 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-09-07 11:45
I am aware that this topic has been posted here before, but I did a search and couldn't find it.
When you play, the sound you hear is different to what other people hear.
What sort of differences are there likely to be in the perceived (it took me 4 attempts to type that word; I need to go to bed :-) ) tone colour?
How (without recording yourself, my tape recorder is awful, I used to use it to play duets with myself, and I gave up when it started occasionally lowering the pitch by up to a 4th) would it be possible for you to hear yourself as others hear you?
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Author: hans
Date: 2003-09-07 12:14
Hi Rachel,
It may help to hear yourself if you play facing (and close to) a wall, or facing into a corner of a room, so that your sound is reflected back towards you.
Hans
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2003-09-07 13:10
You'll hear the higher-order partials pronounced, in proximity.
The audience will hear fewer of the lower order partials, the farther away.
The balance is somewhere in between.
I think the best sound (for me) is when I hear fewer of the high-order overtones when playing, but that costs me for projection.
My band director is forever asking us to be less shrill, and this tends to happen when we put to much energy into each breath.
You may also hear more tonguing and breath artifact than someone sitting nearby... this falls off quickly, as it has little accoustic power.
******
My one experience with recording was tilted toward the high frequency hash in my sound, when the mic was 2m away. With the mic 4m away, it sounded more like a clarinet.
I suppose if I put the mic outside, it would sound like Jon Manassee?
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Author: Avie
Date: 2003-09-07 15:28
I dont think that its possible to hear yourself as others hear you. Your sound is determined by what you like to hear and your confidence in it. Hopefully the majority of your audience will like it to.
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2003-09-07 15:53
When you are playing, a good deal of what you hear comes through your nasal cavity. (Mercifully), others don't hear you the same way - you get resonance that they never will. The closest you can probably come to hearing yourself as an outsider would is a good quality recording. That's why, among other things, when you are trying out a new instrument or mouthpiece, it's a good idea to take along someone knowledgable to listen to you or to record yourself, rather than relying on what you hear (feel might be a better way to put it) when you play. While playing into a wall or in a lively room may change (or even increase the percentage of) what you hear through your ears, it won't eliminate what you are hearing internally so it's only of limited value.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: William
Date: 2003-09-07 16:09
Duke Ellington said, (of music in general) "If it sounds good, it is good".
We all sound differently to others than we do to ourselves, so listen to the feedback of others (teachers, conductors, general listeners--and your significant other)--they will be your best resources for self evaluation. But also remember that, in the great overview of all clarineting, sound is the least important issue. More important concerns are correct notes played absolutely in tune and with the correct rhythm--within an acceptable musical style. So, practice carefully with your tuner (always on) and metronome, learn to read any and all rhythmic patterns and develop the necessary technical skill to play every note--no matter how difficult--in an acceptable musical style, and (guess what??) your personal sound will pretty much take care of itself.
Just always listen, and make it sound (ala Duke) "Good".
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-09-08 00:24
I would imagine that having a good sound is just as important as anything else- I wouldn't like to listen to a clarinettist with a bad sound, even if they did have "correct notes played absolutely in tune and with the correct rhythm--within an acceptable musical style"- my computer can do that.
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2003-09-08 14:15
No, William, I don´t think so at all, indeed, "playing in tune and the correct rhythm" is the last important, if at all, part of playing. This may have been so during a very deterministic part of music´s history (the so called "classical" aera) and it may also be this way for styles and genres that propose an everything but contemporary conception of what it means to develop a musical piece of art - but apart from those "new lions" and authorities groomed along codices some miles beyond the turn of the 19th to the 20ieth century - apart from those, tonecolour, sound, timbre, spatial direction, blending and shading, getting beyond that clumsy chromatic scale, closing gaps to other, non-musical art-froms: This is the most central and fundamental issue in playing such a flexible and poly-facetted instrument as the clarinet. And for coposing, this holds true also.
Markus
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2003-09-08 14:29
yes indeed, Rachel,
s o u n d is the core matter of contemporary music, and rhythm, pitch hierachies, pre-fixed harmonies and what have you are derivatives. Musical evolution, if one looks closely, has always throughout history been a story of undermining established codices, be it in socalled classical music, in jazz or else. In all aspects, be it the developement of registers, quarter- and eigth-tones, multiphonics, timbre- and colourtrills and -tremolos, all this is just "incorrect, non-accepted musical style, out of tune and rhythm"´. But contemporary music has it that is is not, it is what it is all about. "Playing well" is not at all identical with "playing correctly", whatever "correct is supposed to mean, and a glance at musical history shows, it seldomly has ever.
Is it not a wonderful phenomenon that there are no two persons hearing the same, identical tone? That a musical piece of art is an endlessly facetted, ever dynamical zone of auditive processes? Pure anatomy and acoustics have it that there is a lower and a higher limit within which sensual data in considered to be "the same", but if it is a dimension of a work of art to question exactly this sameness and the installation of those borders in question, and to compose the very devices and modes to undermine these concepts, one´s aim should not be to strive for "hearing oneself as others hear you" but being able to develop as many shades and differences as possible, to unfold differentiation instead of unification.
Markus
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2003-09-08 15:36
I recently had the "pleasurable tension" of playing a 24 bar bass cl jazz solo in "Hi Hat" by Yoder, the hi-hat cymbal being also featured, this time PA-amplified, as needed out-of-doors. However I couldn't hear the treble/bass/volume modifications,"my" sound-engineer gave me, but received similar-to-rehearsal "congrats" from band members on tone quality, from my Selmer-Paris B C, with a good-to-me sounding Pomarico glass mp [with a mp cushion]. I'll try the "bathroom corner" acoustics and report if significant. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-09-08 15:37
I agree with the previous post on several points...You would hear alot more high partials in your sound no matter the acoustic...so by bringing more fundamental partials into the sound will have the positive effect of adding weight and dimension to your sound.
The danger of bathroom playing is not playing at the highest levels of volume due to the resonance capacity of the room. Being able to play with a consistent sound no matter the acoustic is more important for reliable playing...there is nothing worse than trying to play to room, rather be faithful to good playing concepts and rythmic playing!
David Dow
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Author: William
Date: 2003-09-08 23:27
I did not say that sound was not an important component of clarinet skill. What I meant to propose is that it is the "least" important. Certainly, more important to every audition committe is correct notes played in rhythum and impeccable intonation with acceptable phrasings. If you can't perform within these basic functions, you will never win any position of merit even though you may sound like Harold Wright. BTW, more auditins are lost on the rythmic aspect of ones performance than any other factor. Of course, when you achieve the skills to audition to the very best ensembles (ala the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), then everyone can play all the notes, rhymically correct and in tune with impeccable phrasings. At that level, ones tone quality may be the "tie breaker".
But to reach that level of competition, the clarinetist must first be able to play the all notes, in time, in tune and play with acceptable muscial style. I just think that a lot of us, by worrying so much about which mouthpiece sounds the best, are too often putting the old "cart before the horse".
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-09-09 00:21
William does have a point- especially about the rhythm, that tends to give me problems (mostly because I am incapable of keeping a steady beat). I think that you should try to make all aspects of your playing the absolute best they can be. I asked about sound because it's easy to hear if you are playing the correct notes/rhythm/style and all that stuff, but because you sound different to others than you do to yourself, it's harder to tell if you are getting a good sound.
I tried playing into the corner of my wardrobe- it is a MUCH better sound than the one I'm hearing when I play normally.
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Author: William
Date: 2003-09-09 14:56
One last comment--our personal sounds are controlled by how we want to sound--our learned mental concept of what we think is *good*--and our oral configuration that we are born with--and "stuck with"--for our clarinetting lives. Those two factors pretty much determine what we all sound like and why we all return to those "personal" sounds even after changing mouthpieces, reeds, barrels and instruments. This is why I could never sound lie Larry Combs, even though I were to play on his personal set of equipement or copies thereof. Likewise, He would never be able to sound like me. We have different physical "gifts" that make us unconditionally unique to our own sounds. Larry has, if fact, stated in a recent clinic that even though he switches mouthieces, he pretty much returns to his own sound after "a couple of weeks".
But--and this is the point of my postings--if Larry and I can play our clarinets in tune and play all of the correct notes, in perfect rhythum with impeccable and acceptable musical phrasings, we will both continue to have a steady gig--and make our own personal sounds "all that they can be".
And, as Duke has mused, "If it sounds good, it is good".
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-09-09 16:14
Personally my feeling is tone and tuning are connected, so I am not quite sure why tone would be the last factor. In fact, tone is the thing which is perceived first, and tuning second.
So in my humble opinion(I am an orchestral clarinetist) then tone should be the first consideration of whether you get a job.
David Dow
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-09-09 23:41
Yes, I agree with D. Dow. At university last year I had about 3 favourites out of the other clarinettists, and my opinion of them was based on the sound they made.
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Author: Renato
Date: 2003-09-20 17:14
I don't know how you could hear yourself the way other people hear you. I know that it must sound good to them if it sounds good to you (since you can hear more hissing and clicking than they can), except for projection. So I guess the sound quality will be good, only less intense.
I try to avoid rooms with too much reverb and "feedback" so to speak, as much as rooms where the sound just seems to die instantly and drop to the floor with a thud...
I've always wanted to know how I sound to other, so if anyone has any practical idea, please let me know...
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