 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Eileen
Date: 2003-04-29 04:57
I just received the music for the next concert for community orchestra. 6-7 weeks to practice. We're playing Five Klee Pictures by Peter Maxwell Davies. I'm on the second clarinet part and there are loads of low register glisses in the 3rd movement ("The Twittering Machine"). I've never even seen a gliss before! Yes, I've already done a search here about doing a gliss. But most of it it focused on Rhapsody in Blue. At least one posting suggested that doing it in the chalumeau was even harder (my luck!).
So I have some questions which are based largely on my limited amount of time to approximate this technique: (1) What exactly am I aiming for, sound wise? I haven't found a recording of this piece. I don't play piano but do play guitar. Is this supposed to sound like sliding your finger chromatically up the low E or A string on an electric guitar?; (2) Are there any different techniques to use in the low register (e.g., low A to D just under the staff); and (3) assuming I do not master this new techinique in the next month and a half, what's the most graceful way to fake it on the 2nd clarinet part?
Okay, I know there will be a barrage of "faking it is a cop out" lectures, but I am just trying to be realistic given my time constraints.
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Author: DAVE
Date: 2003-04-29 05:53
As far as a model goes for how a gliss should sound, Rapsody in Blue is it. Glissing is much easier in the higher register and nearly impossible down low. I think your best bet will be to slide your fingers with a fairly loose emboucher and blow pretty hard. Don't expect it to sound good becasue it won't.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2003-04-29 13:58
Eileen -
What are the notes to gliss on?
There are two ways to gliss in the low register. Slide your fingers off the holes, or brace your middle knuckles on the side of the instrument and roll your fingertips up. If you can get the middle finger joint on a hole, it's easier to do this. In India, players of the shenai (a keyless shawm) cover all the holes with the middle joint and gliss all over the place. Of course, it's easier on a wide double reed, but relaxing your embouchure will help even on the clarinet.
Give it a try and come back with a report.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Ed
Date: 2003-04-29 14:14
The best gliss i ever heard was on a cut from Paul McCartney's album Tug of War. On one song, Jack Brymer plays an amazing gliss. It starts quite low and is really smooth across each register.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2003-04-29 18:23
Here is a situation where the composer's (or director's) intent is paramount. What is usually thought of as a glissando on a Clarinet, executed as what is commonly called a "slide," isn't really a glissando. For in a true glissando, the intention is to produce a scale, usually diatonic but sometimes chromatic, played very rapidly. This maneuver can be executed on any instrument designed to produce defined pitches: a fretted stringed instrument, harp, etc.
On a trombone or unfretted stringed instrument, however, a true gliss can't be done easily as a practical matter. Instead, the result of a sliding finger on a string or smooth motion of the slide is actually a *portamento*. A portamento includes not only the tones of a scale but also all intervening pitches, smoothly executed. To add to the confusion, what is really a portamento is sometimes called a glissando. Go figure.
On a Clarinet, "lipping" and incomplete uncovering of tone holes can produce tones other than the "design tone" of each fingering. Thus, a skilled performer can play either a glissando or portamento. So a fast scale on a Clarinet is a real glissando, which may not be what the composer or director wants. Portamento may be intended. There is no easy way to do it, and plenty of practice is needed in order to do it well. A softer reed helps, and a looser than normal embouchure will help as the fingers slide off the holes.
In many recordings and some live performances of Rhapsody in Blue I've heard, the Clarinetist starts in the Chalumeau with a chromatic glissando, easing into portamento in the Clarion register. Complete portamento might sound more effective, but if the player can't do it well, it shouldn't be done. MOO.
Regards,
John
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Author: Eileen
Date: 2003-04-29 19:07
Actually, the part is marked "quasi glissando." Whatever that means.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2003-04-29 19:47
Quasi = resembling, seeming but not actual. Gee, that's a great help, isn't it. :(
I'd say without further input from your director, you're sort of on your own.
But I would suggest that if a note-by-note "quick scale" is what you will use, best to determine whether diatonic or chromatic should be the order of the day.
Regards,
John
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Author: ken
Date: 2003-05-05 18:55
The terms and application I was taught was a marked glissando over a slur or wavering line is essentially a "rip" of a scale "in the key signature and mode in that spot of the beat/measure". There must also be a beginning full value and ending target notes. Conversely, a "smear" are legitimate pitches, ascending/descending (i.e. Rhapsody in Blue) but in the form of a slide, similar to a trombone or brass half-valve effect.
"Quasi-glissando" is poor notation of the composer's desired purpose. Quarter, half-holing notes, dropping my jaw smearing the whole step below the written note and speeding up airstream works best for me. I wouldn't work on it for more than a few minutes a day at first, it's a "golly gee" stuff rarely used in classical playing nevertheless an annoying skill you've got to pull out of your hat once in a blue moon. I recommend moderation in mastering this technique. A simple exercise is blowing octaves with just the mouthpiece, mf 10X for 10 days. Then repeat adding joints (barrel first) to increase accuracy and endurance. Eventually you should be able to blow at least a full octave plus a minor 3rd at ff. Doing it with the horn will then be much easier and fun. v/r Ken
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-05-06 14:37
Perhaps, like the picture, the intent is simply to make an impression on the listener. If so then musical exactness is perhaps not necessary. Most often references to such maneuvers are to the Rhapsody in Blue but note the above McCartney reference which is new to me. Should you want to hear another interesting interpretation of a gliss,slide or whatever check out the song "Down On Melody Farm" in the movie "Everybody Sing" 1938....an otherwise rather uninspiring flick.
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Author: Matt Snyder
Date: 2003-05-08 15:15
I was curious about the McCartney-Brymer gliss reference, so I dug through my vinyl and found the record. The "gliss" is hardly a gliss at all, it's just credited that way (the sound is also so processed you can hardly tell it's a clarinet).
Anyone wanting to hear what a gliss REALLY is should listen to any Duke Ellington recordings with the Creole clarinetist Barney Bigard. That man was a virtuoso of the highest order and could start a gliss at the bottom of the horn and end it at the very top, OR start at the top and go down equally smoothly. You'd think he had some kind of magic horn that had no register breaks at all.
Matt Snyder
msnyder@alumni.indiana.edu
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