I assume that the good ones(like all instruments) are well disciplined. However, you have an immense amount of competetion in the clarinet world too. Go to http://www.fromthetop.org , and search around there for young performers and listen to the clarinetists(my favorite are daniel goldman, Jeffery Brooks(beautiful playing in his Metzger: goodbye, which has a truly moving story behind it), and last but certainly not least, Yao Guang Zhai. I'm not sure if one has to be as good as the three in particular that I like, but the others are very talented too, and there are many like them everywhere. I wouldn't go by how tough is your competetion out there, because you have a lot no matter which instrument you choose unless you don't go to a school known for its music program. Just my two cents, I'm positive that others will have differing or more detailed advice.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2005-08-13 12:04
Playing more than one instrument will slow your technical development, but make you a better musician. What is your priority, to be a clarinet player or to be a musician?
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: ClariBone
Date: 2005-08-13 12:45
David brings up an excellent point. By listening to other instruments, you can help develop a lot of stuff. Phrasing, style, and a multitude of others. You can practice both equally as well. By scheduling what you will do and by setting goals, you can maintain steady progress, while still having fun playing both. Not to mention, by playing two instruments well, you will get more gigs than by doing JUST clarinet or piano. In my opinion, play both.
Clayton < equally in love with his LeBlanc Opus Clarinet, as well as the School's King Trombone...
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Author: Markael
Date: 2005-08-13 13:22
For me it’s a mixed bag.
Before saying more I would reiterate and paraphrase what Jangjiman said. It is hard to define what you mean by “good.” Probably most of us on this board are somewhere in the middle of the “food chain.”
Perhaps the best thing about playing more than one instrument is that it helps relieve anxiety. If you invest too much ego into playing one instrument, then you have too much to lose and are more likely to sabotage yourself with nerves. That internal voice says, “I must play this piece right or I’m a failure.” I discovered this by accident.
I stumbled into music as a vocation later in life. I teach music and am gradually trying to do some other music related tasks for income.
My passion now is for the clarinet, but ten or eleven years ago when all this started it was with the piano. I was practicing two or three hours a day, then started doing some gigs. I decided that I would concentrate on doing one thing and do it well.
So, for a time, my ego was invested in piano. But, in the first place, how do you ever catch up with players who have been playing steadily all these years? Secondly, why not take advantage of other skills?
Then I discovered that, if you have the ability to express your musical talent in more than one way, eventually you will be asked to do so. I picked up the clarinet again, and that set a process in motion that led to me into teaching both piano and clarinet.
Now I practice clarinet regularly and practice piano a little bit here and there. Yet, just this week I had three piano gigs at retirement communities. That was bizarre; I hardly ever have piano gigs anymore. But that’s the way it has been for me; every time I specialize, something draws me into keeping other irons in the fire.
What it boils down to is that you have to find your special niche. There will always be someone who plays “better” than you, but you have to find your unique voice.
David Peacham said, “Playing more than one instrument will slow your technical development, but make you a better musician. What is your priority, to be a clarinet player or to be a musician?”
That calls to mind the words of Artie Shaw, “Benny was a better clarinet player. I was a better musician.”
But, you know, maybe you don’t need to ask yourself what your priority is. That may present itself as your destiny reveals itself to you.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2005-08-13 15:49
Another consideration here is one that a colleague of mine faced: she was an outstanding pianist as a youth, and intended to major in piano performance at the college and graduate level. She also played bassoon
As she proceeded through her undergraduate program, she discovered that there was a surfeit of tremendously talented piano majors, and that progressing to the "concert pianist" ranks was going to require a degree of competition for which she didn't have the stomach.
So, she took her first degree in piano, but upgraded her bassoon skills in the meantime, and when it came to master's programs, entered (Northwestern) as a bassoonist, rather than as a pianist. She took her master's degree in bassoon performance.
Her goal was to teach at the university level. But instead of continuing on to a performance doctorate, she chose educational administration as the area for her Ph.D.
So now, she is a music program administrator at a small liberal arts college and much in demand as an accompanist (she's also an organist, BTW). In addition, she teaches theory, piano, and double reeds, and plays bassoon for a regional symphony and in recital.
She has also managed to marry (another professor -- not in music) and five children. And, as she says, "my children aren't starving".
Now that's a successful "divide and conquer" story if there ever was one!
Susan
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Author: ned
Date: 2005-08-14 02:44
""But, in the first place, how do you ever catch up with players who have been playing steadily all these years?''
I'm in ''catch up'' mode so to speak, having laid off for a decade, as the day job took priority. I'm finding it an interesting mission and, possibly, due to the fact that some of my peers may have reached their peak already (I hope not actually), it may not be an insurmountable task for me to reach their level too, eventually in (say) a decade or two.
Curiously enough, I would not want to be the judged ''best'' - and there are no competitions to determine this anyway - the enjoyment gained by the challenge is enough for me.
What can the mountain climber aspire to, after having reached the peak of Everest, I wonder? I think one instrument is more than enough - for me.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-08-14 16:02
Yes, do it. Play more than one instrument.
With your background in clarinetting, you will find it interesting to mess around with:
a flute;
various recorders;
all the saxophones;
A colleague of mine here in town teaches the bands and advanced placement music theory at our high school. He was a "woodwind specialist" in the Air Force. A college level saxaphonist, he became competent of flute and clarinet to meet the requirements of his Militray Occupational Specialty.
Later, he picked up the bassoon. Last week, he was coaching one of his recent graduates --a top young flutist-- to play the trombone well enough to avoid being put into the piccolo section in her college marching band.
My clarinet and sax player took up trumpet in middle age and could pick up the brass piece and play solos in his dance band in a few months.
One of our wind ensemble's horn players started playing horn in mid age after half a lifetime as a pianist. Our other horn player plays string bass in the dance band.
Go for it. And don't scrimp on instruments. For goodness sake, get your "doubles" in good enough condition that they don't have to be babied, favored or compromised to make them do what you want them to do.
I'm currently too cheap to move up from my crappy student-level tenor sax (I'm hoping for an opening on the alto), and I play uncomfortably with it.
Bob Phillips
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2005-08-14 17:33
Depends -
Whatever your 100% amt of practice time/effort is, you will be dividing it up between 2 instruments.
Figure out what works for you % wise based on your goals. A band director would want to be proficient on more than one instrument, whereas a Symphony player wouldn't need to (aux instruments not included).
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Author: 3dogmom
Date: 2005-08-14 23:50
I think that it's important to note that playing the piano has a tremendous value. I don't think there is anyone who can look back and say, "Gee, I sure wish I hadn't studied piano". I sense a problem with time here, did you ask about this previously in another thread? If you can't keep up the lessons with both right now, because of school, then hopefully that will be a short term problem. Studying piano in addition to your clarinet playing will only be an asset, and you will be glad you did, in my opinion.
Sue Tansey
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2005-08-15 06:32
There is not too much with James Galway's flute playing, and flute embouchure is surely much more susceptible to interference than a clarinet embouchure.
In 2002 Galway wrote in his forum that he played the French Horn and saxophone - "real bad on both" - and that it had not affected his embouchure at all. In fact, playing the French horn actually improved it. He became more aware of the changes which are necessary on the flute.
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Author: Markael
Date: 2005-08-15 10:37
To reiterate: You have to find your niche, whether it is on one instrument or ten. All the suggestions on this thread have merit, but don’t forget to look at the big picture.
It’s preaching to the choir to talk about the importance of good technique on this bulletin board. Most of us realize how difficult it is to play well, in tune, with good tone, to make those fast notes more even, the staccato and legato more pure, etc. We work hard to train our brains and bodies to give expression to the music in our heads.
Or, to put it more mechanically, sometimes I can hear that the notes aren’t even, but my fingers are doing the best they can and I just need more practice. Lots more.
So it is tempting to look at this whole matter as a zero sum game defined by the number of hours spent on each instrument.
Consider these scenarios:
1) My wife used to teach piano. At one studio where she taught, one of her colleagues practiced Chopin for hours, but never had the courage to play for anybody. At some point she had had a stern, demanding teacher.
2) Just recently a professional clarinetist posted to this board, saying that, in years of playing and practice, he has never been able to do smears like Artie Shaw. He probably never will. Should he stop playing?
3) Compile in your head a list of musicians, singers, songwriters, possibly in folk or popular music, who have had an impact on you. Are some of these people undeniable talents, even though their playing or singing is not particularly accomplished in terms of contest/competition?
4) Earlier in the thread I mentioned playing three piano gigs at retirement communities last week. Two of the gigs were for nursing care residents, some of whom have dementia. The third was for independent living residents. I allowed time for requests, and I could play almost every request offered. Being so devoted to technical development on the clarinet right now, I was very aware that my playing lacked the finesse and subtlety of a concert pianist. But I reached my audience. They had a wonderful time, and so did I.
Musically you have to find what brings fulfillment to you and reaches out to other people on some level. And, if you’re lucky, you can also make a dollar doing it.
Sometimes we can become such musical snobs that we despise even our own playing.
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Author: rockymountainbo
Date: 2005-08-15 15:26
I play guitar, bass guitar, drums, some piano, mandolin and a little harmonica in addition to recently starting the clarinet. I play musical instruments because I love to make music. I don't do it for a living, but would some day like to be part of a performing group once again (like I used to in the rock world). Personally, I admire people who can play many instruments proficiently. I only wish I could say I can play all those I listed proficiently, but I can only "fool" people by playing some things well. I am far from proficient on any of them...including the guitar and I've played it for 22 years.
I hear that folks who play the clarinet can pick up the saxophone easily. I am hoping this is the case because I want to be able to play it too.
My opinion is what works for me. I love musical instruments and I love music and I feel that I can't know enough.
Objectively, though, I can tell you that playing the drums has made me a better player on all the instruments I enjoy.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-08-15 17:32
Every instrument I've added (bass/contrabass clarinet, recorder, flute, oboe, sax, voice) has improved my clarinet playing). Each lets you play new music and gives you a new approach. One has never interfered with any other.
The only problem is practice time.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Meri
Date: 2005-08-15 18:05
Given that I'm going for my clarinet Performer's ARCT (which has Grade 6 piano as a co-requisite, just did my Grade 4 piano exam last Monday (waiting for the results), I pretty much am required to play two instruments...my first love will always be clarinet, though now that I am starting to delve into the serious piano literature (due to a great increase in proficiency on the piano, and even having performed with one of my clarinet students, playing the piano part for a solo at a talent show for her school a few months back)
Seriously, I think each instrument enhances each other, though it can be hard to spend 2-3 hours a day between both instruments. The piano exericses that I am working on (the Hanon) I have found have had a positive impact on clarinet. Studying clarinet helps my be expressive on the piano, dynamically and duplicating various articulations that exist in the clarinet literature.
Meri
"There is a difference between being flat and sounding in tune, and being in tune but sounding flat. The first I can live with; the second I cannot."
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2005-08-15 19:33
My second instrument is guitar and the two are so different I can't see that there is any conflict of interest. I am completely relaxed on the guitar because there is no pressure to be perfect. The clarinet, however, is a more serious venture. No one expects me to be really good on the guitar. That's a good thing.
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-08-15 19:50
Well my dilema is that I'm expected to be good on both clarinet and piano. I can't just relax on one instrument. "Relaxing" is slacking off, so is sight reading, and apparently so is composing. Perfecting a piece is the only way you can't slack off around here. But, that's a different story. In my opinion, more work goes into composing a piece than perfecting a piece.
It's almost like tug-a-war there's one side routing for the clarinet, the other wants me to drop the clarinet and stick with the piano, and the other just wants to give it all up relax and compose some stuff. I dunno.
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Author: leonardA
Date: 2005-08-16 03:47
Sax was my primary instrument but I wanted to add clarinet, so 2.5 years ago I started with that. I spend more time on clarinet than sax now because I have farther to go with it. I have also started flute because I played orchestra for a couple of musical theater shows and wanted to be able to play all three. I agree that playing more than one instrument slows my progress on each one, but it's worth it to able to play all three. And as long as I feel that I'm progressing on all of the, which I am, it's ok.
Leonard
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2005-08-16 08:51
Ken Shaw is absolutely right, as far as I can say. Although we may differ to a great degree about what it means to be technically fluent, we all here´d say that learning the technique to perfection is part and parcel of being a musician. There´s simply no music without technique (Yet, at the same time, when I´m outside, I´m not the first one who is strikken by the perfect arrangement nature let´s her sounds to be listened to, insects, birds, the wind, leaves...etc, all comprising an endless perfect musical artwork, just a few days ago I rode my bike alongside a meadow where grasshoppers and crickets were playing away - they did it so perfectly, just two to four pitches but absolutely pulsing and rhythmically countersigning. And to Messiaen´s "book of birds" for piano I could listen for ages.).
/There´s two general lines of conduct: 1. adding to, expanding - the more instruments one plays the more articulate and differentiated one becomes on a given single instrument; 2. concentrating, deepening - sticking to one instrument, learning absolutely everything, every last subtle detail of the sounds it´s able to produce. I´d say it´s never either one or the other in real life, it´s more a question of temperament to what side You lean more to. Playing solely windinstruments, I rotate them, as far as practice time goes, daily. As far as adding goes, my opinion is that as long as You´re able to produce Your very own on/with/through/by an instrument, take it up/continue to play it, and drop it/refuse it if all You can perform on it are just copies of copies of copies. I think it´s extremely difficult to make one´s own sound on instruments of such different provenience like a windinstrument and a chordophone, but it´s not impossible.
/What´s this difference between being a player and/or a musician about? Smells like metaphysics once more. (When Zappa said "Shut up and play yer guitar!"-was he talking to a musician or a player?). This distinction appears to me as very superficial, and in any case impossible to render intersubjectifically, if we consent that a work of art or the production of such isn´t decided upon by taste and whether audience digs it or not. But supposed there´s such a distinction possible, it´s certainly impossible to be a musician w/o being a player - and vice versa? We all can give lists of wellhoned players whose play we don´t like, and whom we label "mechanical", "academic show off player" et al; but we lack the criteria for such a judgement ad hominem all the same. An argument ad rem appears more valid to me - it´s the stuff that is played/performed which is either a work of art or not, it´s the p e r f o r m a n c e. Those retro-jazzers may play Ellington more ellingtoneske than the man himself, but they don´t comprehend a thing about this music, and how many versions of "Leap Frog" are there which come up to the whipe-out-performances Ch.Parker gave us, though there are 20yrolds who play it even double-timed? Avantgarde/posttonal/experimental music - this is the plateau where one is required to be fully equipped with all techniques tought and thought of on one´s instrument(s), and then some (those pretty piano-lessons don´t mean a thing if they didn´t make you put rubber wedges and pingpong balls in between the strings, or microphones wired to midi-boards), but all this signifies not a thing if it doesn´t enable You to develop Your own sound, perform and play what is there between Your ears. Technical difficulty and playing on the edge aren´t the same thing, though they´re more often than not congruent. Many musical developments came to be when performers and composers weren´t satisfied by what is allowed or thought to be possible at a given point of time, - it´s the experiment, the try out which let´s music develope, not the re-enactment of museal exponents. But all this "yes, let´s try sth new, how´s this, why not the other way round"-attitude , where a range of instruments is immensely helpful indeed, as are as many listening-sessions as possible, is absolutely worthless if not cultivated, aka getting down to the nittygritty of figuring out what exactly does one do there, and practicing it. To me, it´s not about how many instruments one plays, it´s solely about what You play on them.
Markus
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Author: SolidRockMan
Date: 2005-08-16 09:18
Apart fom alto sax and clarinet, I regularly play acoustic and electric guitar, bass guitar and do some singing. Apart from the constant pressure on practice time, an issue I have found is that it's just not possible to have the quality of instrument one would like in each category.
A friend who plays electric guitar recently bought his dream instrument (a Les Paul) after much saving and anticipation. The 'Les Paul' equivalent in each category I play is not financially achievable so up to now I have made do with good student instruments in each case.
However the benefits of a broader musical understanding far outweigh the downsides in my view and I would recommend that all musicians experiment a bit.
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Author: 3dogmom
Date: 2005-08-16 12:58
Mary, I don't think we answered your question about whether you have to pick just one instrument for college. In most schools you have to major on one instrument, but I do believe it is possible to double major or minor in another.
It sounds as though you feel as if you're being pulled in different directions, without giving adequate time to the things you feel are important. Would it be possible for you to talk to your teachers, piano and clarinet, and get their input? Or do they each feel that their instrument is most important?
My guess would be that you can find a way to make this work, and that the frustration you're feeling right now is something you can work through.
Sue Tansey
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Author: Jamies
Date: 2005-08-16 13:55
I think that all musicians have to play piano and learn to sing so I don't think its really that hard of a decision there. They really do help out with playing any other instrument and are useful for teaching people too. Taking piano lessons is a good idea.
I play violin and viola as well as the clarinet and it is very very very tough to split practice time. Sometimes I get mixed up and start reading alto clef when its supposed to be a treble clef.
On the clarinet there isn't really any problems except for how I wish I could do vibrato like I constantly do on violin and to do small cres. and decres. to show a phrase when there should be a constant dynamic.
I could catch up with other people who have played clarinet for years because of all the musical training I had previously is more indepth than those who only learn clarinet.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2005-08-16 14:55
Jamies,
You have hit on one of the most important things to learn and that is another clef (so you get confused at times; I have forgotten that I am on sax and tried to use a clarinet fingering once in a great while - never in a performance though).
When you read different clefs, transposing becomes child's play and that skill is a terrifc thing to have in your bag of tricks. Playing piano does so much for one's understanding of musical notation/theory/harmony among other things.
HRL
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-08-17 01:33
haha. I just learned how to read alto and tenor cleffs today. I'm taking AP music theory and our course has just started.
I am not currently taking piano lessons, because with marching band and stuff I probably wouldn't practice as much and it might be a waste of money. Of course, than again I feel a burden lifted off my shoulders where I can do whatever I want, like right now I'm learning Schubert's Impromptu op. 90 no. 2 for piano... Although I may not finish it in a while, I don't feel like I have a deadline to meet. With clarinet you almost always have a deadline to meet, because of band and whatnot. I do accompany on piano for the choir (and I'm also in choir), so then I do have a deadline.
Sometimes I think there is just to much emphasis put on band. It's good to be able to play with a group, but sometimes you are just hiding within the group. I like marching band, but it is very hard to play musically (or even be heard for that matter) out on the field. Our band class is going to set up some ensembles for a grade. That way, we will actually have to listen to each other. Otherwise, it's like everyone is in their own little world.
On piano, you control every aspect of your playing. You don't rely on a group to do the work for you. However, you still have to listen for the inner voice and the melody if you want to play musically. Although, I think it is a good skill to learn to listen, it is much easier to play by yourself. I think I'm getting off topic.
There are a few choices in college. One would be I could accompany on piano and get paid, while also majoring in clarinet performance. I could also continue composing... It just gets discouraging when you can't come up with anything new, or feel like your compositions aren't exactly the best. However, I don't know if I could really handle that all at once. I guess it just depends on the person "musician"...
It's like my piano and clarinet are two little kids. If I spend too much time with one, I feel like I'm neglecting the other and it will get jealous. I feel guilty if I don't practice my clarinet and practice the piano more (which happens moreso than me practicing my clarinet more than the piano)...
Post Edited (2005-08-17 01:37)
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Author: archer1960
Date: 2005-08-20 02:15
"I hear that folks who play the clarinet can pick up the saxophone easily. I am hoping this is the case because I want to be able to play it too."
That is absolutely true. I picked up bari sax in a couple of weeks after playing Bb sop clarinet for 4 years or so. Then contra-bass clarinet was an easy add-on: it needed even more air than the bari sax, but with the same fingerings an key sigs as my clarinet.
That was back in Jr. High (8th or 9th grade), btw, when the band director asked me to play Bari Sax, and then at a different HS, the director asked me to play Contra-bass.
Post Edited (2005-08-20 02:24)
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The Clarinet Pages
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