 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Rachel
Date: 2004-02-12 23:53
It is common knowledge that it is desirable to have an even sound through all your registers. However, people do this to different degrees. I have heard clarinet playing where the only difference between notes is that they are a different pitch. I prefer it when a player brings the different qualitys of the different registers out.
What are everyone's opinions on this?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-02-13 07:26
I agree. Fortunately, most clarinet recordings (emphasis on MOST) do bring out different colors per different pitches. Even more impressive is when someone is able to surprise you with their tone on a given note. For instance, in my opinion it seems that it would be very hard to play with a gloomy, sad, soft and very 'minor' sound in the high clarion and altissimo register. So it amazes me whenever I hear it played that way.
And I love to hear a unique color or sound. Which is why I am particularly drawn to certain players. Not because I might think their playing is superior, but because their sound is unique and different from your normal, everyday 'buffet' sound (sorry fellas). Think Pete Fountain, Acker Bilk, a period instrument, Thea King, and others. When you hear their sounds, you KNOW who or what it is. And it also sticks in your mind. Whether you like the sound or not, you will remember it because in some way it made an impression on you.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2004-02-13 09:14
A major achievement of the current musical evolution past Schoenberg´s watershed is that especially the windinstruments do nnot have an even intonation and timbre troughout their registers. Since timbre is the most central point of New Music -composition, most work goes into unfettering the different registers; to my opinion, one of the most obnoxious impediments of evolution of composition today is the still prevalent and towering position the well-tempered piano has, still, for composing in particular. I see the benefit of this, one has an entire orchestra at one´s hands - but the disadvantage weighs incredibly heavier, because a grand piano can only alter its intonation and timbres by scrupulous preparations (once again Cage and his prepared piano, what a progress that was, and nowadays hardly anyone plays it, if not interpreting Cages compositions - another step forward in music neglected completely). It is mindboggingly difficult to rid performers of this habit of "tuning evenly" before the actual playing. There are long and rich musical traditions (nearly all Asia) which never did so, indeed this practice is a sign of bad musical education to them, not having found your personal soundscape, and I earn puzzled faces still when I either answer the familiar "can you give me an a?" with "which one do you want, and what´s yours like?", or ask the performers to tune their instruments to their own ears, internally, so that the instrument work, but not to external overall ruling conceptions of "eveness in sound". But mostly it works fine, and soon one has to call everyone back from remote corners and rather "meditative" hunches over their instruments to tune them to their own judgements. It is so very beautiful if then one listens to such a performance and their intonations and individual timbres are just so very slightly different, each blending their colours , all those different shades, even in ppp - zones one can see those sheets of timbres floating, drifting through the instrumentation. O. Coleman had this as "harmolodical playing", there were those "spectral composers" as well, and it often improves the sound of the ensemble immensely just to use the different tunings of the transposing instruments and let them play the same score. Wonderfully and uncompromisingly internal differences are the results then, just by letting a b-instrument and a c- instrument read the same lines, to say nothing of es- and other tunings...! I would have lived in no other time in musical history than in the now, where such practice is not only possible but encouraged.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: graham
Date: 2004-02-13 12:12
This is a very important question.
I feel far more attracted to clarinet playing where timbre, and even dynamic can be affected by the particular note being played. I often feel disappointed with playing that objectively sounds marvelous, but I realise that the root of my disappointment is that it is too smooth and undifferentiated. One might almost say it is too good, too slick, to be enjoyable. Brymer commented on the possibility that clarinet design could be developed towards the holy grail of perfection in evenness to the extent that the playing would begin to sound bland. By stealth, we would lose something of great value in clarinet playing.
I do want my clarinet register middle finger f sharp to sound more aggressive and pungent than its fork fingering alternative (the Acton vent key would not help with that). I want the side key B flat in the clarinet register to be the trumpetingly powerful note it is, so I can differentiate it from the more muted B natural above it, and can also choose to go for the more covered and mellower long fingering instead. I want the clarinet register D to feel concentrated, and the D sharp above it more open and brighter. I want the G sharp above that to be one that can be floated with a hollow tone to an extent which is greater than can be done with the G. I like it when the instrument itself joins in with the interpretation.
This is all much more apparent on old instruments which is why I play on them. If you listen to a 1920s/30s recording the player's timbre is more likely to vary note to note, sometimes giving an effect of moving in and out of the shadows. There is one particularly lovely account from the 1930s of the clarinet solo in the slow movement of Rach's 2nd piano concerto. However impressive may be the ultra smooth rendition of this which is often heard today, the earlier account's many facetted tone palate, all delivered in a single phrase, is more touching to me.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-02-13 13:37
I've found most professional orchestral clarinetists nowadays have extremely consistent timbre throughout the registers, which I find admirable but also a bit, well, boring. My impresssion is that the older generations of players had less consistent tone, which personally I like --- for example, my favorite recording of the slow movement of Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony is a 1959 recording by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Alfred Wallenstein, in which Kalman Bloch (Michelle Zukovsky's dad) plays the clarinet solo iwith more beauty and emotion than I've heard anywhere else, but you can hear that just about every note has a different timbre --- in that instance it works wonderfully.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: William
Date: 2004-02-13 14:33
If it sounds good, it is good. And the "good" part is totally up to your listeners interpretation. For me, the tone quality should match the mood of the music--if it doesn't, then there is an aesthetic conflict that makes true musical expression more difficult. However, sometimes "variety" does work and an exceptional musical artist can dramtically "break the rules" and win world-wide audience approval. Like Louis Armstrongs' vocalization of "It's a Wonderful World" or any other tune he loved to sing. When all of the philosphical analyzations of tone quality are finally in, it will be simply "if it sounds good" that will prevail--at least, at the boxoffice.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2004-02-13 20:48
I like the lower register to rumble, like thunder from two canyons over.
I like the upper register to ring clear, and bright, like wind threw the wire.
I like the middle register come through plain, like a vodka gimlet.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Alseg
Date: 2004-02-13 22:08
"I want my sound to be that of a dry martini"
Paul Desmond, famed alto sax with Dave Brubeck
"To hell with that, I want to DRINK a dry martini"
me
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
Post Edited (2004-02-13 22:10)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
