Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-09-22 21:09
Hi Ken,
You wrote:
>> Larry Guy has an interesting article on tongue position in the current issue of The Clarinet magazine. He's a terrific player with a really beautiful sound, so his ideas are worth trying. >>
First of all, let me say that I don't know Larry Guy's playing, nor what he wrote in The Clarinet magazine.
But, your recommendation of his ideas gives me an opportunity to say something.
Before I do so: you have many times said to me here that you would be very interested in my response to a question of yours. And always, I have replied. Sometimes your requests have been for information, sometimes for opinions.
As you know, I'm not particularly interested in 'opinions'; I'm even not particularly interested in MY opinions -- because I know that my likes and dislikes come from very murky sources, and may even be to do with what I encountered at a very early age, when I had no choice in the matter.
But I very much am interested in arguments, for or against a particular stance. Those arguments might be for or against a particular way of going about playing music: that would cover Kell's way of dealing with the Stravinsky Three pieces -- or they might be for or against a particular interpretation of a text: that would cover the dispute about the Poulenc Sonata 'wrong notes'.
The arguments that MOST engage me, though, are the arguments about what we can say about the fundamentals of clarinet playing. And notice: ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHAT WE CAN SAY about the fundamentals of clarinet playing.
What do I mean by 'ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHAT WE CAN SAY' about the fundamentals of clarinet playing, that I have so definitely capitalised?
I mean, whatever we can say about the fundamentals of clarinet playing that makes LOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC SENSE.
Of course, you will know that I also understand that there are metaphorical ways of describing what we may best do as players; ways that may better help students than a direct description of the scientific facts. (Indeed, I once planned to write a book called 'Metaphors for Playing the Clarinet' -- and have even sketched here some of what I planned to write in that book.)
But I have come to think that we, as a community, have a very low standard of acceptance of what people say about these fundamentals. There are a few trivial examples; but the most outstanding one is the way in which the idea of 'support' is dealt with in the supposedly 'definitive' article by Arnold Jacobs, which you endorse.
OR DO YOU?
YOU NEVER SAY. And, that you and others like you never say, characterises the difference between our community and the scientific community; because in that community, it is precisely the WEIGHT OF JUDGEMENT, OVER TIME, about WHAT MAKES SENSE, that determines whether or not a particular article, or particular point of view, is taken seriously.
A very famous scientist called Linus Pauling, who had made incredible contributions to chemistry and biochemistry, in later life took up a crusade to convince everyone that vitamin C was a major contributor to health. His claims were investigated, of course; but it was very quickly decided that what he had to say wasn't borne out by the evidence.
So they were dismissed.
You say about Larry Guy:
>> He's a terrific player with a really beautiful sound, so his ideas are worth trying.>>
So, I agree with you -- they're worth trying. But Larry Guy, unlike Linus Pauling, isn't a theoretician. So what he has to say EVEN MORE needs to be measured up against what makes sense.
Did you do that?
>> He's a terrific player with a really beautiful sound, so his ideas are worth trying.>>
But, that's what you ALWAYS say, whether the ideas are ridiculous or not. You never have the courage to engage with whether the ideas MAKE SENSE to you.
So in the case of Arnold Jacobs, you imply that people should take seriously what, in the case of clarinet playing, is an incomprehensible load of waffle.
And worse, in doing so, you encourage people to think in a waffly way.
I HATE IT.
So, this is a challenge:
To use words that you've successfully used three or four times to me:
"I would be really interested to hear what you think about this."
Tony
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