Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2007-04-03 19:20
Alto clarinet players of the world: arise and unite!
Let's not lose sight of the fact that, at one time, there were precisely zero alto clarinet parts. For that matter, the same was true of clarinet parts, bass sax parts and so forth.
As the instruments became available, the composers and arrangers began to write for them. From that point forward, the cycle continued according to the popularity.
Consider the soprano saxophone. Thirty years ago, when I bought my first Selmer Mark VI soprano, they were widely reviled by all and sundry. Other than Charlie Barnett and one or two jazz practitioners, you just didn't hear them being played.
Nowadays, of course, with interest in things from the 1920's again (Chicago, anyone?) and one Kenny G blowing the thing for all it's worth, it's a different story. Today, you actually find them at the secondary school level, carried in as the "starter" horn for youngsters.
Why? Well, partly it's because they want to be cool, but for many it's an understanding that the soprano sax is a versatile horn when played well, and even when played not so well.
Like the soprano sax, an alto clarinet can be played well or poorly. I always compare the alto playing that I have heard in the past to my standard, and in many cases the players come up short by a good degree. Maybe a better mouthpiece might help, maybe a softer reed (school kids are notorious for using bad harmony clarinet mouthpieces with too hard of reeds, and then not putting enough mouthpiece in their mouth to boot).
But, for the most part, alto players just don't care enough (assigned to the horn by an unthinking director), or don't have the right equipment (poorly maintained, or (even worse) never maintained) to perform well, even if the instrument itself was the 'cello of the clarinet family.
(Incidentally, the viola's bad reputation is partially due to the instrument itself. If you scale the sound-box on a violin, 'cello, or contrabass, and then compare a viola's measly resonator, you will see that tone and sonority were sacrificed for violin technique. To resonate properly, a viola needs a much larger sound-box, one that would not fit under a normal human chin. Listen to the sound that can be obtained from the viola de gamba, and you'll see what I mean.)
I could be all wet here, and I could be missing the opportunity to buy up a couple hundred of those all too common cheap alto clarinets, later to make my fortune selling them when the Kenny G of the alto comes upon the scene.
But, I'm not a betting man, and I surely would not take those kinds of 10,000 to 1-ish odds. Neither, for that matter, have many dozens of romantic and modern era composers, people who seem more than willing to use one (and even, on occasion, two) bass clarinets. Something about fifty million Frenchmen comes to mind here...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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The Clarinet BBoard
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