Author: brycon
Date: 2021-08-10 04:18
Quote:
I had realized (at least for me) that I needed to start with an understanding of 'that' and then figure out how to get there. As obvious as this idea is: it entirely flipped the paradigm I had, and made learning so much quicker. It provided an understanding that I had never gained when doing the "this" provided by an instructor. Discovery (instead of futile repetition of things that didn't work) made the gained knowledge part of the end product.
Very important points here!
Academic folks call this process the hermeneutic circle. When I read a book, ponder history, or even practice the clarinet, I have a preconceived notion of the whole. My preconceptions, such as an understanding of the basic "rules" of a Sherlock Holmes story when setting out to read A Study in Scarlet, help me make sense of the whole's constituent parts. With the Holmes book, for example, I might attach importance to particular characters, actions, clues, and so on. And as I go through more of these constituent parts and read more sentences, my notions of the whole begin to change. The whole, then, gives meaning to the parts, and the parts give meaning to the whole. And the way we traverse this circle is an important aspect of coming to terms with books, history, clarinet practicing, and many other things.
In threads here, I see a great deal of interest in the parts and nearly no interest, let alone understanding, of the whole. Rather than moving along the circle, considering what makes a performance good or bad and then thinking about how the constituent part of, say, the clarinet embouchure relates, it seems as though people think more along the lines of, "Once I've got down my embouchure, technique, articulation and I've practiced my Rose, Jettel, and Uhl etudes, I'll be a good clarinet player." But I just don't see how anyone can get to good playing this way, as though you could arrive at a good pizza simply because all the ingredients you started with were good: "Hey, my mozz was super fresh and then I added some delicious homemade strawberry ice cream! Should be great, right?" (though to be fair, probably tastes better than Papa John's).
And anyhow, what's even "good" in this case? A double-lip embouchure because some book says so or the tip of the tongue to the tip of the reed because a masterclass teacher once brought it up? And what's even a good performance? "Marcellus's Mozart! What a great performance: says so on the album cover!" What exactly makes Marcellus's and Szell's particular instantiation of the Mozart concerto a greater one than David Shifrin's? And I hope that by now, the typical response you'd see here of "I like his sound!" would seem completely inadequate.
The other thing that often sits in the back of my mind is the difference between information and knowledge. In the realm of politics, for instance, information comes as a fact about America's democracy heard in a news program; knowledge, however, would be an understanding of democracy through a deep reading and contemplation of Aristotle's Politics, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, and so on. This knowledge helps us come to terms with information (again, the hermeneutic circle) and therefore also possesses a sense of permanence, depth, and importance. "With his double-lip embouchure, Harold Wright didn't take in much reed with his lower lip," by contrast, is a piece of information; it's cheap, shallow, and belongs on the bottom of a clarinet-themed Snapple lid as a somewhat interesting but completely forgettable factoid. I would run away from teachers giving out only information. And because I've learned a lot from this place, when it makes sense to, I try to avoid it when posting here.
Post Edited (2021-08-10 07:30)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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