 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-05-16 19:37
I just made an interesting observation about bar 297 of the Copland Concerto (the duet with the bass).
It seems that if you follow the score, in just about every recording out there (every one I've ever heard, anyway) the clarinetist puts metric accents on the wrong beats. According to the score, the bass is supposed to be playing upbeats, but the recordings seem to ignore this and play as if the bass was providing downbeats (as jazz bassists normally do). Of course, playing it this way (as in the recordings) makes the phantom bar line in bar 300 not make much sense.
If you put the metric accents back on beats 1 and 3, however, the phantom bar line seems to be in the right place (for the 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-5 Charleston rhythm that permeates the piece), and it turns out that what you're playing in this little section is a theme that appears in the strings in another part of the piece. It instantly makes more sense (at least to me it does). It seems that this section is not intended to sound like modern jazz (as Benny Goodman's recording suggests it is), but rather, more like an older, ragtime-influenced style.
In other words, what I'm suggesting is that instead of playing this section like this:
"so it's your BIRTH-day, so it's your BIRTH-day"
the score indicates that you should play it this way:
"good MORN-ing to YOU, good MORN-ing to YOU"
I wonder if anyone else has noticed this before?
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-05-16 20:21
Mike wrote:
>> I wonder if anyone else has noticed this before?>>
"Crocodile A,
And crocodile B,
Were chattering,
Lazily,
Under a tree."
:-)
Tony
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-05-16 20:49
Both recordings I have (Gary Gray, Benny Goodman) play it the way you suggest it should be played. Don't know if I ever remember hearing it accented the way you say you commonly hear it, though I could see how someone might do it that way. Which recordings are those?
Benny does give it a bit more of a ragtimey feel than Gary, who plays it considerably looser.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-05-16 21:36
EEBaum wrote:
> Both recordings I have (Gary Gray, Benny Goodman) play it the
> way you suggest it should be played. Don't know if I ever
> remember hearing it accented the way you say you commonly hear
> it, though I could see how someone might do it that way. Which
> recordings are those?
I have Goodman, Stoltzman, Neidich, and Fröst. They all seem to put more emphasis on beat 2 than on beat 1, thus making the bassist sound like he's playing downbeats, rather than upbeats.
Tony's lyrics are much better than mine. 
If you try to sing Tony's lyrics (adding in the pickup note from bar 296) with the Goodman recording (at about 12:15) the syllables in the words will be accented strangely, sounding something like:
so crocoDILE A
and crocoDILE B
were chatterING,
laziLY,
under A tree
(in other words, Goodman--and everyone else I've ever heard play this--puts the accents on the same beats the bass plays)
I'm suggesting that the score says to sing/play:
so CROCodile A
and CROCodile B
were CHATtering,
LAzily,
UNder a TREE
(in other words, the clarinet accents the beats where the bass rests)
Post Edited (2009-05-16 21:39)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-05-17 06:40
Mike wrote:
>> (in other words, the clarinet accents the beats where the bass rests)>>
This sort of relationship between different voices in music is sufficiently common, and sufficiently underappreciated, to make it worthwhile restating as a generalisation.
The relationship is seen in the 'clarinet' Trio of the Mozart Quintet, for example. The clarinet phrases away from the UPBEAT, while the downbeat is represented by the 'cello. That makes the clarinet line sound strange by itself, but NOT when heard in combination with the strings.
The difficulty of playing something that is only a PART of the music is something any good performer needs to come to terms with. You need to identify, not with what you play, but with the total effect.
Notice that what we do when we play needs to be different from what we do if we SING that Trio to someone, because with only one voice at our disposal we have to represent not only the clarinet upbeat, but the 'cello downbeat, too.
And that's not the case in performance -- though even famous players fail to understand the point.
There are many examples of the general principle; but another good one is the opening of the Jupiter Symphony. If the violins try to emphasise, in the first two bars, not only their little notes but the main beats too, the effect is lost, BECAUSE THERE'S NO TIME FOR THEM TO DO BOTH.
The main beats, you see, are played by the rest of the orchestra, including the timpani. The violins have the responsibility of providing a clear, dramatic and incisive upbeat -- and that's enough.
Tony
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-05-17 23:10
Listening to the Goodman again, I guess he does put a bit of emphasis on the offbeats, though I'd say it's a wash as to which of your two interpretations he does.
Check out the Gary Gray recording. He plays it like you'd like it. It's the first recording I got of the concerto, so I've just always heard it that way.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-05-18 12:29
Tony Pay wrote,
>>
"Crocodile A,
And crocodile B,
Were chattering,
Lazily,
Under a tree."
>>
Love it -- but it took me a moment to realize that the line only scanned if I imagined someone pronouncing "crocodile" as a three-syllable word. This is one of those "divided by a common language" situations, because here in the Southern USA, a lot of us pronounce "crocodile" in four syllables: croc-uh-dye-yul.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2009-05-18 12:30)
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-05-18 13:13
makes the phantom bar line in bar 300 not make much sense
There are already a heck of a lot of barlines in the piece that make no sense whatsoever so I wouldn't be worried about one more or less...
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