 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-10-28 19:06
As I was one of the contestants in the YouTube Symphony competition at the beginning of this year, I received a survey this morning from a graduate student who is doing a Master's thesis about peoples' experiences participating in this competition--was it a valuable experience, did they learn something from it, would they do it again, etc.
Anyway, after I filled out his survey, I decided to go back and take a look at my video again and give myself a little self-critique. There are quite a number of things I'm not pleased about in it, some of which I would have fixed by making a second take had I not tried to throw this thing together at (literally) the last minute, but others I'm only really noticing now.
I've posted a link to this video before on here, but since I never explicitly asked for comments, nobody commented on it at the time. Now that I'm looking at it again with a more critical eye, I am wondering what other players' thoughts are about it and where I can look to improve.
The video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1u-RnK1w7A
Btw, the obvious errors that with more time I would have done a retake to fix are a couple of weak-sounding notes in the 2nd Scheherazade excerpt (possibly due to a leak in that part of the instrument I discovered later that week), unintentional accents on high clarion notes at 2:20 and 4:29 in the Mozart, and a pianissimo high clarion C that grunts and doesn't immediately speak at 5:49. In retrospect, I think some of these problems may have been due in part to the fact that at the time I hadn't gotten completely comfortable playing on an A clarinet and had a tendency to overcompensate for the increase in resistance; I also think my reed may have been a bit too soft.
I won't reveal my other self-critical opinions about this video just yet because I really want to know what your initial impressions are. Thanks!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-10-28 19:32
Here's a couple of physical things I couldn't help but notice - your little fingers - your left is curled up while your right is pointing skywards.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: William
Date: 2009-10-28 20:08
Just a general lack of passion for the music. Too me, it's like "here we go again", same old, same old. No matter how many times something has been played before, it must always sound like it' s the first performance, not the twenty-third (or whatever)
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2009-10-28 20:08
I am listening not watching. Here are my first raw impressions:
On the positive side, your tone is full, controlled and your technique very good. Your internal metronome is quite good as well.
On the negative side, the attack on the first note of each phrase almost always pops out (reed too soft?). More importantly, and this is going to sound bad, I did not hear direction in your playing. The dynamic range feels restricted from mp to mf and the tone color although very nice is not varied.
For example, in Scheherazade, one starts f then goes to p on the held Bb then goes back to a very meaty f at the end of the run. I hear mf to mp to mp.
Another example is the descending sequences a few bars into the Mozart: La, sol fa mi re ---- Si, la sol fa mi --- Do si la sol fa Si Si la... It feels to me it needs to go from the A to the C in steps. To my ear your rendition sound like 3 separate unconnected short phrases. It has no destination.
I also find you tend to clip the end of phrases, a little like "I love yo" vs. "I love youuuuuu".
Don't get me wrong, it's fine playing, just a little flat sounding to me, may it's the recording equipment....
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-10-28 20:37
Sylvain wrote:
> More
> importantly, and this is going to sound bad, I did not hear
> direction in your playing. The dynamic range feels restricted
> from mp to mf and the tone color although very nice is not
> varied.
I noticed that, too. I think I can blame some of that on the automatic gain control on my camera (which can't be shut off)--passages where I tried to play pp (like the 2nd Scheherazade excerpt) sounded the same as mf. The camera tries to make everything sound roughly the same volume, which is good for shooting home videos of the kids so you can hear what they're saying, but bad for music. I wonder if I might have gotten better results with a webcam and computer microphone (where the input level is manually controlled) instead of a camcorder--maybe I'll try it and see if I can get better results that way.
Thanks everybody for your comments! Keep 'em coming!
Post Edited (2009-10-28 22:33)
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Author: OldClarinetGuy
Date: 2009-10-28 21:44
For what my opinion is worth, I would be careful of the tendency to over emphasis the beginning of each phrase. Sometimes this can be a mental thing like you are seeing each phrase as a separate entity rather than as a part of the whole.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-10-29 05:49
Man, you sure looked glad to be done with that first excerpt! Keep in mind this was a video audition. Let the phrase linger for a bit! Chomping down on the ends of phrases isn't helping things. Don't give cues to people who aren't there and wouldn't need them if they were. Also, you generally look like you're trying to keep away from an invisible tarantula sitting on your barrel. Perhaps a bit less leaning back and pinching upwards. You also are making me a bit seasick in the Mozart.
William hit the nail on the head. You seem in very much a hurry to get from one note to the next, and seem glad to see each one pass.
I've heard quite a few people end the phrases in the first Scheherazade excerpt like that, with a very fast 3 notes. To me, each time I hear that is like someone stabbing Scheherazade with a serrated knife in the chest. Let the first note be smooth and lead into the others. I recommend the Philadelphia/Ormandy recording for a nice example of how I like it, but others' tastes will most definitely vary.
The second Scheherazade excerpt is very vertical, metronomic. It's a dance. It should sound... dancy. There's also a lot of room for play in it. It's happy music, and it's constantly in motion, the first note leading a cascading whimsy all the way to the last.
The third Scheherazade excerpt just sounds like a whole bunch of notes played really fast.
Mozart, each set of notes between rests sounds like it exists by itself. Think of how they relate to each other, how they lead to each other, how they are all part of bigger phrases, themes, ideas.
Quite honestly, though, as a judge I would have made my decision in the first three notes. It's such dramatic writing for clarinet, such a spectacular "here we go" entrance, and IIRC the notes are accented. It sounded slurred and not terribly enthusiastic to me. I could probably have guessed it just with your breath and posture. It looks and sounds like you're breathing in for a Haydn adagio, not a Rimsky-Korsakov adventure that I might like to hear bordering on the burlesque.
The errors mentioned in your first post barely registered on my radar.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-10-29 15:40
EEBaum wrote:
> Man, you sure looked glad to be done with that first excerpt!
> Keep in mind this was a video audition. Let the phrase linger
> for a bit!
Really? See, I thought it was supposed to end abruptly--switch to tempo giusto/allegro molto and end on an quick eighth note; a sudden change of mood. Maybe I should be thinking of this as only the end of a lyrical solo and not also the beginning of the next section by the orchestra. I guess I was thinking too much about what the rest of the orchestra is doing at that point.
> Also, you generally look like
> you're trying to keep away from an invisible tarantula sitting
> on your barrel. Perhaps a bit less leaning back and pinching
> upwards. You also are making me a bit seasick in the Mozart.
Ha ha ha! You're so right! I think my movement was more for my benefit in keeping time than it was for expressive purposes. Funny thing is that I usually move around a lot more than that. I recorded this late at night after getting the kids to bed, and it shows. That's the last time I try doing that again. What I should have done was go somewhere else during the day to record this.
> The second Scheherazade excerpt is very vertical, metronomic.
> It's a dance. It should sound... dancy. There's also a lot of
> room for play in it. It's happy music, and it's constantly in
> motion, the first note leading a cascading whimsy all the way
> to the last.
Yeah, I agree with you. It just sounds tired. I could have played it much better.
> The third Scheherazade excerpt just sounds like a whole bunch
> of notes played really fast.
I really did try to crescendo and decrescendo those runs. I definitely could have done more with it though. The camera fought me on this, but I probably still could have won the battle.
> Mozart, each set of notes between rests sounds like it exists
> by itself. Think of how they relate to each other, how they
> lead to each other, how they are all part of bigger phrases,
> themes, ideas.
Yeah, I hear that, too. I think I've played this much better in the past than on this video. I do generally try to do a stepwise crescendo of that section Sylvain mentioned, for instance.
In retrospect, I think I got so hung up on playing mechanics (such as trying to avoid unintentionally accenting my entrances) that I lost track of the musical line. Strange as it may sound, I'm actually rather relieved to hear that what needed work here was things like phrasing and dynamics. I think what I'm learning here is that I've gotten to be too much of a worrywart about technical stuff, and that I'd do better to relax and just concentrate on the music.
> Quite honestly, though, as a judge I would have made my
> decision in the first three notes. It's such dramatic writing
> for clarinet, such a spectacular "here we go" entrance, and
> IIRC the notes are accented. It sounded slurred and not
> terribly enthusiastic to me.
They're aren't written accented, and the first two notes actually are written slurred, which is why I played them that way. The mistake I saw that I made here was playing through these notes too quickly. The marking I missed was that the slurred notes are marked "lento" (and that that the fermata was supposed to a long one) and I definitely did not play them that way.
> The errors mentioned in your first post barely registered on my
> radar.
This is where I really needed a sanity check. I think I may have gotten too distracted by these technical details and missed the important stuff here (which should have been easy for me--the ironic thing is that I'm used to directors having to tell me to tone things down, so I'm really quite happy to hear someone tell me to increase the level of drama. ).
I'm tempted to try recording this again, just to see how well I can pull this off. I know I can do better than this, and with your (and others') comments I feel I have a much better idea HOW to. Thanks!
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2009-10-29 16:01
mrn,
I played for Jonathan Cohler for a masterclass, and even though I have my reservation about the man, he made a very revelatory comment about my playing.
I was doing a swell type phrasing in the Saint Saens sonata. He stopped me and asked if I thought I was doing to much of it or not enough. I told him I thought I went a little too loud in the middle. Then he turned to the audience and asked if anyone heard my swell, and the answer was a resounding "NO". I proceeded with what I felt was overdoing all dynamic markings, phrasings, accents. Frankly, my performance was much more effective.
It made me realize that what I initially thought to be over the top in my playing is often just about within reason. Of course, your experience may vary, and some players have to be toned down, but it is definitely not your case and the camera can only be blamed for so much.
Maybe when you feel you are playing a wide crescendo, the audience ears only hear a moderate increase. Perhaps a good way to address this is to get a decent recorder (my favorite is the Marantz PMD620) and check if you really hear the phrasings that you think you are doing.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-10-29 16:02
mrn wrote:
> Really? See, I thought it was supposed to end abruptly--switch to tempo giusto/allegro molto and end on an quick eighth note; a sudden change of mood. Maybe I should be thinking of this as only the end of a lyrical solo and not also the beginning of the next section by the orchestra. I guess I was thinking too much about what the rest of the orchestra is doing at that point.<
No, that's not what I was saying. You hadn't even stopped playing the note before you took the clarinet away from your face and moved it toward the ground. I see a lot of people doing this. After the last note, and this applies to every concievable situation (with the exceptions of when it's theatrically dictated otherwise, or when you have a near-impossible Bb-to-A switch), I highly recommend staying in position and letting the sound linger *in your head* for a moment, so that your mechanisms of putting your clarinet down don't have any overlap with you actually playing a note. I've played in ensembles where I'm still playing the end of a note, and the person next to me, on the same part, has already cut the phrase short and put down his horn.
>I really did try to crescendo and decrescendo those runs. I definitely could have done more with it though. The camera fought me on this, but I probably still could have won the battle.<
Again, that wasn't my concern. I know the recording equipment was a limiting factor, but that didn't bother me. What bothered me was that I heard NOTENOTENOTENOTENOTENOTENOTENOTE without much sense of phrasing, without any sense of where the downbeats were or what was leading to what. It sounded like you were in a huge rush to PLAY ALL THE RIGHT NOTES IN ORDER and didn't really give insight as to where any of the notes were going.
>In retrospect, I think I got so hung up on playing mechanics (such as trying to avoid unintentionally accenting my entrances) that I lost track of the musical line. Strange as it may sound, I'm actually rather relieved to hear that what needed work here was things like phrasing and dynamics. I think what I'm learning here is that I've gotten to be too much of a worrywart about technical stuff, and that I'd do better to relax and just concentrate on the music.<
I'd say phrasing and style need more work than dynamics.
>They're aren't written accented, and the first two notes actually are written slurred, which is why I played them that way. The mistake I saw that I made here was playing through these notes too quickly. The marking I missed was that the slurred notes are marked "lento" (and that that the fermata was supposed to a long one) and I definitely did not play them that way.<
They're most definitely not slurred, at least not in any edition I've played. I just checked a part, and they're neither slurred nor accented. They're under a triplet beam, but not slurred. If anything, separate them to emphasize the triplet feel. And mess with the tempo a bit more... it's a freely metered solo.
>This is where I really needed a sanity check. I think I may have gotten too distracted by these technical details and missed the important stuff here (which should have been easy for me--the ironic thing is that I'm used to directors having to tell me to tone things down, so I'm really quite happy to hear someone tell me to increase the level of drama. ).<
It's a fine line to walk. You play with a lot of intensity, but much of it seems very in-your-face. It seems you might have the potential for a bit of a dominating presence in an orchestra, as you do seem to have a nice, thick sound. I'd try to kick the stylistic nuance up a few notches, see how you can walk the line, see just how dramatic and exciting you can make the music without making it "about you" when you're playing.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-10-29 16:49
EEBaum wrote:
> Again, that wasn't my concern. I know the recording equipment
> was a limiting factor, but that didn't bother me. What
> bothered me was that I heard NOTENOTENOTENOTENOTENOTENOTENOTE
> without much sense of phrasing, without any sense of where the
> downbeats were or what was leading to what. It sounded like
> you were in a huge rush to PLAY ALL THE RIGHT NOTES IN ORDER
> and didn't really give insight as to where any of the notes
> were going.
I see what your saying. I think I might have done better to slow it down a little from that tempo, too, because then it would have been easier to make the musical structure audible. What do you think?
> They're most definitely not slurred, at least not in any
> edition I've played. I just checked a part, and they're
> neither slurred nor accented. They're under a triplet beam,
> but not slurred. If anything, separate them to emphasize the
> triplet feel. And mess with the tempo a bit more... it's a
> freely metered solo.
OK. I pulled out my part again, too. It's a curved line, but I can see it's definitely intended to show where the triplet lies, because it's over the rest, too. The weird thing is that all the other triplet beams in the piece are written with square brackets instead of curved lines--that's why I thought it was intended not just as a triplet beam, but also as a slur. I think it does sound better articulated, though. I wonder why they did it that way?
[Edit -- I just put the professional recording of this piece that I own on to listen to--Chicago Symphony w/ Fritz Reiner--and the clarinetist slurs these notes there, too, it seems--in fact, I'm shocked to hear that he actually slurs all three of them (I just slurred the first two).]
> It's a fine line to walk. You play with a lot of intensity,
> but much of it seems very in-your-face. It seems you might
> have the potential for a bit of a dominating presence in an
> orchestra, as you do seem to have a nice, thick sound. I'd try
> to kick the stylistic nuance up a few notches, see how you can
> walk the line, see just how dramatic and exciting you can make
> the music without making it "about you" when you're playing.
OK. I'll work on that. Thanks!
Post Edited (2009-10-29 17:20)
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-10-29 17:14
Slowing it down might help, but I don't think that would make the structure more audible. It's more of a feel, of style, of emphasis. Listen to what's going on in the music before and after the solo. There's an ebb and flow within a bigger ebb and flow within an even bigger ebb and flow, and, depending on the quality of the performance, maybe even a couple more beyond those. Fit into that, bring it out.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2009-10-29 21:52
My first thoughts were similar to Alex' comment regarding your abrupt setting down of the clarinet. I also noticed the lack of dynamic range. After that, I was thinking that you almost played too quickly! Your tone could be more fluid, IMO, and that would have made the notes sound less "poppy" during the fast excerpts. During the Mozart I noticed no legato sound whatever. Connect the notes!
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Author: clarinetcase
Date: 2009-10-31 02:52
Listen.
Listen to yourself. Get a decent recording device and listen.
Listen to lots of recordings.
And play in front of a mirror . . .
Simple things can do a lot
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Author: William
Date: 2009-10-31 16:07
Too much with the over-analysis already!!! You are a good player, but simply, you must try harder to play the music--not just the notes, dynamics, etc--and get more in control of your body language so that it supports what you do musically rather than distracts. Example: it is far more effective to the audience member, if you linger a bit, seemingly savoring every last decible of musical decay at perfromance end, than abruptly putting the instrument down and hurrying off stage left. If you act the part, the audience will be more inclined to believe in what you are trying to do.
Bottom Line: Play the music--not just the notes--and act the part. Remember what Duke Ellington said, "If it sounds good, it is good". And also remember, he always smiled at the camera.........:>)
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Author: ShazamaPajama
Date: 2009-11-01 10:30
i dont know if anyone said this yet, (i didnt intend to comment anyway) but right at the end of the video in the last 15 seconds i noticed that as you playing that note you decrescendo'ed like you hit it and it would look like this on paper: > > > > or somethign lol.
any who. as you decrescendo'ed the pitch went way up, like mad. as chris brown would say "like wow"
that would imply that you are squeezing the reed to the mp and not using enough air.
the last 15-20 second is when i noticed it. i think someone said somehing along the lines of your notes all popping in abruptly instead of a nice breath attack creating some tranquility. well that embouchure and lack of air may explain it.
i dont know i'm not a doctor, but that is my opinion
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Author: Gretchen
Date: 2009-11-03 00:20
My initial impression was that you played everything at two dynamics: Loud and louder. It seemed that you weren't thinking about the character of the music at all, only the technique. You have a really nice big sound, and even tone, so if you'd do something with these wonderful attributes musically, it'd be a really awesome tape!! Think of yourself not as a clarinet player, but as a medium for the composer's music to come through to the audience you're playing for. (you just happen to be translating it through the clarinet)
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Author: maskedridersean
Date: 2009-11-03 06:30
Keep the tounging consistent in the beginning phrases. Each time needs to be exactly the 1st one way. If its not, it seems just oddly diminishing.
The starts of you notes coming after breaths are not very clean. And it sounds like you are pounding your fingers on your fingers. If you have to go from an top line c to a 3rd space C, I hear more clarinet *thwack* than music.
People want to hear beautiful music....that just happens to be coming out of that long black thing. They don't want to hear your clarinet.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-11-03 17:04
maskedridersean wrote:
> Keep the tounging consistent in the beginning phrases. Each
> time needs to be exactly the 1st one way. If its not, it seems
> just oddly diminishing.
I'm a little confused by what you mean here, especially the "oddly diminishing" part, because I'm not sure what you're referring to. Could you explain in a little more detail?
> And it sounds like you are pounding your fingers on
> your fingers. If you have to go from an top line c to a 3rd
> space C, I hear more clarinet *thwack* than music.
Yeah, one of the bigger technical problems I had in the Mozart was cleanly negotiating large intervals without a crunch or break in the sound. This is something I have had to work on with the A clarinet especially, because the changes in resistance with different fingerings are more dramatic on the A (or at least it seems that way to me, because I haven't been playing A for very long--I'm playing on my A in the video, btw). I hadn't thought too much about finger/pad noise before you and Katrina brought it up, but now that you have, I can see that it does seem to make matters worse.
Thanks again to everyone for their comments!
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Author: ariel3
Date: 2009-11-03 18:45
You have the technical ability. Now, I have a suggestion. Listen to some great singers (opera, lieder, etc.). You have something important to say if you are to pass along what the composer intended. And, you will feel wonderfully fulfilled when this happens. All of the above comments are appropriate.
I was fortunate in that I married a fine lyric soprano - and the beautiful voice has been a wonderful mentor for me. It is my desire to "sing",not play the clarinet - and I have to constantly work at it to make it happen.
You are off to a good start and I wish you well as you continue to grow.
Gene Hall
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Author: brycon
Date: 2009-11-03 19:37
Mrn,
You have got some guts to put up an audition tape on a clarinet site! I hope you have fun negotiating the maze of comments and congrats on a fine tape.
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