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Re: Sharp Bb

Author: donald
Date: 2019-05-04 16:50

Here's an idea that might make me unpopular, but please be assured I don't mean it to sound judgemental...
Many English clarinet players in the post war era adopted a sound production that was less focused than that preferred in other countries. While there were certainly excellent players who had an "English" sound but still maintained a ring and brightness in their tone (and there are certainly many of them playing today) there were some that seemed quite happy to perform with a very "wide" and unfocused sound. Even Jack Brymer noted this in The Clarinet.
I'm of the opinion that being "too focused" causes it's own set of problems, but that being "un-focused" is definitely not a good default mode (I actually find myself playing this way deliberately in certain moments, but then it's not happening by accident but is a conscious and deliberate action to achieve some result).
One of the symptoms of playing with an "unfocused tone" is that it tends to flatten short tube notes more than long tube notes. This is of course an advantage if you have a sharp left hand upper register, but is not friendly to the throat tones. It could be that the B+H clarinets had the throat B flat set higher in pitch than modern clarinets as a way of dealing with the prevalent fashion to play with that less focused tone quality?
Just a theory, and one with not much data to back it up. I do know of one English player (well, a NZer who lived in UK for many years) who actually TOLD ME he opened up the register key as much as possible to sharpen throat B flat as his tone production tended to flatten the throat notes (he said that, not me) and I've got to say, he did NOT play with a tone quality that would be welcomed in the modern world.... though he did at least make music sound like a work of art.

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