Author: allencole
Date: 2008-07-18 06:16
Here are a couple of factors that we could stand to tackle:
1 - As a general group, our interests are not wide-ranging. Rare enough is the clarinetist actually interested in classical music. Percentages of those interested in jazz, pop or world music drop off even more dramatically. There are a lot of individual exceptions, and many of those are present on this BB, but if you look at even the average music major, curiosity is curiously missing.
2 - As intense as the training is, the curriculum of an applied clarinet major is extremely narrow. It's good job training for a symphony seat, a service band or a college professorship, but usually involves no training in other styles even just to read them properly. (Let alone improvise) You may learn to play something with quarter tones, multiphonics and a circular staff, but not enough to swing as you play a show book. College students generally have to seek this sort of training on their own.
3 - One reason for the above two items is that the education of band and orchestra musicians is dominated by players who limit their own scope, as did the folks who taught them. Teachers are very strong influences, and I've had a couple in my own life who counseled me against pursuing the very things that help me survive today. This is not to say that we don't have some good, versatile, open-mined folks in the trenches. But I think that most are addicted to what I believe GBK called 'clarinetism.'
A second reason is a decline in skill and interest levels for young players in school programs. Every day, music curricula in the secondary schools becomes more a creature of itself, and therefore more isolated from anything mainstream. There is so much educational school band and orchestra music that real classics have become an all-too-rare treat that students don't get the chance to acquire a taste for.
4 - The bottom line of most routine music work (let alone real creative efforts) is that to be in the game you need to be able to make up your own part while possibly teaching parts to other players, or in many cases be able to write good arrangements. This is rarely high on the list of tasks for an applied clarinet major in college. Most college educated players who have these abilities are jazz-oriented, and that area of pursuit also leads to an intrinsic understanding of theory and arranging. Most students on the orchestral track would consider the study of theory and composition to be too much burden to add to their curriculum. (and they may well be right)
5 - Largely due to the 'clarinetism' in our upbringing, we tend dismiss less-than-stellar players with less-than-perfect technique who actually have considerable merit in terms of creativity, stylistic understanding, or audience rapport. Intense jealousy flares at talk of their success, and we treat them with disdain because we know better players who we consider more deserving. As an overall group, we could not be less supportive. (which is not to say that there aren't plenty of jazzers with the same shortcoming)
Two solutions seem worth examining. One is an attitude adjustment on our part, although I'm somewhat preaching to the choir here.
The second solution involves reexamining how we educate tomorrows clarinet players--particularly at undergrad level. Are our priorities straight? Are there trade-offs that we should be making?
Allen Cole
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The Clarinet BBoard
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