 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-01-23 19:45
grrr.... I'm getting a little tired of always playing and/or singing the harmony... haha... Although people who play/sing harmonic parts have a better ear, usually... But, which do you think is better, melody or harmony?
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-01-23 20:04
> But, which do you think is better, melody or harmony?
Better does not apply - that's just a juvenile/simplistic way of looking at musical structure.
Both are important, as well the rhythm, dynamics, flow of the line, expression, intonation, etc...
Do them all to the best of your ability...GBK
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Author: Dori
Date: 2005-01-23 20:18
I agree with GBK, both are important. Harmony can be more challenging - and fun.
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2005-01-23 20:50
Never having had to do it but...
I would think that playing harmony would be much worse, or harder...
You not only have to play your right notes at the right time (that's bad enough) but you would have to adjust your playing to match the lead (melody) guy/gal when he _doesn't_ play (quite) his right notes at (quite) the right time.
Or am I completely in left field on this one?
JDS
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-01-23 20:58
Thank you, GBK.
Not until I started writing, however, did I realize how incredibly important harmony parts are, even (or rather especially) in "boring, repetitive" passages.
True, the listener may not actively hear it, but they would most definitely notice and absence or difference in it.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Steve Epstein
Date: 2005-01-23 22:20
Everyone wants to be a standout soloist, it seems. I recall that as a jr high player, I loved being first chair, getting solos, and hated being demoted to second chair, even if I was still in the first section, playing melody. In high school, with much more competition, never able to be in the first section and play melody parts, I just quit band and playing altogether, for about 25 years.
My perspective on harmony changed, when, as an adult playing folk music from fake books, where everyone is playing the same thing, either by reading it or playing by ear, I discovered that it was the more able musicians who were able to invent harmony parts. They were the cool ones, because they made the music sound like something, and interestingly, a harmony part or a countermelody also has a way of sticking out. So I began to teach myself how to do this, learning what the notes were in the chords I was seeing. I also began listening to the guitar and piano players in my bands, who don't play much melody; rather they play chords in rhythmic backing, and I realized they weren't playing what was "written". I've since begun to learn about substitutions, inversions, suspensions and pedal tones, circle of fifths, etc.
This of course is the exact opposite of the school band (and even community band, I presume) experience. It seems that "mere" section players exist only to support the "firsts" and "principles", even as it is realized that most of the latter will never have a self-supporting career in musical performance, anyway.
As I play for dancing, for FUN, I am struck by the number of people who come up to me and tell me, you know, I USED to play clarinet (or trombone, or whatever), and they all presume that I must never have stopped, must have majored in music in college, must be studying continuously with a teacher, because they all remember the competitive and serious nature of the school music experience. Something is wrong with this model that discourages people from learning what they can do with their instrument, that insteads regards every school player as a proto Stanley Drucker, et al. Those who are in fact that capable are easily spotted and wouldn't be short-changed by tweaks to the system.
Steve Epstein
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-01-23 22:27
well I'm just annoyed by it, because our band director is always like "back off and let the melody play"... I'd be fine if I could play my part the way I want to play it. lol. Of course, he wants it a certain way. grr. I dunno.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-01-23 22:39
Back off. Let the melody play.
It's an ensemble, not a competition. Nobody in the audience will ever say "Wow, that was an excellent 5th chair clarinetist." They will, however, say either "That was a great clarinet section" or "That clarinet section was very unbalanced."
Unless you have a unique line, try to blend into and support the ensemble sound, especially whomever plays a similar part to you. If you can hear yourself, you are either too loud or out of tune.
Most ensembles have very good (relatively speaking) first clarinetists. It's the ones with good seconds and thirds, who know the function and style of their parts, that stand out.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: ken
Date: 2005-01-23 23:31
Playing harmony for inner section parts builds musical teamwork and character, and makes superb ear training --- behold.
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Author: Anna
Date: 2005-01-23 23:51
Mary,
I get that a lot in my ensemble and I always think if the melody was just PLAYED louder...but then I just humor the director, back off a little, and hope that those that are the real problem do so as well. Of course remembering that while you may have a forte it's forte in relation to the melody not to yourself or your section. This is what people either forget or are simply not taught.
As to harmony vs melody there are times when the harmony is more fun to play than the melody and vice versa. I personally would love to play the cello part in Pachabel's Canon (on bass clarinet) even though it is eight notes repeated over and over and over and over because the other lines depend on that line.
Anna
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Author: mkybrain
Date: 2005-01-24 02:31
I don't want to sound like a jerk, but you seem to care more about yourself than you do of the ensemble that you are playing in. And just for the sake of throwing in cliches, there is no "I" in team. I used to be the same way, but after you finally get all the solo parts and etc.... it really isn't all that much inredibly better than playing the melody/solo. For me, the most enjoyable musical experiences that i have yet to experience were not being the first chair or even being the first section, but playing with an incredible band. At one honor band i was the 5th chair, or principle second. While i didn't often have the leading line, most of the other students, especially the brass sections, were absolutely outstanding. Their sound just blew me away and it made it that much more enjoyable to play anything with them. If you really do love music and if the piece that your band is playing is a good one, then I think you can have just as much fun playing a "harmony" part. I guess what im trying to say is that IMO contributing and being part of an ensemble is the most enjoyable and rewarding experience if you play your part well with the other musicians and they play well with you as well. Well well well well well, thats all I have to say.
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-01-24 02:47
It's too bad I can't be part of an "incredible band"... I wouldn't mind playing the harmony in the least there. Our band, I suppose I just know the people too well. Our band director is always saying that we're all to ourselves and need to listen to each other. All of the principal players get to be a part of honor bands and whatnot, but they don't offer that to the lower chairs. If half of our band actually cared to listen, then maybe we would sound better. I'm ranting, I know. I'm becoming like them :(, ah!
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2005-01-24 02:50
Mary,
There are two things I want to offer in reference to your comment "well I'm just annoyed by it, because our band director is always like "back off and let the melody play"... I'd be fine if I could play my part the way I want to play it. lol. Of course, he wants it a certain way. grr. I dunno."
1. You need to follow the director's instructions at all times; you are not the director. If you become a director then you can make the decisions as to what is correct; until that time, it is probably best to keep your opinions to yourself.
2. You can't "play your part the way [you] want to" and make a meaningful contribution in any kind of successful ensemble.
These two things are foundational to being a good musician as well a being a good band member.
HRL
Post Edited (2005-01-24 02:55)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-01-24 02:56
psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't ask) wrote:
> All of the principal players get to be a part of
> honor bands and whatnot, but they don't offer that to the lower
> chairs.
Practice harder or deal with it...
It's only high school band. In the bigger picture of things, it's relatively meaningless ...GBK
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Author: jim lande
Date: 2005-01-24 02:57
When I was in highschool, I couldn't read music very well. I think this was because of my poor eyesight. Anyway, our band was not outstanding, so I pretty much played the melody or anything I thought sounded OK. Every once in a while the band director complained. However, the band had at least a half dozen kids with pathological tuning problems, spastic timing, wandering note selection, etc. This absorbed most of the directors attention and probably took some years off his life. I assume that steam coming out of ears and blood pressure are linked.
Anyway, the result is that I can play by ear pretty well and that has been a whole lot of fun at blues jams. Of course, every once in a while there is another horn and we can get some sort of harmony going and it is way fun. If I knew something about harmony, we might be able to have even more fun.
I guess when you are making stuff up on the fly, you listen hard to what sounds good as a whole. Of course, when horns do harmony in blues, we really are part of the rhythm section.
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Author: Steve Epstein
Date: 2005-01-24 03:14
psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't ask) wrote:
Our band director is
> always saying that we're all to ourselves and need to listen to
> each other. All of the principal players get to be a part of
> honor bands and whatnot, but they don't offer that to the lower
> chairs. If half of our band actually cared to listen, then
> maybe we would sound better. I'm ranting, I know. I'm becoming
> like them :(, ah!
>
Exactly my point. You are being asked to be cooperative, supportive, but then you are snubbed, because it really is all about the principal players, most of whom will never become professional musicians earning their living from playing.
It really is about band directors, I think, whom they can place in honor bands, All State, etc. Their careers. What are band directors doing for the average student's musical education, I wonder?
Very few of the adult players with whom I play played the instrument they play now in high school, if they played as kids at all. You can always tell the ones who did. They are frightened to make mistakes, tell everyone how good they were in high school and they'll be up to that level real soon -- just you wait until they've been playing as adults a bit longer, can't play anything except exactly what's written on the page and argue with experienced players who understand the folk idiom that "it's not what's written", love to show off their technical skills by sight-reading difficult stuff at tempo (the practice room audition "psych-out" mentality), and don't realize that they are playing out of tune and louder than everyone else.
All these were things I did until I learned it was about blending and making eveyone else sound good. But you, as a kid, aren't being rewarded for it, so I don't blame you for ranting. Music education is like physical education; it's designed for finding and developing the superior athletes or players. The rest can go bug off.
That's MY rant. ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
Steve Epstein
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-01-24 03:42
"It's too bad I can't be part of an "incredible band""
If you're not doing your part, you can't expect others to do theirs.
"Our band director is always saying that we're all to ourselves and need to listen to each other. "
So...? If all you can hear is yourself, you're obviously not listening to anyone else. Play a bit more quietly and listen, you'll be fascinated at what you hear.
Regarding honor bands, I never did any, and can't say I feel like I missed out.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2005-01-24 14:58
If you don't want to be told to back off, switch to bass clarinet. They're usually asked to play louder. (Not always, but usually.) An additional advantage of bass clarinet is that you may find yourself alone on a part or with just one or two others. Then again, there have been many times I've not been able to hear myself on bass clarinet. Most occurred when our community band was rehearsing in a small junior high band room that had terrible accoustics.
And, from my experience, those playing the melody are frequently asked to back off and second and, even more so, third clarinets are asked to play out more. The higher notes of the melody stick out more and balancing the sound usually requires more of the lower notes. But this all goes back to listening and trying to get the right blend and balance. And, if everything is perfect, including intonation, maybe you shouldn't hear yourself as such, but hear your blended sound.
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Author: Dori
Date: 2005-01-24 16:29
This topic has shifted, and IMHO for good reason. To me it appears Mary's frustration is not a matter of what notes she gets to play, but rather disappointment in the level of the group. I've been the the only 1st clarinet, with all the solo and soli lines to myself, but it is no fun when the band is not together.
Other posters have given suggestions to deal with the current situation. I would add, try to find other musical experiences such as duets with your teacher. Check out local community bands. See if you can sit in on rehearsels of a local college group. Ask your teacher for suggestions. (I just had a horrible thought: Is your teacher the band director or one of those pesky 1sts?)
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Author: allencole
Date: 2005-01-24 17:06
On the original subject:
I would have to say that I prefer harmony. Playing harmony parts gives you a good look at how those parts are made. As pointed out already, it's great ear training and it provides a lot of the body that the melody rides on.
On better opportunities for the top players:
Duh! Honor bands, all-state, etc. are generally designed to be experiences in which superior players get to meet each other and work together at a higher level. It only makes sense that this is not offered to the lower chairs. Mary, if you in one of the lower chairs, it sounds like your school band is still providing you with the level of education that you need right now. If I recall correctly, you have only been playing about a year, right?
On the idea that band directors provide more for superior players than they do for average players:
Duh! (again) What more musical education do average or poor players require that they would not get by practicing and improving themselves? In my paltry metro area of around 500,000, most players who know their major scales over the practical range will be first chair players at their schools. Add some good counting and a few more retained skills and their on top in the two regional districts that border here. All this without even directly addressing their minor scales, etc.
You get out of band what you put into it, and I see no discrimination against those who don't put in the effort. Instead, band directors work hard to find adequate playing experiences for those who DO put in the effort. I'm at a loss to figure out what's wrong with this.
Mary, consider this. Band and orchestra instruments are not like piano and guitar. They are a group thing, period. And a group thing is never about YOU. Your mind is going to go through a lot of crazy things as you strive to keep up and strive to move forward. Try to do as you're instructed and learn from what you see. Until you are on par with your band's best players, you should not be second-guessing your director. In fact, when you have reached that pinnacle, you will know much more about what he does and probably be inclined to defer to his judgement.
Allen Cole
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-01-24 17:32
Mary -
Both melody and harmony are essential to making music. In fact, if you aren't aware of the harmony, you can't know how the melody goes. See the section Melody Is Based on Harmony in http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=26741&t=26741.
Mozart was one of the best violinists of his age, but in string quartets, he preferred to play viola, which let him hear everything that was going on.
I love to play the solo part, but I also love to play the bass line and interior lines. The lower lines are the structure on which the melody rests. When you play these lines right, you're carrying the rest of the ensemble on your shoulders.
As you get better, you'll often be the best player in the group. As you've found, when you're the best player, you can't get enough satisfaction just from playing the top line perfectly.
The only way out of the kind of dissatisfaction you're feeling is to broaden your vision. As the best player, it's an important part of your job to make it so that all the others play at their best. In that situation, if the #2 player can do the top line, you do the group more good by playing a lower line that isn't being played strongly enough. Of course you also need the satisfaction of playing the solo part, but you need to learn to do both.
In my recorder group, I play mostly the low instruments, for just that reason. In the quintet I used to play in, I always enjoyed when the horn and I traded off, and I had the offbeats, which I used to "kick the group along."
Suppose Stanley Drucker retired (or, more likely, played until he died onstage), and you replaced him. You would certainly be part of an incredible band. Of course, you would play lots of clarinet solos, but most of the time you would have an inside line, on which it would be your job to make someone else sound good.
The sooner you start thinking about the harmony, the sooner you'll feel more satisfaction.
Ken Shaw
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-01-24 21:43
I am up to par with my fellow clarinet players. He just haven't given us a chair placement test since Nov. of 2003, when I first started playing. We only have like 5 clarinet players if you include myself. We have some in the other band too, the freshman band. Don't think that since I've only been playing for around a year and a half that I'm not at the same level as the others.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2005-01-25 02:09
A fine discussion, many thoughtful comments. In my early "dance band" playing, I played the 3rd alto sax part and soon learned the "way" to cooperate with the 1st's expression/phrasing. When I first tried the bass cl, I repeated the pleasure of making all of our music sound very good. Don P. in particular, expressed the value of the bass "putting the bottom" on the cl section chords, and I have appreciated several good conductors showing their approval at slightly louder playing-out of "Moving part SOLOS" when they occur, making the totality of the music much better!! So, I vote for playing the harmonica in preference to the malady. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Eileen
Date: 2005-01-25 21:39
I had a similar experience to a previous poster in a folk music setting which really made me appreciate harmony. I was in a jazz music class which consisted of many guitar players, violins and a clarinet (me). I was bored out of my mind with several violins and the clarinet playing the melody together in unison while the guitars played chords behind us. It sounded stupid. I would try as much as possible to figure out some other notes in the chords to add in some harmony.
One day, the teacher split us into small groups and asked us to come up with our own arrangement of a song. He had handed out guitar tab for an intro which (an unusual thing) actually had the notes and chords written out in sheet music. I suggested that a violin play the top note and I played the 2nd harmony part along with him for the intro.
We ended up performing the intro this way at a student recital. I couldn't believe the applause. The folk music students went crazy. We got more appaluse than our extremely accomplished instructor. I think it's because they were not used to hearing 2 different instruments blending together in harmony.
I suspect part of the frustration with the original poster playing harmony is the large band setting. Perhaps you should try playing with others in smaller groups where you can really hear how the harmony parts bring out the sound. It's easier in a small group to realize how integral each part is to the overall sound, something that isn't obvious when you're in a large section in a large group.
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Author: clarispark
Date: 2005-01-26 13:25
I'm in a high school band, and yes, I am the best player (according to chairs). But our director often puts me on harmony parts or other instruments that I play. The harmony parts are just as important as the melody. Once you hear a melody enough, it's boring. In fact, at band festivals and other competition-type events, the judges DON'T listen for the melody. They listen for the counter-melody, the harmony, and any other interesting parts. As my band director tells us, at least five times a session, "dynamics are relative". This is in preparation for our next competition. Under the "relative rule" as we call it, the clarinet section is ranked by the dynamic they should be playing: thirds usually have the lower notes, which can be difficult to hear, so they are the loudest. Then the seconds: they're only marginally quieter than the thirds. First, or whichever is the melody part (unless it's a SOLO part, and says so at the top) is the quietest. Even though it is the quietest, it is the one that comes out the most, because often the counter-parts are set up so the melody reigns over all.
Hope this helped....
Michelle
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