 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2002-06-04 14:23
From personal observation, I developed a hypothesis regarding the average body size of bass clarinetists, in particular female bass clarinetists. I have observed that four of the five female bass clarinetists that have, over the years, played in my current municipal band have been noticeably heavier for their heights than the average woman or, perhaps more importantly, than the average female clarinetist. Even if I throw in the female bass clarinetist I played with in another band, the statistics are still four out of six. The male bass clarinetists I have played with have not been noticeable rotund. I, myself, am tall and slender.
Does this observation hold up in general? And, if so, why do band directors tend to select heavier females to convert to bass clarinet? Do they think they have more lung capacity? Are they perceived as being stronger and more capable of holding or carrying the instrument? Do they feel the instrument will appear more in proportion to them than it would to a more petite middle school student?
This same observation may be carried over to tuba players as well. Most, who I assume were converted from trumpet players, are bulkier than the average brass player, at least in my observation.
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Author: David Pegel
Date: 2002-06-04 15:15
I am certainly NOT bulkier than the average brass player! I play tuba and I'm basically a toothpick. But then again, I trnsferred to tuba by choice in the brass section. (I'm all lungs.)
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Author: William
Date: 2002-06-04 16:01
Old Proverb--"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog that's important." Good Clarineting!!!!!
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Author: Linus Travelli
Date: 2002-06-04 22:29
i've seen a midget/dwarf (i'm not sure) play a bass clarinet adjusted for her. she played very well. i think she recorded with the cleveland orchestra or montreal a few years ago.
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Author: Jean
Date: 2002-06-04 23:17
When I was teaching music I could often predict the instrument a student would select based on personality. As someone who has played the bass clarinet for over thirty years I can say that for the first 10 years of that time I was not overweight. Sadly, time has caught up with me and I fall into that category. I take offense at your observations and wonder why the hell you even care about a person's appearance. If he or she plays well who gives a damn about their shape? I must say this is one of the stupidest threads I have seen on this site and am now asking myself why I took the time to respond to someone who comes across as shallow as you, Mr. Tall and Slender.
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Author: Mark Pinner
Date: 2002-06-05 03:27
The same phenomena occurs with tenor sax. The best players generally tend to be big men with large neck, shoulders and head. The same doesn't seem to apply as much to baritone sax or even bass sax where there a many good players who are quite slight.
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Author: kilpokil
Date: 2002-06-05 04:17
ARe you calling me big, I play bass clarinet, male.
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Author: graham
Date: 2002-06-05 08:32
I have not observed this supposed phenomenon, but that could be because I have been blind to such a stupid line of thinking.
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Author: Sarah
Date: 2002-06-05 12:32
Have the people who have witnessed this actually done a stufy on it? Or are you just commenting on the couple/few bands that you have been in? I have never seen or looked for anything like this in any of the bands that I have played with.
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Author: DLE
Date: 2002-06-05 13:08
A study sounds good Sarah - It would put science to music in a very interesting way. I have often wondered the relation between a person's biology (i.e. lung capacity) and the instrument they play. I am a bass clarinetist myself (well actually I play all clarinets but bass is my favourite), and I am quite wide in build but am not severely overweight. Although the original question is potentially insulting and shallow, it does have merit to those interested in what instrument biologically suits them. Watch this space.
DLE.
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2002-06-05 14:01
I apologize to any who were offended. I probably shouldn't have posted the question because of the possibity of offending some. I have nothing against the ladies who play along side me. They seem to be nice, amiable people and I enjoy playing with them. I am also aware that one does not have to have certain physical characteristics to play an instrument or that <i>all</i> individuals who play it have the same characteristics.
Let me try to clarify my intentions. I was trying to determine if there is a tendency among school band directors to lead people of different characteristics toward different instruments. Usually (but not always), someone who plays bass clarinet as an amateur was asked to do so earlier in their life. Very rarely does one ever start out on bass clarinet. Why are certain persons asked to be the bass clarinetists? I just suspected that some band directors may take the size of the individual into account.
I know there are biases in the selection of instruments played. The large majority of amateur flutists, for example, is female. The large majority of amateur brass players is male. Of course, most of these instrument selections were made by the individuals themselves. Is it not possible that there are biases among band directors in selecting who they will ask to play other instruments? (I don't know for a fact, but my elementary school band director may have converted me because I was the only boy playing clarinet or because I was bigger than the girls or because he felt I wasn't progressing as fast and felt that less talent was needed to play it.)
Again, I apologize to those offended. I was trying to determine the existance of someone else's bias, not to express one of my own.
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Author: MichelleWI
Date: 2002-06-05 19:16
I didn't see your original post as biased.
Hmm...
Thinking back to middle school and high school band, your observations did hold true. I was tiny and, though I wanted to play bass clarinet, I was placed on Bb. Later on, I was permitted to switch to alto clarinet, but I was never placed on bass like I wanted. We had only one bass clarinetist and she was much larger than me. Not necessarily overweight, but certainly stockier than most. I, on the other hand, weighed about 100 pounds soaking wet. (Well, back then! LOL)
I imagine some university somewhere would happily pour money into such a study! :o)
Michelle in WI
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2002-06-05 20:28
Don,
From my own observations of instrumentalists over the decades I can't say there's any statistical correlation between a person's size or weight and the instrument played (other than perhaps trombonists having relatively long arms in general, which may be a physical requirement for playing). Any one person's observations (such as your own) may be skewed in one direction or another, but that's still an artifact of statistics --- in a very large sample with many observers, I'd bet that you'd find no real correlation.
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Author: DLE
Date: 2002-06-15 14:12
Okay then. I have surmised the obvious, which is that teachers or band directors choose their players to play a certain type of clarinet, in order to suit their build, or their finger size. Being a pianist before I was a clarinettist, I have developed 'thick' and rather large fingers, with muscle. This does not suit the E-flat Clarinet, as I recently found out. Even on the B-flat clarinet, the size of my fingers meant that on my Leblanc, the C# key had to be moved lower so that I could play it without accedentally clipping it and disrupting the sound every time I moved my fingers. The bass clarinet suits me more as it requires for the most part what I would describe as 'heavy fingerwork' in addition to a greater lung capacity.
COUNTER ARGUMENT: In more realistic terms, the true instumentalist should be able to make the instrument suit him or her, and not the other way around. If a small petite person had a strong desire to play the bass or contrabass clarinet for example, they would have to find the right instrument to do that on, or adapt it to the person. I have played on many bass clarinets, and have found that not all of them require heavy fingerwork, though most of them do require a bit more air -- but that in itself is just down to practice anyhow.
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I guess the point of that mini-essay was: 'It shouldn't matter, but it does'.
Thanks for reading.
DLE.
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