 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: srattle
Date: 2008-12-05 00:10
This is quite a hypothetical question.
Why is a 'good' clarinet sound good?
Where does the notion that a dark, round sound is the correct, most beautiful sound a clarinet can make?
Why should the high register be covered and not scream?
Why should there not be too much air in the sound?
What is it about these sounds that have come to be so beautiful in our ears?
A great jazz trumpet player often has a soft, round, airy sound, whereas classical trumpet players tend to have a much brighter, direct, piercing sound. Jazz players with this beautiful soft sound also often sound awful playing classical music.
Secondly, is this dark, silky smooth sound that most of us try to create the best music making sound?
The best violinists seem to have the most horrible sandy, gritty sound from up close, but it sparkles and gives many more musical options than a fiddle player with a completely round, clear clarinet like sound.
discuss
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2008-12-05 00:35
Rhetorical question: Is there a "right" answer?
I mean, why should the high register NOT scream if it appears to be appropriate? Why should a bass A be mellow and not slapped like a guitar?
It all depends on the music. Dramatic scenery demands dramatic sounds. Love scenes (well they can be dramatic, but that's a different mine field) ask for something "mellow". Music is dramaturgy, context, evoking images in the listeners' minds. There is not absolute "good" and "bad".
You think the "Ballad of Lucy Jordan" would be as good when sung by Noemi Nadelmann? What about "Ruby Tuesday", sung by Elton John instead of Melanie Safka? The solo in "Will you?" played by Kenny G? "Freilicher Yontov" by Sabine Meyer? Mozart by Brandwein? <head explodes>
I fear I can't be much help.
--
Ben
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Author: cxgreen48
Date: 2008-12-05 01:53
I do believe there is a bad clarinet sound. However, a good clarinet sound can be bright or dark (or in between somewhere).
I would define a bad clarinet sound as overly bright, unfocused, too vibrating.
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Author: srattle
Date: 2008-12-05 02:59
I think maybe I didn't ask my question correctly.
I'm not asking for what a good clarinet sound is. I'm asking why this sound is a good sound.
Why is 'overly bright, unfocused, too vibrating' a bad sound?
and are these 'good' sounds convention, or are they actually 'prettier'?
I also meant this mainly with classical clarinet playing in mind
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Author: indiana
Date: 2008-12-05 03:46
Good question!
I have wondered about this too. (Actually all the time.)
For example, the wonderful clarinetist Stanley Drucker has a big vibrant ringing tone. He is a fine expressive player with an amazingly long career, yet many people have issues with his tone. Is it too bright? Are his attacks too hard?
On the other hand, I have friends who love the sound David Shifrin got when he played his Pyne mouthpiece. Some went too far and used equipment so dark that they had trouble being heard in orchestra.
As of late, I am trying hard to free-up my thinking about the correct tone. I am listening to many modern European players and many historical recordings. I am trying to put artistry first. Perhaps phrasing is more important than tone. I will say that the intonation of contemporary players is outstanding. Vibrato is OK in my book.
One thing I think all the great players have in common: They can all hold our attention with their playing. It's a combination of tone, phrasing, shading and so on that makes magic. The mix is very different sometimes, but always effective.
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2008-12-05 04:06
Well your question is rooted in the psychophysics of sound.
And I am afraid that there is not one clean answer to your question.
1- Yes, a sound is good because it is "conventional"
and
2- Yes, a sound is good because it is fundamentally appealing to every human being (minus the outliers).
An extreme example of (2) is a sound that is physically painful to your ears, say so loud that it hurts.
An example of (1) is listening to Lancelot or Delecluse with an American ear and finding it absolutely shrill.
My unfunded intuition is that when it comes to a clarinet sound, convention or in other words what is considered socially acceptable, is the main deciding factor of what one thinks is "good".
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-12-05 12:25
"Good" and "Bad" is what has been programmed into your brain.
Bob Draznik
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Author: NorbertTheParrot
Date: 2008-12-05 13:38
Bob D wrote: "Good" and "Bad" is what has been programmed into your brain.
Not necessarily. I recall playing some clarinet recordings to my long-suffering wife. She has never been an especially avid fan of the woodwind, so is unlikely to have strong preconceptions about what is a "good" or "bad" sound. When I put on a Leister recording her reaction was immediate: "That's what a clarinet is supposed to sound like!"
Maybe something had programmed this reaction into her brain. But that "something" was not intensive exposure to clarinet playing.
Maybe it was just that Leister was the player who sounded least like me!
It would be fascinating to do an experiment with a panel of non-expert listeners, to see whether there is any consistency in what sound they prefer.
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Author: huff n' puff
Date: 2008-12-05 13:52
Well, srattle.......... maybe that lot'll teach you not to ask a question like that!
All the best........ H&P..... who has just discovered that he has been playing on a split reed for the last few days. Anything goes, though I agree that appropriateness (if there is such a word) is possible the over-riding principle.
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Author: srattle
Date: 2008-12-05 14:03
I had hoped for an interesting discussion about why some sounds are more pleasing than other, historically, scientifically, culturally . . . but it doesn't look like I'm going to get that.
Thought it would have been interesting, but I just feel like I'm being talked down to
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2008-12-05 14:10
A good sound is what the director gets, ....or else.
richard smith
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Author: NorbertTheParrot
Date: 2008-12-05 14:22
I had not wanted to talk down to you - and anyway my post was intended as a comment on Bob D's post, rather than a direct answer to your question.
But I am hampered in answering your question, in that I'm not sure I understand what your question is.
You asked: "Where does the notion that a dark, round sound is the correct, most beautiful sound a clarinet can make?"
You amplified this as follows: "I had hoped for an interesting discussion about why some sounds are more pleasing than other, historically, scientifically, culturally" and it seems that you mean this discussion to be in the context of "classical clarinet playing" - by which I think you mean, "not jazz".
What is unclear to me is what boundaries you are setting. At one extreme, you might be asking:
1. Why do all good clarinet players sound exactly the same?
or at the other extreme you might be asking:
2. Why does no good clarinet player deliberately produce loud screaming noises like a demented banshee?
If your question is (1) then I think you are simply wrong. Listen to Fröst, de Peyer, Leister. They don't sound the same at all. The difference in sound between Leister and de Peyer is as great as the difference between a recorder and a baroque flute, or a cornet and a trumpet.
If your question is (2) then I think the answer is that composers do not typically ask for this. If a composer wrote in the music "demented banshee" or "fuzzy and unfocussed" or "try to sound like an oboe" then I've no doubt players would oblige. In the absence of such directions, players will play in the way that the composer probably envisaged.
If I'm still talking down to you, sorry.
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Author: William
Date: 2008-12-05 14:52
OK--one more time......."If it sounds good, it is good". Duke Ellington speaking on what is "good" music.
Good?? Versus not good or bad?? It all means something different to all of us, and that is the beauty of the art. Good can only be defined as what is pleasing to the ear, and my ear may hear it differently than yours. For example, lots of people enjoy the sounds (and style) of Jimmie Hendirx's version of our (USA) "Star Spangled Banner". I HATE IT!!!!! But, that is just me, fortunately or not. In general, I think that tone quality, to be considered "good", should be appropriate to the context of the musical environment of performance. I can't imagine, nor do I think I would like, a Boots Randolph tenor sax sound for the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. Nor Sabine Meyer for playing Boot's famous "Yakkity Sax". The "sound" should fit the occassion--if it does not, then it is inappropriate and may be considered by some--but not all--as being "bad" and not "good".
The truth really, there probably is no durable definition of "good" when applied to clarinet tone quality. But I wonder, what do you think--from "across the Pond"--Tony Pay?
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2008-12-05 15:20
> Why is a 'good' clarinet sound good?
Actually, this one probably goes back as far as Socrates. Here's a serious, but possibly unhelpful, attempt at an answer:
I generally find it much easier to say what /isn't/ good about a given sound (especially my own! :-D ). 'Good' playing is everything else...
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Author: Ryan25
Date: 2008-12-05 15:38
My take on it is this:
Some people spend too much time listening to their favorite player over and over again and don't spend enough time listening to music in general. Because of this, if a clarinetist does not sound like their favorite player then they have a bad sound or the wrong sound.
My advice to all of my students and friends is to listen to singers and string quartets. There is so much expression and varying colors in these mediums. "Dark" and "round" all the time is about as boring as it can get. My idea of a great sound is one that is flexible, varied, has presence, can be dark, bright, warm, cold, thin, thick, fuzzy, clear, heavy, light....whatever the music needs and whatever the musician wants to express.
I would say that a good sound is any sound that is in tune and is under control. A brittle sound that spreads is fine if the player chose to do it. If that happens on it's own then I would call that a bad sound because it is a bad player. I would also argue that players who have a dark sound all the time, no matter how beautiful it is and how well the player plays, is a bad sound. I won't name names but there are some very prominent American players that fit that mold.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-12-05 16:02
Sacha wrote:
<<I had hoped for an interesting discussion about why some sounds are more pleasing than other, historically, scientifically, culturally . . . but it doesn't look like I'm going to get that.
Thought it would have been interesting, but I just feel like I'm being talked down to>>
Well, let me take a stab at this. I'm just theorizing, of course, but it seems to me that one reason why there is a tendency to favor dark clarinet tones is that the clarinet is one of only a handful of instruments capable of generating a really "round" tone quality. As I picture an imaginary orchestra in my head and go from section to section, most of the instruments' characteristic tones have some kind of "edge," "buzziness," or "nasal" quality to the tone (in various amounts, of course).
In my mind (i.e., this is not to be taken as a statement of fact--just my individual perception of things, FWIW), the two primary exceptions to this are the clarinet and the French horn. (not surprisingly, composers often double clarinets with horns in a lot of passages where they want to create a mellow tone) I play second clarinet in my orchestra, and I find that my job very often is to blend in with strings or with the horns. I think that often calls for a dark, mellow tone. I think it blends more easily, and I think it is often the tone color that a composer/orchestrator is trying to mix in with some other tone quality to create a particular sound. It can also add some extra "oomph" to a sound without changing its fundamental characteristics. For example, in passages where clarinet and oboe are mixed, the timbre is often that of simply a more powerful oboe.
So I tend to be of the opinion that darkness is so-often considered a good quality simply by virtue of the fact that we CAN play with a type of dark, round, pure tone that cannot be adequately reproduced by any other instrument. I also think that some composers frequently score parts for clarinet with this in mind. So it becomes a virtue of good clarinet playing to be able to produce such a tone, as it should be.
Of course, the minus side to all this is that it is all too easy to fall into the trap of attaching too much importance to "darkness" and neglect the musical side of things, in which contrast is important. Although I think the *ability* to produce a dark tone quality is an asset and very often it is what is needed, I disagree with the notion that we should *always* try to sound dark, regardless of what is in the music. I think because we prize the ability to produce such a tone so much (and rightfully so, for the reasons I gave), it is quite easy to think that because darkness and roundness is so often a good thing, that anything that isn't dark and round must not be good.
I think that's a common misconception, which is probably due to uncritical reception of instructional maxims, which then become overgeneralized in their application and eventually become passed down as dogma. That's why it is often, in my view, a good idea to question what we are taught--not to be argumentative or out of hubris, but rather to gain a greater understanding of the scope of applicability of what we are taught. In fact, in many other fields, good teachers/professors *expect* their best students to think in a critical way and to seek to test the limits of what they have been taught. It seems this is perhaps less the case in musical performance, where so much value is placed on passing down teachers' traditions, but I see no reason why it should be.
Anyway, that's my take on it, FWIW. I think (at least I hope) this is more the kind of discussion you were looking for, Sacha.
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Author: William
Date: 2008-12-05 20:52
Our local university orchestra conductor simply say's, "a good sound is an intune sound." He is a former clarinetist...............
He also goes on to say, "one should not make a sound so as to stun small animals."
OK, back to deep (good) thoughts.
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