 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Firebird
Date: 2007-07-31 03:15
I need some light on this. Is it true that as long as you are an excellent clarinettist, you will be able to sound good on any clarinet, granted that you use the same mouthpiece and reed?
Do comment.
Thank you.
Chan
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-07-31 06:12
It is only true to an extent. When I started clarinet I didn't have much money so my instrument was cheap and in disrepair for many years. A couple teachers played my instrument and sounded horrid. They joked, 'You are better than me- you have some way to make sound on THIS!'
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Author: Bill
Date: 2007-07-31 10:59
Just reading Pamela Weston's piece on Jack Brymer. Said his handshake was so firm because of the finger strength he developed trying to keep his leaky Albert system clarinet from squeaking.
What I can't figure out is how beginners develop any love for the instrument when they start with such deplorable equipment. After collecting so many clarinets, I now realize that to be useful a clarinet needs constant maintenance and must be at a very high level of "fine-tuning." All those levers and pads!!!
Bill.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-07-31 11:49
Bill Fogle wrote,
>>What I can't figure out is how beginners develop any love for the instrument when they start with such deplorable equipment. After collecting so many clarinets, I now realize that to be useful a clarinet needs constant maintenance and must be at a very high level of "fine-tuning." >>
Yes. While I'm willing to believe that the best clarinet players can make any *brand* of clarinet sound good, an instrument that's in serious disrepair or equipped with a wrecked reed can defeat anybody.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: janlynn
Date: 2007-07-31 13:40
bill - you said it needs constant maintanence. i have been wondering, i just got a new clarinet (rubber - not wood) and besides cleaning it out after i use it, what else should i be doing to keep it in top condition?
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Author: Dano
Date: 2007-07-31 14:13
As long as the clarinets are in the same state of repair, I am pretty sure Eddie Daniels would sound like Eddie Daniels while playing on a plastic Bundy clarinet just like I would sound like me while playing on a $5000 clarinet. It can be compared to cooking. Equipment makes it easier and less frustrating to acheive your goal, but you don't cook a great meal because you had top notch pots and pans.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2007-07-31 15:18
I am greatly sympathetic to the point Bill brought up --that of the unplayable instrument. I recently rented a student --grade saxophone. It was essentially unplayable. Two trips to the repair tech failed to much improve it.
There was no way I could start to pick out a mouthpiece --even a reed that would enable the sound I wanted.
A kid renting this horn and not having some help from a knowledgeable teacher would have had a very bad experience.
Playing on a good instrument after (somehow) succeeding to bully this POS into submission would have simply blown the beginner's mind.
So, with the qualification that the instruments be in good playable condition, yes; one's playing is nominally independent of the instrument. BUT, oh what a great thing it is to have a responsive horn with good intonation.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Bill
Date: 2007-07-31 16:08
janlynn,
I have a grand piano that needs to be tuned a minimum of four times per year. I believe the mechanical system of a clarinet needs to be looked at by a repair artist just as often. The keywork is more complicated than a piano, and it must respond "just so" to your touch. The pads and corks must move "just so" for best performance. It can't be underestimated.
I'd say I own about three professional-grade clarinets that I pass over when I want to play because I know I'll have to deal with a too-resistant (or sluggish) key or poor-sounding full-tube notes ... or what-have-you. That's sad, because if I won the lottery I'd have them all tweaked to perfection. What's even sadder is that these instruments, except one, were all "overhauled."
It only begins there.
Bill.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2007-07-31 18:48
You don't cook a great meal just because you have great pots and pans, but you DO cook a great meal with good, fresh ingredients rather than moldy cheese and rotting vegetables.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Dano
Date: 2007-07-31 21:36
EEBaum wrote:
> You don't cook a great meal just because you have great pots
> and pans, but you DO cook a great meal with good, fresh
> ingredients rather than moldy cheese and rotting vegetables.
>
Actually, moldy cheese (blue cheese) can be very expensive and quite good. I really don't understand the connection. I imagine that you are saying the music itself is the cheese and vegetables? If so, I agree. You can't make good music without........good notes which is what someone that plays well would have no matter how "good" or how "bad" the clarinet is. In other words, a good cook comes to the pans, good or bad pans, with all the ingredients to make a great meal. Same with a clarinetist.
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Author: Firebird
Date: 2007-08-01 01:06
I guess I didn't make myself clear. I meant pros playing on plastic/student grade instruments that are mechanically sound.
Chan
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-08-01 01:14
I think that with a proper embouchure and you being able to reproduce that embouchure, you should be able to switch your mouthpiece from instrument to instrument and sound like yourself (excellent player or not). The instruments (IMO) shouldn't change your sound drastically. But they may change other things, or change your sound enough that you will either like it better/worse/same as whatever your current clarinet is.
Example: I was helping another clarinet player a few years back just to work on some things. Just giving her a tip here or there when she needed it. She had come to America with her husband from Germany and she was playing a german clarinet. She didn't really like her sound, and asked me to play her clarinet to see if it was working right. When I played it, I was surprised at how it sounded. JUST LIKE MINE!!! Of course the fingering was different and there was a slight difference in color, but I still sounded like me. And when she played mine, she sounded like herself.
For the most part, at this point in my life, I have a "sound" that's mine, and every clarinet I've played has put forth this sound, and each has varied in other areas. Flexibility of notes, limiting or expanding my dynamic levels, slight change in color (some clarinets are a little harsher to my ears when playing fortissimo than others), tuning, etc. But the sound is always the same.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: kenb
Date: 2007-08-01 02:35
A few years back I switched from Buffet Festivals to Wurlitzer Reform-Boehms (using German mp and reeds). I had a month or so clear (no performances) to make the switch. No one who hadn't seen the instruments up close commented on a change in sound.
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Author: leonardA
Date: 2007-08-01 03:18
I have said this on other threads, but I have a plastic Vito and a Buffet E11. I took my Vito to a lesson one week and I couldn't believe how wonderful my teacher could make it sound. Ergo, the player has very much to do with the sound, if the instrument is in good repair.
Leonard
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2007-08-01 13:33
Bill, Jack Brymer did indeed have a firm handshake, if it was to do with a leaky Albert System who knows. Coming back to the topic a good player will the sound they way they do on any clarinet. Obviously the better the instrument the easier it is.
Peter Cigleris
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