Author: brycon
Date: 2021-08-21 21:22
Quote:
However, EVERY part of what we do (loafers not withstanding) plays SOME part in the big Picture.
The deal with a lot of equipment--ligatures, key platings, etc.--is that it doesn't affect "your sound." Rather it affects the way you feel and interact with your instrument, which perhaps has an affect on "your sound" or perhaps not. So while I was joking, at the same time, why couldn't the same argument be made about footwear?
The point I was making about the big picture is that, no, the big picture isn't the aggregate of all your equipment choices. "Your sound," as it's used here, isn't real, it isn't perceived by an audience. Your sound exists only in time, what professional theorists would call the diachronic rather than the synchronic domain.
If, for instance, I gave someone all Harold Wright's exact equipment, had him or her use the exact same double-lip embouchure, put the exact same amount of mouthpiece in the mouth, etc. but at the same time had him or her play a piece in a completely sostenuto way, such as Karl Leister, that person would sound much less like Harold Wright to an audience member than someone playing Karl Leister's setup but using Wright's vibrato, his expressive legato connections between notes, his changes of color, and so forth.
The changes of ligature screws and the subsequent changes to the way you interact with the clarinet are much lower on the threshold of perception than, say, crescendoing through a note. Indeed, an audience doesn't perceive 1.) a player's "sound" and then 2.) that player executing a crescendo, rather the crescendo is part of that player's sound because, again, we perceive "the big picture" through time.
So apologies if I came across as the gear police: live and let live! But when it gets to the level of ligature screws, it's a complete fools errand, from both a logical/philosophical and practical point of view.
Quote:
All we can hope for as educators is providing a good foundation of what one can use to get there: short/long, fast/slow, silence/sound, louder/softer.......and hope students have the tools they need
This bit is simply untrue. Just giving them the tools is bad teaching, and I'm sure you yourself don't teach this way, Paul.
An appoggiatura, for example, often gets played with more tension on the strong beat and more relaxation on the weak beat. Moreover, you've probably told your students as much. So you've explained to them how to interpret one bit of music and they can apply this knowledge to other things, that is, you've given them tools and helped shape how they think about music so that they can use their tools.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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