 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2002-07-22 03:11
The great jazz guitarist Joe Pass has an insruction book that suggests a "guitaristic" approach to soloing--- looking at the shapes of various chord forms on the guitar neck and using the notes contained in these chord forms to construct solos. This avoids an over analytical approach to soloing (ie, "I'll use a melodic minor run over these chords.")
However, I'm having trouble seeing how to apply this approach to the clarinet. It seems to me that clarinetists are conscious of every note that they play, and would have difficult seeing the notes they are playing within the pattern of a chord shape. Whereas
I can easily play a blues scale "pattern" anywhere on the guitar neck by memorizing its "shape," on the clarinet I consciously see C, Eb, F, F#, G, Bb, C. Could anyone enlighten me as to how to apply Joe Pass's above thinking to clarinet soloing? Thanks!!!!
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Author: ron b
Date: 2002-07-22 17:12
In spoken language(s) you hear patterns and voice (speak) patterns of sound, inflection, volumn etc. You don't, if you're fluent in the language, get hung up on individual, piece by piece elements. If you're adept at it, you do the same in musical language. You hear and play figures, patterns, dynamics etc. - not individual notes and rests. You play a piece as a whole. Similarly, an architect puts together a whole structure not individual bricks and bolts. Though the architect know where they all go s/he is not thinking "brick, bolt, brick, bolt".
On a stringed instrument you see and feel the patterns. On a wind instrument you see and feel the patterns. Similar to riding a bicycle, whatever 'kind' it is, after a while you don't have to look anymore :]
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Author: Eileen
Date: 2002-07-22 22:12
I play both clarinet and guitar. I have taken a jazz class with a guitar player instructor. I also find it hard to conceptualize the patterns on the clarinet. Although I am a novice guitar player, it is much easier for me to understand and apply those concepts on the guitar due to the moveable shapes. So I would not agree that the difficulty on clarinet stems from any lack of musicianship.
Besides the fact that the patterns on the clarinet are more erratic than a guitar, clarinet players are not trained in the same fashion. I think that what you mean by "playing the note" is the heavy emphasis on phrasing, dynamics and articulation in learning to play the clarinet. I've taken (folk) guitar classes for 4 years and have been amazed at how these concepts are largely ignored.
For clarinet, I was not taught to memorize arppeggios and chord patterns. The exercises were geared instead towards developing a high level of sight reading where you will encounter a vast mixture of patterns and need to play exactly what's on the page.
The flip side of all this is that the guitar players who can produce an obscure arpeggio on command are often poor at sight reading any music which isn't straight out of the pattern. Moreover, I find that the emphasis on playing patterns of notes often results in a severe inattention to phrasing and articulation.
I would also be interested in any advice on how to better approach improvisation on the clarinet because the guitar-based method just isn't working that well for me, either.
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Author: Wes
Date: 2002-07-23 04:46
On the clarinet, if I have to play a jazz-oriented concert in a school, for example, I would practice root position eighth note scale tone sevenths on the chords of the tunes to be played in the tempo expected. A scale tone seventh on a C chord would be C-E-G-B and E-G-B-D on a Em7 chord.
One could play an entire solo like this but it would sound too regimented. It just makes it easier to play a chord-based solo and the regimented practice doesn't show up in the solo. The blues scale is great in a solo but one might be careful about playing it too much in a solo. The audience may like it but your fellow musicians have less regard, it seems, for a soloist who uses the blues scales excessively.
Since my guitar playing is not great, I find it necessary to maintain a single position on the neck if possible for a solo, using blues scale fingerings or a fixed chord. It not easy for me to move a lot up and down the neck. Good luck on this! The guitar is a fabulous instrument to play as well as the clarinet.
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Author: Synymous Botch
Date: 2002-07-23 12:50
Billy Joel 'touched' on the same subject vis-a-vis composing for the Piano versus the guitar in the rock idiom.
The mechanics of playing (how the hands and arms can move) and the physics of the instrument put some limitations on each.
I was drawn to the clarinet for the way it can emulate the human voice. Perhaps listening to Lambert, Hendricks and Ross or Ella
may help stir a different approach?
If you listen to Wes Montgomery, you may hear yet another way to approach voicing the guitar. His phrasing may be easier to follow than a finger-picking style.
Happiness may be found in wanting what you already have.
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The Clarinet Pages
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