 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Exiawolf
Date: 2015-04-08 08:07
Do you sound much brighter to yourself than you do to others? (Say in a concert hall or similar)
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Author: reedfriendly
Date: 2015-04-08 11:04
I think it's safe to say you sound different to others but finding the qualitative difference is difficult, and I would say deserves some experimentation.
I used to hear my orchestra director admonish the strings that no matter how scratchy they sounded to their own ears, if they played with good articulation and body, it would sound warm to the audience.
What I understand from this is that higher frequencies dissipate more quickly. Low frequencies travel further. In the extreme, that's why you can hear a car's subwoofer from a block away without hearing the rest of the stereo. If this observation is valid, then the fundamentals in our sound will be more prominent in our sound as a function of distance. BUT. If there's not much fundamental in your sound to begin with, then there's not much that can travel. Hence the admonition of my maestro.
For the same reason, I tell my marching band students that this is why they should not think they can get away with a bright tone. The warmer they play, the more fundamental-rich sound will reach the box and the less energy they'll waste.
But this is complex. On the other hand, I have a tenor sax that sounds terribly dark when I play it. To the point of being dull. All the high harmonics are reflected away from me, and I just hear a dull fundamental (leftover from a medium bright jazz sound). So I would often play facing a wall, which would allow me to hear all the nice harmonics I was sending out.
So, depending if you're playing with a naturally dark or bright sound, the shape of your instrument and how it projects, and the distance from you to the audience, it could be either.
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2015-04-08 16:14
Russianoff used to say that if you sounded good to yourself, you didn't sound good to anyone else.
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-04-08 18:56
"Do you sound much brighter to yourself than you do to others."
Hi Quinton.
As reedfriendly covered, unless everyone's working with a similar "yard stick" of measuring clarinet tone, which is unlikely, it might be best to listen to a high quality recording of yourself in the presence of others, to gauge where you stand compared to the other listeners on the difficult to quantify metrics of tonal pitch, shape, and color.
And don't be surprised if people's standards change from recordings of one clarinetist to another.
rmk54: I wonder of Leon said such things in the spirit of
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-04-08 19:00
"Do you sound much brighter to yourself than you do to others."
Hi Quinton.
As reedfriendly covered, unless everyone's working with a similar "yard stick" of measuring clarinet tone, which is unlikely, it might be best to listen to a high quality recording of yourself in the presence of others, to gauge where you stand compared to the other listeners on the difficult to quantify metrics of tonal pitch, shape, and color.
And don't be surprised if people's standards change from recordings of one clarinetist to another.
rmk54: I wonder of Leon said such things in the spirit of Nitia's humility (rather than acoustical) based double entendre of "brightness" being not only a marker for tonal attributes, but intelligence/over confidence.
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2015-04-08 22:53
WPD:
No, he meant that when you listen to your sound you are hearing frequencies that travel through your facial structure that are inaudible to others. To get a better sense of this, play with earplugs.
If you try to suppress these in order to make the sound more pleasant to yourself, your sound will be dull to the audience. It's these higher "unpleasant" frequencies that allow your tone to project into the hall.
I have had the great experience of being able to listen to many great clarinettists up close, including Wright and Marcellus among others, and I can tell you the sound is quite different than what you hear in the hall and on recordings.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2015-04-09 03:42
rmk54 wrote:
> If you try to suppress these in order to make the sound more
> pleasant to yourself, your sound will be dull to the audience.
> It's these higher "unpleasant" frequencies that allow your tone
> to project into the hall.
I feel the same. If you think you sound superbly dark, I suggest setting up a recorder in the audience section of a hall and see how well you're tone is projecting.
> I have had the great experience of being able to listen to many
> great clarinettists up close, including Wright and Marcellus
> among others, and I can tell you the sound is quite different
> than what you hear in the hall and on recordings.
I was astounded the first time I heard this. Front row with a small room masterclass with Larry combs and I was horrified. "is this really the sound of one of the greats?!"
Later that night, in the center of a giant recital hall, same person, and I knew that he had tailored his sound to that environment and not an audience member 5 feet away in a large classroom. And BTW, it was amazingly rich and gorgeous.
US Army Japan Band
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Author: TomS
Date: 2015-04-09 05:07
I generally sound brighter to myself in real time to my ears than when listening to recordings of myself. And I generally use very good, laboratory grade microphones (Earthworks) and some AKG studio reference headphones (240DF) to assure accuracy and low coloration ...
If you don't use a MP patch, you are really going to sound bright, due to the vibration conduction through the teeth and bones ...
You should have a recording setup at your fingertips, in your practice room. The little 200 dollar machines are pretty good ...
Tom
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