 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ClarinetRobt
Date: 2015-12-07 21:17
This past weekend I did some judging in Texas for HS Region Band Tryouts. As a group of students (77 of them, ugh) they are best playing students I've heard in over 15 years. But I noticed a problem with 'style'...specifically with the better players.
They are playing Rose Etudes. The technicians in the students were literally ignoring any staccato notations in the music. In essence, as they played quicker, the etude got more legato in style. I rewarded my students for playing the correct style and dynamics. But the plurality of the other judges didn't seem to care or notice style discrepancies (much less musicality).
I realize short, crisp tonguing can be problematic for a young player. Have you guys run into this with intermediate players? I personally learned how to really play short when I learned Mid Summer's Night Dream and playing a lot of marches.
What's y'alls experience?
~Robt L Schwebel
Mthpc: Behn Vintage
Lig: Ishimori, Behn Delrin
Reed: Legere French Cut 3.75/4, Behn Brio 4
Horns: Uebel Superior (Bb,A), Ridenour Lyrique, Buffet R13 (Eb)
Post Edited (2015-12-07 21:36)
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-12-07 22:06
I'm a HS clarinetist. I can play a crisp staccato, but I've noticed this issue among some of my peers, and I used to have trouble with it myself.
I think we're often taught in our beginning bans that you "articulate by saying ta," and that's the last time the topic is ever discussed. As a result we don't quite develop an understanding of how articulation really works (keep the airstream constant, start the note by releasing the tongue, and stop the note by returning the tongue to the reed.) Because of this, students might not know that you can create really short staccato by simply returning the tongue to the reed sooner.
Until I started taking private lessons about 4 years ago, I just assumed that staccato was achieved by saying "ta" and stopping the airstream between notes, which really bogged down my fast staccato. Needless to say, I really had to rework a lot of bad technical habits with my private teacher before we could focus on musicality and phrasing. And, as gwie mentions below (I forgot to mention this,) I've become more aware of how lazy staccato sounds mushy in the hall and short staccato sounds clear.
I've also heard some band directors demand really "light" articulation on everything, and attempts of a really short, crisp staccato are met with "that's too harsh." Everything has to be articulated with a really soft "dah" syllable. Not sure if this is commonplace in bands or not.
Anyways, I was definitely surprised when my private teacher started demanding more crisp articulation for orchestral-style playing a few years ago, since up to that point I'd often heard people asking for the opposite.
Those may just be my personal experiences, or they may be more common issues.
Post Edited (2015-12-07 22:29)
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Author: gwie
Date: 2015-12-07 22:21
I keep running into an issue where the HS students I work with won't articulate enough for it to be heard from farther than ~5 feet away. It is primarily that they haven't yet developed that sense of what the instrument sounds like to the audience, vs. what they hear off the sound-reflecting surfaces closest to them. In my youth orchestra I'm always trying to cajole my wind players to articulate more, otherwise it's just mush at the front of the ensemble.
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Author: ClarinetRobt
Date: 2015-12-07 22:47
Great point and I had a similar evolution with my tonguing back in the day.
I suspect, at the demise of the music, that technical efficiency is resulting in poor style, musical choices. The first few chairs did bring the entire package. The others suffered from being too legato. In Texas (I suspect this is the case across the country), the technician always has the advantage in these types of competitions.
There's always the students that can play fast and clean, but are clueless on the slower etude. And vice versa. My larger point, the folks are close to being exceptional players, but I feel like they're playing with an anchor around their necks with poor instruction (or lack of).
I reward heavily for dynamics. It's frustrating, as everybody on this blog would probably agree, that musicality has very little influence on creating a piece music...regardless if 'it's just an etude'.
~Robt L Schwebel
Mthpc: Behn Vintage
Lig: Ishimori, Behn Delrin
Reed: Legere French Cut 3.75/4, Behn Brio 4
Horns: Uebel Superior (Bb,A), Ridenour Lyrique, Buffet R13 (Eb)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-12-07 23:58
There is a considerable amount of flexibility in what is stylistically appropriate and what isn't in staccato length. The length ought to be independent of the technique used - i.e., the length of the note is determined by how long the tongue is away from the reed and how long it is in contact. The contact should be light either way.
So, I think there may be two issues here - one is what is stylistically appropriate - in Robert's case of Rose studies that is to some extent an individual choice for a knowledgeable player. Keep in mind, too, that these were originally string etudes. If staccato dots were original to the string version, they could mean many different things that would not necessarily be short. If they were added by Rose, it's hard to know what he might have meant. Certainly the difference between legato (slurred) and staccato (separated) should be honored in any piece, but even then the style of separating slurred passages differs from period to period and even composer to composer.
The other issue is the technical one of what happens to many students' articulation when they try to play very short, crisp (to their ears) staccato. The tongue tenses up and gets out of control, affecting both speed and coordination. The other end of the spectrum is that they move their tongues too far back into their mouths (tah-tah-tah), which also slows them down and wrecks tongue-finger coordination. So, I work with my students to release the tension in their tongues and concentrate on a fairly short tongue stroke. The result is a focus away from the actual length of the note and on the lightness of the movement and the distance the tongue travels. This doesn't in itself result in short staccato, but more of a quietly separated series of notes - shorter than the student who simply brushes the tongue past the reed on its way somewhere else but a little longer, probably, and less explosive than many try to produce. Only after that is internalized do I generally talk about shortening the notes or lengthening them or changing the "attack" (the style of the release by the tongue) for style.
I do differentiate between solo style playing (as in the etudes) and playing in band, where, if the conductor wants staccatissimo, the player needs to try to play staccatissimo. But a good, light, crisp staccatissimo is difficult to do - the heavy machine-gun staccato that many young players produce every time they see staccato dots is IMO not in itself musical unless the context warrants it.
If you listen, as I have over the past several seasons, to Ricardo Morales play, he produces a variety of staccato lengths, very rarely what I would call really short. It's very different from the staccato style of, for example, Jost Michaels, who plays (played?) most staccato quite short but never stiff or heavy. Neither can be criticized as being unmusical, though their stylistic approaches to repertoire like the Mozart concerto are very different.
Karl
Karl
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Author: ClarinetRobt
Date: 2015-12-08 02:38
Could not agree more.
Concerning style specifically and not laboring an individual's approach to staccato, I'd like to believe a 'dot' above a note would indicate something detached. In a judging situation, I'd never mark down a student playing something resembling an indicated articulation length. Sure the staccato could come across as harsh, hard or marcato and not a preferred lightness (depending on point of view) and perhaps it's so rough in playing that legato would be preferred in hindsight. But a short note should be played none-the-less.
Thinking about Karl's approach to 'attack', this has to be the underlining problem with these students. It is plausible at quicker speeds, a less developed tonguer would not be able to maintain a staccato (even within slurred articulations in my case) and would default to legato.
Even with this benefit of doubt for the student's limitations, they need to slow down the etude to maximize the musicality and style. Unfortunately for the contestant, all things being equal, the technician would still win with legato style. Maybe their strategy was the best after all.
It should also be noted that person picking the etudes gives styling tips in the errata for each etude.
~Robt L Schwebel
Mthpc: Behn Vintage
Lig: Ishimori, Behn Delrin
Reed: Legere French Cut 3.75/4, Behn Brio 4
Horns: Uebel Superior (Bb,A), Ridenour Lyrique, Buffet R13 (Eb)
Post Edited (2015-12-08 03:05)
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Author: sonicbang
Date: 2015-12-08 03:52
Bonade wrote somewhere (maybe in the Compendium? don't remember clearly) that every student tend to underartcilulate rather than to overarticulate. I must say he was right about that. I thought I can articulate well and clearly until I started to play in orcherstras. Then I had to re-evaluate this question and had to adjust a few old habits to get things together.
Mark
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-12-08 05:06
For double tonguers, one can use the word "ticket" to produce short staccato notes.
For a lively presentation, one can vibrato on each staccato note, carefully. This was taught to me as a student of the oboe, by my fine teacher, himself a student of the late great Henri Debuescher. No clarinet player or teacher has mentioned this to my knowledge and presumeably they do not do it.
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Author: Ravi2000
Date: 2015-12-08 05:52
Ironic, I came here specifically to ask if I should slur 60% of the vonWeber's Concertino Opus 26 or just play the whole thing slow as dirt.
Or play it at speed and have a 7% success rate. That's an option too.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2015-12-08 06:48
I had no idea of how to tongue fast and accurately on clarinet until I took some lessons from Ron deKant back in the 1960s. He showed me how to articulate Bonade-style and to play staccato across a range of note lengths, from long tenuto to super short (with each note clearly but gently stopped by the tongue). I recall him playing some articulated passages from Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite that were a revelation to me. When you think about it, it is not so surprising that young clarinetists would not pay much attention to staccato, because that musical effect isn't usually used in jazz, pop music, rock, or most of the music they listen to. For them, it comes across as a sort of exotic and burdensome special effect.
One way to get them to articulate is to have them listen, for example, to the Rose 32 performed as music peices (rather than "etudes") by a top classical professional. I really like the CD that comes with Philipe Cuper's International Music Diffusion edition of the Rose 32(available from Van Cott Music). Cuper, the first clarinetist with the Paris Opera, plays the peices over sparse but effective piano accompaniment and articulates accurately and musically throughout--a fine model for aspiring players to emulate. After hearing him, they might decide that this stacatto and articulation stuff isn't so weird after all.
Post Edited (2015-12-09 18:49)
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Author: echi85
Date: 2015-12-08 08:13
In my area, students are told to never stop the reed with your tongue by nearly all band directors and clinicians. They're doing their best but they simply have the wrong mechanics.
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2015-12-09 07:25
I wonder if it has anything to do with the use of syllables "ta", "da", etc, to describe how to do it. All those syllables are produced by contact with the roof of the mouth, which is not where the reed is. Also, unless they are exceptionally experienced listeners most of them probably aren't familiar with the different sounds you can produce.
I don't know if I'm doing it the best way, but when I want a good sharp staccato I put a lot of muscle into it. I remember people in school always talking about being "light". There might be some perception that classical playing is supposed to be dainty.
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Author: Exiawolf
Date: 2015-12-09 10:26
Don't forget to add that a vast majority of players play on a reed that is too hard to allow them to get any sort of response in stocatto... (I've also heard the other extreme, bring too soft that yields the same problem yet in a different way)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2015-12-10 17:19
I don't have any stats, but I wonder if this has anything to do with there being more brass players than woodwind players teaching band?
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