 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: McDonalds Eater
Date: 2021-07-19 09:28
A long post ahead but one that I think requires discussion and thought.
I want to start with saying that I am having trouble choosing a sound concept.
As weird as it may sound, I currently don't have a sound concept. I am appreciative of all schools and styles of playing that I don't know what I like best and I don't know what I want to sound like.
The official psychological term for this is called Overchoice. Briefly explained, it means that people have a difficult time choosing something when faced with many options. In this case, I have a difficult time choosing a sound concept to approximate my playing.
Ricardo Morales, Harold Wright, Sabine Meyer, Robert Marcellus, The Ottensamer Family (Ernst Ottensamer and both his sons), Nicolas Baldeyrou, Martin Frost, Karl Leister. I admire all of these player's playing styles despite all their different backgrounds. Let's just say for sake of this example, if there was a magician that could give you the instant ability to sound and play like any clarinet player, who would you pick? I would never be able to answer, because I would want to sound like all of them! So, how am I supposed to get a concept in my ear if I want to sound like everyone?
Now to add another wrinkle. From what I have seen, and from conversations with some of my clarinet friends (all of which agree on this), the clarinet sound and world is obviously changing, but in my opinion, it's becoming less and less diverse.
Everyone nowadays strives for that "dark, smooth sound" and God forbid that you add any overtones to your sound because otherwise you'll instantly be labeled bright and edgy. It's almost like they're afraid of projection and color in their sound. As a result, more and more people are sounding more or less the same. Now, before this gets taken the wrong way, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that style of playing (and as I mentioned before I do like it). But here's what I'm trying to say and why I mention this:
When choosing a sound concept, you should obviously choose what you like, but should your sound concept also fit within todays standards?
Right now, not only do I not know what I want to sound like, I also feel like I have to restrict myself to certain playing concepts just so that I can have a chance for professional opportunities. All of the big auditions and competitions around the world are being won by players with the dark sound that many people describe. Disclaimer: this also isn't to say that concept is the sole reason of people's success; there's also the process of playing convincing music with impeccable tuning and flawless rhythm regardless of what one sounds like.
Here's a thought-provoking question. Let's say either Harold Wright or Robert Marcellus are still alive today and at their prime. An audition for one of the Big 5 Orchestras opens up today and both go to audition. Would they still win today? Or would they not pass to the later rounds because they sound "too bright?"
Or imagine this question: Imagine we have two players that are virtuosos and almost identical in every aspect of their playing. They are doing an audition for a big competition today. The ONLY difference between the two is their sound concept. Who do you think would get picked as winner? Let's also say that both of them have the exact same genius and convincing interpretation for the same piece. Who gets picked winner?
Maybe the above questions are just simply stupid and idiotic, but I think they're also worth thinking about.
I even ran and experiment of my own. A little bit before the pandemic, I gathered a small group of young musicians (ages ranging 18-25, from all instrument families) to serve as jury and arranged a brief blind audition. The ones who were going to play were me, and a trusted clarinet friend of mine. At the time, I was playing with more of a French American concept and my friend was striving for a Viennese sound. My objective for this was to see what type of sound people prefer. To isolate and focus on nothing but sound as much as possible, my friend and I both agreed to play everything equally: same tempo, same dynamics, same articulation, same tuning, same everything. We only played the Mozart exposition and one orchestral excerpt. The audition took place in our medium-sized hall at our university, and I had my friends sit wherever they wanted on the ground levels. It was empty aside from my friends there listening.
The results? Everyone said that while they were able to hear me better, they preferred my friend's sound because he "sounded darker, smoother, and mellower. Less harsh." As expected, everyone mentioned that our interpretations were almost identical, so they resorted to sound as their main listening point. Some people mentioned that at times I would get a bit "too bright and edgy." Pretty interesting!
So, with all that said, I have a bit of an internal conflict. While I would love to play with a concept like Harold Wright, I'm afraid that nowadays it would get labeled as too "bright" (or whatever other word people use) even though it's not at all. I do understand that sound is very personal and subjective to everyone.
What do you think? Do you think people have maybe a bit of a bias when it comes to sound concept? Or should I just continue to try make as good music as I possibly can?
What the heck?
Post Edited (2021-07-19 09:29)
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Author: Alexis
Date: 2021-07-19 11:32
Hi,
There will be lots of people with opinions about what sound you should make, and sadness about the globalisation of sound + the lack of resonance in modern American playing etc . They are fine, but I think miss the point a bit...!
My opinion is that many clarinettists tend to be obsessed with a rather static concept of tone - what sound you make at a given moment in time. For me, expression in music is about how you change sound. What happens to the timbre when you play more intensely, more softly. Can you make a broad sound that sings above an ensemble, or equally become aggressive? In orchestral terms this might be rach symphony 2 vs nielsen symphony no 5 (the latter of which later requires a distant, veiled sound).
I think with the static concept, someone can sound beautiful in isolation, but ultimately is not very exciting to listen to. From my own experience, you can go down a rabbit hole listening to other clarinettists, only hearing the features you want to hear. I think its worth listening to clarinettists only through the sphere of interpretation - do they bring the music to life? Listen to how they interact with other instruments. Its really important not to only hear clarinets...!
One thing that has always puzzled me is how other instruments (often string players and pianists) reach the pinnacle of playing and then keep on studying - interpretation of music becomes king. I fee with clarinets it is sometimes an adjunct to learning foolproof technique.
I think there is a really strong case for listening to other instrumentalists/singers and focussing on how they interpret the music through sound - how do they create intensity, calm, joy, sadness etc in their sound.
In terms of making the choice, I don’t think its a decision quite like you are making out. Stick with what you have and push the boundaries of what is possible expressively - find the analogues in clarinet sound to how other instruments are expressive. This might be how you play, coupled with incremental changes to equipment until you find the timbre that gives you the flexibilty you require. And ideally in tune as well...!
Post Edited (2021-07-19 13:54)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-07-19 17:03
Billy Joel said that he composed/sung songs as if done by other singers (for example one tune was as if sung by Gordon Lightfoot for example). Did Billy Joel sound just like Gordon Lightfoot in that song? No, but knowing the story you could say, "oh yeah, I can see that."
Point being you can perform Ravel like Marcellus, Weber like Leister, etc. etc.
You can enhance your experience doing "you" in different ways, but I believe we all will have our own unique approach no matter what we do.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-07-19 22:23
Without getting too serious about any of this, Harold Wright would easily still fit into the Boston Symphony or Pittsburgh. As for losing any sleep over trying to decide if you would rather sound like Sabine, Ricardo, Wright, Marcellus, Baldeyrou, or Leister, forget it. Even if you break into their house, steal their clarinets, mouthpieces, reeds, and ligatures and use only their instrument and mouthpiece techs, you will still not sound like them. Better to practice being yourself and subordinating sound concepts to the musical requirements of the piece you are playing and the acoustical characteristics of the arena where you are performing.
This doesn't mean that your shouldn't copy certain aspects of your favorite players' styles. But all you will actually have to work with is a COPY. How that copy fits into your overall style is a work in progress that only you can control. Drucker said that he listened repeatedly to Louis Cahuzac's recording of the Nielsen Concerto before trying to play the piece himself. He said he absorbed certain aspects of Cahuzac's "purity of tone." Maybe like letting the spirit of the French master help shape his soul. But nobody would ever mistake Drucker's recording of the piece for Cahuzac's. Cahuzac's sound may have been stimulating input for Drucker, but the transformed output was all Drucker's. I believe it would be the same for any of us (making allowances for differences in talent, of course). We listen; we learn, from others, but we remain ourselves.
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Author: Ken Lagace
Date: 2021-07-20 04:36
Don't think about it at all. Why copy another player? By doing that you are inhibiting developing your own sound. Play on mouthpieces and reeds and clarinets and pick what you like best. And do it over and over and in a few years you may find what is best for you - or not. None of the players listed went through your process, but many others tried to and failed.
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2021-07-20 11:24
This reminds me of "Nodame Cantabile" Live Action, the European segment.
"Chiaki", the protagonist, is a dynamic young genius conductor with spiky hair. He's revitalizing an old venerable orchestra that has fallen into decline. The orchestra is a cultural treasure with a long history, but has fallen on hard times. It's not his dream job, but he's determined to love it with all his heart and make it the best he can. Auditions are being held in a small room. A bassoonist is playing very professionally with piano accompaniment. It sounds beautiful. The camera pans across the judges.
One or two are thinking "I can't believe he brought a FRENCH bassoon." - "Why would he bring a French bassoon, when we explicitly said GERMAN bassoon???"
Then Chiaki, with a look of unrestrained wild inspiration, silently exclaims, "My orchestra will have a FRENCH bassoon!!!".
Be your best self.
- Matthew Simington
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Author: Jarmo Hyvakko
Date: 2021-07-20 12:52
I sympathize mr. Mcdonalds Eater completely. I started my career when the bright sound was the preferred one. Have seen the change, have modified my own setup to meet the new standard. And still, i find the present darkness somewhat boring. But when i try brighter setups and show them to my colleaques, they usually like the dark one.
The keyword is pleasant. It is much more difficult to produce a pleasant sound with lots of overtones. So a mediocre dark sound usually beats a mediocre bright sound. And especially with cane reeds the unwanted overtones are one of the main reasons to discard a reed!
In both genre's it's challenging to produce the opposite. With a dark setup it is difficult to produce enough overtones, with a bright set up the problem is adjusting and controlling them.
I once met mr. Guy Deplus. It was fascinating to find out that both of us had a "mission impossible" in sound producing. Mr. Deplus's lifelong quest was to find an equipment to produce a dark sound with a soft reed. Mine is to find an equipment (and technique) to produce a light sound that is also round and soft.
When in doubt with the sound ideal, try to stick to a "pleasant" sound, till your instinct makes up your mind of the ideal sound. For me that is mr. Leister's sound in his earlier recordings f.ex. Brahms's quintet with Amadeus quartet at least when listened from a vinyl record!!
Also your playing temperament may be a factor: with a dark setup you must make or even force the overtones. With a bright setup you need to avoid doing things when trying the softer colours. At least i need the physical experience when interpreting the music, to get "in the mood": when i play a forte i prefer the feeling to force it out of the instrument to just letting it go easily. Also when i listen to someone, i enjoy the impression that the performer is clearly doing the things deliberately to the feeling that the things come nonchalantly out of the instrument too "easily".
Jarmo Hyvakko, Principal Clarinet, Tampere Philharmonic, Finland
Post Edited (2021-07-20 12:55)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-07-20 14:41
Jarmo,
I really like the way you expressed that about sound production. I often am most satisfied with my sound when it comes our more like I'm squeezing toothpaste out of a tube. That is NOT to say there is more resistance, but rather when the tightrope walk we do (balance on one side is air and balance on the other is embouchure) has a more isometric feel to it.
:-)
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: ACCA
Date: 2021-07-20 19:04
Fascinating discussion.
Just goes to show how we can hear things differently- I would never have described Wright's playing as "too bright", even for modern settings.
Slightly OT but I wonder how much of the trend for modern "darkness", which I agree can tend too much towards tubbiness/ stuffyness/ coveredness, is driven by modern digital methods of recording and listening to music?
Also, isn't it weird that most people on this BBoard will agree that the modern trend is toward "darkness" but most will also agree that it's going to far that way?!
I remain convinced that in a concerto scenario, playing with an orchestra in a large concert hall filled to near capacity [remember what that was like! ;( ] more "brightness" (overtones) are needed in the sound to fill the hall and project to listeners at the back of the hall. This subtlety may lost doing experiments with a smaller group of listeners in a smaller hall.
I agree that all of the artists mentioned above are worth listening to, appreciating, and actively identify aspects of their playing to emulate. Not copy. In the end you will sound like you- just be the best you that you can be! Brightness or darkness, the player I will appreciate the most will be the one who can vary this as part of his expressive palette in accordance with the demands of the music, and the venue/ audience/ setting as well.
Will that be the player who wins the audition? I don't know either!
Viva la Musica!
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2021-07-20 22:03
ACCA wrote:
> Just goes to show how we can hear things differently- I would
> never have described Wright's playing as "too bright", even for
> modern settings.
>
Maybe not so much how we hear things differently. We may hear the same thing but don't always agree on how to describe what we hear. We each have our own preferences. But we don't really need adjectives to describe them until we try to discuss them with others. And many of the adjectives we use carry charged meanings, both positive and negative. So, what we can't know is what others mean when they describe someone's sound. "Bright" is for most musicians a pejorative term. "Lively" is positive.
> Slightly OT but I wonder how much of the trend for modern
> "darkness", which I agree can tend too much towards tubbiness/
> stuffyness/ coveredness, is driven by modern digital methods of
> recording and listening to music?
I have long felt that the recording industry has driven at least some of the change. Players want to sound polished on recordings, which don't require or reward projection and tend to play things back - e.g. ancillary noises in the sound - that players used to count on being lost by the time the sound reached the audience. Orchestral and other classical recordings are done with mics much closer than any audience member would be located in a large concert hall. And mics have been ubiquitous in theater pits for at least a couple of decades, making projection less important - I can't remember the last time I heard an acoustical pit in a professional production.
Karl
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Author: brycon
Date: 2021-07-20 22:26
Quote:
Ricardo Morales, Harold Wright, Sabine Meyer, Robert Marcellus, The Ottensamer Family (Ernst Ottensamer and both his sons), Nicolas Baldeyrou, Martin Frost, Karl Leister. I admire all of these player's playing styles despite all their different backgrounds. Let's just say for sake of this example, if there was a magician that could give you the instant ability to sound and play like any clarinet player, who would you pick? I would never be able to answer, because I would want to sound like all of them! So, how am I supposed to get a concept in my ear if I want to sound like everyone?
"Playing style" is different from "sound concept," which is the term you stick to for the rest of your post. But the distinction should be important to you insofar as there's a lot of stuff our ears bundle up as "tone" or "sound concept" that, for your purposes of developing an artistic voice, could be separated out, experimented with, and practiced.
Some years ago, there was a study for which the attacks and tapers of various instruments were chopped off. Hearing only the middles of notes, non-musicians couldn't tell the difference between a piano, clarinet, viola, etc. (and I also found it rather difficult to tell what I was listening to). I suspect, then, that if you took all those players you listed, had them sustain a throat-tone G, and chopped off their note-starts and tapers, you wouldn't be able to tell one from the other. I put it to you that Harold Wright's incredible legato, his sense of singing through lines, expressive vibrato, and so forth are much more palpable aspects of his "sound" than the exact ratio of fundamental to 3rd partial. And these folks that put his recordings through a spectrogram, isolate specific overtones, purchase the same equipment, etc. are, for the most part, wasting their time.
So perhaps don't bother worrying about it. Think instead about what exactly you like or even dislike about these players. It isn't good enough to say "sounds dark" or "sounds bright." In Leister, for instance, I hear very long and very often aggressively boring lines, for which he's blowing through spots at which most other players would (and musically should) do some sort of nuance. What I like about his playing, though, is the match in openness from the low register to the high register. In Martin Frost's playing, by contrast, there are usually very fast air shapes, often on single tones--nearly the exact opposite of what Leister's doing.
So I would instead think more about rhythm, intonation, matching, openness, legato, air shapes, expression, vibrato--in short, all the things that comprise what you call "sound concept" but are much more immediate in our listening experience than an abstract idea of bright or dark tone devoid of musical context. Fuss with getting 30% more x partial and 15% less y partial at some later point.
Post Edited (2021-07-21 00:01)
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2021-07-20 22:31
Karl,
Quote:
I can't remember the last time I heard an acoustical pit in a professional production.
I only ever played in the pit during one run of Guys and Dolls in college. A few years prior, I had sat just above the pit (as a member of the audience) for a Christmas Carol at Madison Square Gardens. Neither experience was mic'd.
I hadn't realized that the mic had now taken over even the pits. However, even many small early jazz groups mic up now. So much is lost.
One of my favorite experiences was hearing Bob Wilbur giving a pre-concert talk/performance pertaining to Benny Goodman. He filled the room with his sound while standing only a few feet away from me. I can't imagine what a sound system would have done to that moment.
I must agree, though - as sound systems interject more and more between the performer and the listener, then the "picture" of the "perfect" sound most probably changes with it.
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
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Author: anonrob
Date: 2021-07-21 01:36
Before Covid, I regularly played for national tours of Broadway shows and will be returning to the pit of the MUNY in St. Louis in a few weeks. We are always within a foot or so of at least one mic, sometimes a low and a high even when I am not playing flute. I don't think any of the acoustic sounds really get past the first couple of rows.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-07-21 03:00
Jarmo,
A little on the mouthpiece odyssey in the US from overtones to masked sound.
Tracing the shift from overtone rich to bland, overtone-masked sound in the US, we can note that as early as the 1970s and 80s, mouthpiece makers like Dan Johnson and Jim Pyne were using wider rails and sometimes asymmetrical facings to produce "darker" sounds than the typical Selmer HS* or Vandoren 2rv mouthpieces. Even Frank Kaspar was asking players if they wanted darker or brighter models. DePlus helped produce the Vandoren B40 (and later the B40 lyre) and many players switched to them to cut the "buzz" from the sound. Some players went still further with the Vandoren B40D, which promised a "Germanic" sound and could even be used on either a French Boehm or a German bore/system clarinet. Nick Kuckmeier "play Easy" models from Austria seem to have been the Austrian designers answer to the B40 and B40D, and Kuckmeier's pieces began popping up in American orchestras. Vandoren lost little time in countering the Kuckmeiers with their Vandoren BD5, which caught on like wildfire, maybe because it articulated easier and tuned better. The BD5 filtered quite a lot of the buzz out that bothered players in the older, more vibrant Ched copies, Alelandais, and M15 and M13 lyre Vandoren models. But blandness and boring sameness of tone can easily creep into the sounds that the wildly popular BD5 tends to produce.
A very recent addition on the market to produce a warm, overtone-masked tone is Jody Espina's Chedeville UMBRA model produced in Savannah, Georgia in the US. If we're going to do the "new sound" that potentially would be a possible candidate(even a improvement?) One reason is that, unlike the rather open tip BD5, the UMBRA is available in many facings including 1.00 mm and even 0.95 at the tip. So I at least find it less tiring to play than the more open BD5. And the tone might be even creamier and warmer.
In your own odyssey from overtones to masked tone, can you tell us a little about what equipment changes you made? (Were they mostly in selection of mouthpiece models?)
Post Edited (2021-07-21 05:52)
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Author: Jarmo Hyvakko
Date: 2021-07-22 09:59
Seabreeze!
When i began playing in the 70's and professional studies and career in the 80's in Europe (Finland) it was all about Vandoren, Vandoren and Vandoren. My first professional quality instrument was a Selmer 9, but I very quickly changed to the mainstream instrument in the a'=442Hz world: Buffet RC. It was year 1985 i changed to RC Prestige and that Bb clarinet i still play! Plus my RC Prestige A clarinet has been with me since the 80's too. I just have provided them with Backun traditional barrels and bells, they darken the sound significantly, but you may expect some intonational challenges. So the quest for sound ideal has been fiddling with mouthpieces, reeds and reed strengths.
In Europe people tend to use much more open mps as they seem to use in the US. So I used for a long time models such as B45 and 11.6 trying to get the softness from the extra space between the mouthpiece and the reed.
When i moved to Tampere Philharmonic, i was fortunate to start a working relationship with the orchestra's retired clarinetist mr Pauli Oksala, sadly not among us anymore, who modified mouthpieces. During that time i changed little by little to more closed mps combined with harder reeds and learned also something about modifications of the tone chamber, how the shape of the so called baffle has even greater effect to sound quality than the facing curve. Mr. Oksala used Zinner blanks in those days and my mouthpieces were about 1.10 open and some 18mm long and in the end i played with Vandoren RueLepic #4 reeds. That was interesting, because as a schoolboy, my first personal choice was Vandoren 5RV lyre with #4 reeds (in those days 3 1/2 - 4)
Then someone introduced to me Nick Kückmeier's mouthpieces in early 2010's. In those days he collaborated closely with Legere and the PlayEasy mouthpieces were designed to use with Legeres. I got excellent service from them, got mps for trial and reeds too: Kückmeier had designed a "german signature" reed made by Legere. I chose the Playeasy B1 model, it felt slightly more resistant and better in tune than their most popular model B2. That combination with a legere was an eye-opener. You could just put your lips together and blow and get a centered, focused, soft and dark viennese-german sound from a french clarinet.
For some reason or another Kückmeier ended his co-operation with Legere. And there ended also the german signature reed, the leftovers i still use playing the Eefer. So now i use European cuts #4. And have moved to Playnick nommos M mouthpiece. Not an ideal combo because their table is a bit too narrow for european signatures, because seemingly he wants it to fit the reeds of his new partner Silverstein (and NOT Legere europeans???). To my taste legere europeans are far better reeds than Silverstein ambipolies.
Nommos M is an interesting mouthpiece. It has a very long lay, well over 20 mm and a huge tip opening, something like 1.3 mm, still it feels very easy to blow. Kückmeier describes it to be an attempt to make a viennese school mouthpiece for a french clarinet, their cane reed equivalent is the "Verdi Traviata". They have also a nommos B2 model, the cane variant "Puccini Tosca". Those are the "german" mouthpieces and more similar to normal french mps. I am not sure, whether i like the nommos M, at best i get a beautiful sound out of it, but it's very difficult to control and perhaps too dark, a bit too covered, lacks a bit of "something"
So, as they say in the end of movies: "to be continued..."
Jarmo Hyvakko, Principal Clarinet, Tampere Philharmonic, Finland
Post Edited (2021-07-22 10:05)
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