Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2017-08-20 03:02
I can see that the post by Nellsonic requires a response.
As so often, an important part of a statement is the context in which it is made. In this case, my context was the assertion by Robert that: "This is where I politely, point blank, disagree with leaving the Eb pinky down on a C#6. The timbre is going to stick out like a sore thumb."
What I was saying was: No, the timbre ISN'T necessarily going to stick out like a sore thumb, because _I_ can easily make it not do that. And how I put it was: "To claim that a fingering HAS A QUALITY independent of the player is simply a nonsense."
I then gave another example of a fingering claimed to be 'weak' by necessity, being adjusted on the fly by a player (me) to be acceptable.
But in saying that, I can see that I'm inhabiting a world that is alien to very many of the people on this list. The idea that a particular clarinet situation might require a player to confront an 'uneven' response but nevertheless produce an 'even' output is here almost never addressed.
Rather, the focus is on the way in which 'unevennesses' should be designed out of the clarinet in the first place. Then, the way is open for the whole 'correct embouchure' and 'correct tongue position' philosophy of clarinet playing to take hold, along with the notion that 'good clarinet sound' is very significantly a function of the particular kit that you happen to have available – or can afford.
So OBVIOUSLY to y'all, if your clarinet produces a crap-sounding C# with your RH little finger on the Eb key at first, then that's a fingering that you have to avoid. The idea that there isn't a one-to-one match between a fingering and a sound just isn't part of your philosophy.
An excellent colleague of mine – though a naive beginner at the time, many years ago – once fell foul of the then feral culture of the LSO. Asked to play a particular note flatter, he unwisely said that it was 'a sharp note' on his instrument, and that if it were required to be flatter, he'd have to take it back to the factory.
Of course, when anything thereafter went wrong in the clarinet department, cries of 'take it back to the factory, Martin!' were to be heard.
We DO have to take some things back to the factory; but not all.
Tony
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