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Re: sound shape, intonation and compromises

Author: kdk
Date: 2013-07-24 16:50

Of course you're right that playing a clarinet well involves a great deal of compromise to maintain intonation with other players while trying to keep the sound musical and technique (particularly articulation) clean. But I'm not sure we're especially plagued by these accommodations by comparison to other woodwinds.

The problems we have as clarinetists are unique to the instrument, and I don't want in any way to minimize them with respect to your musings, Mark. Maybe we have more of them than other wind players do. I've never charted them or compared them note by note, though I suspect that they may even themselves out over the entire range of each instrument. The issue when you get into an ensemble situation, IMO, isn't just the compromises we have to make, but the combination of accommodations we and everyone else are trying to make *to each other,* usually on the fly. In the ensemble ether everyone is constantly trying to fix problems as they hear them using the only means at their disposal - their own instruments - since no player can control (or even necessarily know) what any other player is doing.

I agree completely that playing clarinet involves a lot of compromise. I'm just not sure that we have a greater need for it than players of other instruments. We may only be less aware of what the others are actually doing.

Karl

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