 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2004-06-13 20:59
In a book I am reading about string quartets, a cellist comments that playing the clarinet is essentially " just putting down the fingers." (I'm paraphrasing). Is this how string players view us woodwinders? Doesn't it miss how complicated tonguing/breath control/etc. is ?
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Author: Henry
Date: 2004-06-13 21:02
Don't believe everything you read! The same could be said about the cello! I wish things were as simple as that.
Henry
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Author: RAMman
Date: 2004-06-13 21:25
Andrew Marriner, section leader of the London Symphony Orchestra...
I quote...
'Just move your fingers and blow!'
If you're talking true fundamentals, how else do you suggest you play the clarinet? It's not just how string players see it, that's how I see it as well.
How do you play the cello? Move your bow and the fingers of your left hand.
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Author: Henry
Date: 2004-06-13 21:51
Of course, the art of playing any instrument can always be reduced to meaningless statements like that. It is equally demanding to play ANY instrument, or to perform ANY task for that matter, at top level. However good you are at something, there will be someone else who can ultimately top you. That's the nature of human competitiveness. You can't say that playing the cello is easier than playing the clarinet. If that was the intent of what wjk was reading, I disagree totally, IMHO.
Henry
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Author: RAMman
Date: 2004-06-13 22:25
Anything that is fundamentally essential cannot possibly be meaningless.
So many people when playing something with a high 'notes per inch ratio' forget to blow. With a step back and a rethink, the autopilot is removed and a technically difficult passage becomes easier because fundamentals have been thought about again.
I stand by it, clarinet playing is blowing and moving your fingers...it's how you do these two things that determine the quality of your playing. If this is forgotten, you've got problems.
Plus the statement 'It is equally demanding to play ANY instrument, or to perform ANY task for that matter, at top level' is (I believe) incorrect. I'm sure I can open a door or count to ten just as well as anyone on the face of the earth. However, I'm pretty sure that most people would struggle play the clarinet to 'top level'.
Post Edited (2004-06-13 22:26)
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Author: Alexis
Date: 2004-06-14 07:46
The idea of "just putting down the fingers" is entirely dependent on context. Because it comes from another instrumentalist it sounds a bit patronising, as if the clarinet is a far easier instrument. However, if a clarinettist (say...Andrew Marriner) says the same thing it has an entirely different meaning and a different purpose. By reducing the instrument down to its very fundamentals, you stop worrying about the small things (like reed, mouthpiece, ligature) and actually play music. And as RAMman and Henry rightly pointed out, playing the cello can be reduced to similarly simple terms.
Basically, they are useless statements when applied in a derogatory manner (like all other sorts of negative criticism really...). When the motivation is pedagogical however, they can help clear away the over-analysis that all troubled musicians are prone to. Really I don't think there is much point comparing the difficulties of a stringed instrument to a woodwind(or brass or percussion) instrument because they are entirely unmeasurable.
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Author: graham
Date: 2004-06-14 12:27
There is a fairly simple answer to this. Playing any musical instrument is quite unlike counting to ten. It is possible for the standard of playing to increase almost infinitely. All that is required to push the standard up, is a group of talented people trying their hardest to do so. Thus, each instrument presents enormous challenges of its own kind simply because of all the talented and hard working people who establish that that instrument is capable of such feats. At the top end of technical difficulty therefore all instruments must be equally difficult, since to say otherwise implies that one or other instrument has attracted less talented or industrious players, which is inherently unlikely.
Of course, for the beginner, some instruments are a great deal more difficult than others. The clarinet has the distressing tendency to seem easy in the early stages, but to become ever more difficult, until even the simplest things cannot be played with absolute confidence. Hence Brymer said that four repeated clarion register As, from Beethoven's 5th Symphony is the most difficult orchestral extract of all.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2004-06-14 14:23
It was a tongue in cheek comment, WJK.....get it?
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Author: William
Date: 2004-06-14 15:02
I think the comment was not so "deep" as many are making it. With a clarinet, if you put certain fingers down (and blow), you will most likely produce the correct pitch. On a cello, it is not only putting the correct finger(s) down, but precisley *where* the finger is placed on the frettless fingerboard to produce the correct pitch. Thus, the statement, "all you have to do to play (a note) on a clarinet is put you finger(s) down and blow"--as opposed to the cello--is basically true.
Of course, the ability to play with technical facility and musical taste is a far more complex matter and is equally challenging wih regard for all musical instruments. What is the hardest instrument to play?? Answer--the one that I am trying to play good.
(which for me--having taught strings for 20 yrs--is the clarinet)
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Author: John_May
Date: 2004-06-14 18:42
And yet, the general consensus seems to be that the violin is the most difficult instrument both to learn and to play well... a consensus I happen to agree with, having tried to learn that instrument, much to the detriment of my ears
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-06-14 19:01
Anybody who has taught a stone-cold beginner on ANY musical instrument, and I would include piano in this, knows there is more to it. If there weren't, children on violins wouldn't sound like strangling cats and clarinets like Canadian geese being violated. How about "just move your feet and walk"? Same thing -- watch the process of a baby learning to walk, and you realize that these seemingly straightforward tasks have enormous complexity. Blow -- how? Move your fingers -- how? Which muscles? In what sequence? With what force?
The attribution out of context is a little difficult to characterize, but I tend to agree with BobD that it seems meant either in jest or to make another point entirely.
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Author: Alexis
Date: 2004-06-14 22:25
Yes, of course there is more to it. Especially in the case of beginners. If everyone taught beginners like that we would have even more squealers and honkers out there. There would be laws against band rehearsals if students were taught as such...
However when you become a more advanced player you can get hung up so much on things like tonguing, tone, embouchure, intonation, how good your reed etc that you forget that you have to make music and an instruction such as that in the subject or Andrew Marriner's concept is often very useful. It's not that those facets of playing aren't important; they constitute a massive part of clarinet technique. However I often see performers with terrific technique delivering terribly dull performances and I really wish they would stop acting like a clarinettist and start acting like a musician...
Again it is all dependent on context. It's quite possible that the cellist's comments were made with tongue firmly in cheek.
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-06-15 00:24
OK -- explain to a beginner how to make music.
When you are done, dance about architecture.
All of those little technical things that we work to master are part of how we express that musicality within ourselves. No different than a painter learning how to blend pigments to get that perfect hue, or a sculptor learning how to tap a chisel just so to get the right shape. Artists may be born with an innate talent, but technique is what sets it free. It is a distinct possibility that a boring performer who is all technique simply isn't an artist. It happens. However, the greatest performing artists I know have absolute mastery of the technical and it is integral to what they do and how they teach. I've never heard the Nike'ism "just do it" in their master classes.
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Author: RAMman
Date: 2004-06-15 13:17
A famous bassoonist of the Philharmonia, was once asked if he could teach a student to improve his tone.
'Please sir, can you teach me how you make such a wonderful tone?'
'Certainly, come to my house for a lesson.'
The student arrives and sets up...
'So how do you make your lovely tone sir?'
'Just blow the damn thing, that'll be £50 please.'
People constantly over complicate playing the clarinet. If you can make a beautiful consistent sound, you can do anything. Airflow is the basis of good tonguing as just one example.
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Author: Pappy
Date: 2004-06-15 16:12
"People constantly over complicate playing the clarinet."
Perhaps, but then why have an entire message board devoted to it? ;-)
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Author: Clarinetist
Date: 2004-06-15 16:32
Once, I thought that there is nothing more than the technical stuff to learn when you have learned to blow the thing. My teacher brought me back to earth when he said that there is much work to be done, before I would be a professional. Then I realized that the most important thing when playing the clarinet is the tone. Everyone can play technically well, but if you can´t make a "beautiful" and "full" tone it means nothing.
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Author: MilesMcKeever
Date: 2004-07-09 18:31
Recall J. S. Bach was complimented on his organ performance. He is quoted (ore remembered) as replying that anyone who would push down their fingers in the right order could be as good as he is.  I'll try to look up source for that quote, but I never forgot it.
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Author: sbbishop
Date: 2004-07-09 19:15
Anybody can stick a paint brush into some paint and then dab it onto the canvass. Only a 'gifted' artist can do it in such a way as to stir your soul.
Anybody can click a shutter on a camera and take a picture. Only a 'gifted' photographer can do it in such a way as to stir your soul.
Anybody can blow a clarinet and make a sound. Only a 'gifted' musician can do it in such a way as to stir your soul.
Basic materials, yes. Technique, yes. Skill, yes. But to touch one's soul, it takes 'SOUL'. You either got it or you don't. Sometimes it takes years to get it!! Sometimes it takes years to realize you don't got it!!
Post Edited (2004-07-09 19:19)
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Author: Jamietalbot
Date: 2004-07-12 07:15
I heard somebody say recently that a certain violinist had "fingers like lightening-they never strike the same place twice!"
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-07-12 13:18
Jamietalbot wrote:
> I heard somebody say recently that a certain violinist had
> "fingers like lightening-they never strike the same place
> twice!"
That is a common musical joke (in dozens of web sites) about violists ...GBK
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