 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bill
Date: 2008-05-12 23:09
There are just some questions or comments that are guaranteed to bring hot coals down onto your head on this Bboard. I like to think that I've figured the etiquette out, and that I am safe from (semi-) public humiliation. Yet, occasionally I am dying to ask something, one of these "no-no" questions, and since I have no clarinet friends in real life I risk it all ...
Does anybody really know how Kell made his hollow, edgy, "bleating" (as some have called it) sound? For Mother's Day we drove out of state and I took my Deutsche Grammaphon Kell collection. Music is always more intense, more multi-dimensional, when heard in the car (sorry, it's a fact).
I love how that man played, I love that sound. There is only one other player whose sound I ever "fell in love with," who I have wanted to sound like, and that was Wright. Just my luck: two totally different addresses to the clarinet. I sort of gave up trying to sound like Wright.
I know lots of players find Kell's musicianship antique, or whatever. Probably the most fascinating thing I ever read here was Tony Pay's comments on Kell. Somehow, I love Kell but I believe what Tony wrote (plus it was a perfect essay).
So, the official story is that Kell used "soft reeds." I never really fully bought that. It sounds to me like he did things with his reeds, cut them back to give that near-yodel, almost a feedback from the reed. In some recordings, yes, it is easier to sense that he was using a very light set-up. But only in a few.
Obviously no player is the sum of his equipment. But I'd love to try and get that sound, that nervous, hyper-expressive, super-responsive thing.
You know, just for fun.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-05-12 23:30
I'm with you Bill, Kell was the "only" clarinetist I knew of when I was young and I do believe all my clarinet playing friends wanted to sound like him. He was the "model" to emulate. In my opinion there is no "one" best clarinet sound but Kell is always comfortable to my ears.
Bob Draznik
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2008-05-13 01:28
There has been considerable discussion over the years about the English sound in general and Kell's sound in particular.
The clarinet acts as a closed tube because the reed is sealed against the rails and tip of the mouthpiece more than 50% of the time. This in turn is caused by strong reflections of vibrations from the top of the bell, which is necked in to increase the reflection. By contrast, a saxophone acts as an open tube because there is almost no reflection back from the large end of the conical bore.
It's possible to play so softly that the reed vibrates, perhaps not touching the rails and tip at all (though there's disagreement about this). The tone is quite soft and lacks high harmonics, and is called a "subtone" or "echotone." See http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2004/10/000463.txt,
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2004/10/000464.txt and
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=1869&t=1793 and the other strings cited there.
Alan Hacker has said that in his view, the English tone is a blown-up subtone, which I tend not to believe.
The Boosey & Hawkes Model 1010 has a bore considerably larger than the French-style bore used by Buffet, modern Selmer and Leblanc clarinets. For me, that's what produces the characteristic English sound we hear from Brymer, Kell, de Peyer and others. (Kell, by the way, grew up playing either Martel or "False Martel" clarinets, which he preferred to B&H.)
It's possible to come close to the English sound on a Buffet. You play the way you want to. I grew up listening to Kell and learning from his wonderful phrasing, though I've never used vibrato. Like Kell, I use a fairly open mouthpiece and soft reeds and a double lip embouchure.
Ken Shaw
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-05-13 11:32
"Like Kell, I use a fairly open mouthpiece and soft reeds and a double lip embouchure."
Me too....and in my imagination I sound just like him when I use a little vib.
Bob Draznik
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Author: Bill
Date: 2008-05-13 12:22
Listening closely on Sunday, I felt that the sound he was making in several pieces came from a firmer reed and/or a long facing. I don't necessarily doubt the story (soft reed, open mpc.) but neither has it been "proven" (if such a thing were possible).
Maybe he just changed set-ups.
I agree about the wide-bore clarinet affecting the plangency and straightforwardness of the tone. His instruments (rather than his mouthpieces) are well documented.
Thanks for your thoughts! Good reading.
Bill.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2008-05-13 13:58
I like my ?older? KELL MAXTONE plastic mp, which plays well for me with softer [2 1/2] reeds on my large-bore cls, Sel CT and Leb Dyn 2, also my Sel Omega [USA]. Am considering asking Brad Behn to make me a copy with the [approximate] bore size and lay. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: William
Date: 2008-05-13 14:14
After having suffered Anthony Pay's "rath" regarding the early influence of Reginald Kell's recording of Stravinski's "Three Piecies" on my present day interpretation of the work, I cannot wait to read what he will have to say here. Bring it on, Mr. Pay.......(lol)
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2008-05-13 15:43
Several things I remember from a Master Class with Kell in the late '50s:
He could play (and told us that we should be able to) very, very softly. He demonstrated, and I spent weeks trying to get a steady, "airless" ppppp. I don't remember his encouraging the use of soft reeds to facilitate this.
He had no students to critique.
He had a Boozey an Hawkes horn. I'd never heard of B&H except for the sheet music I bought.
He emphasized the necessity of having a really great technician to keep your clarinet in perfect playing condition (and then the popped his horn apart and dropped the joints into the top of his briefcase (no padded, form fitted cells!) and left.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Old Geezer
Date: 2008-05-13 15:56
Kell, to me, has always sounded like he was playing on a plastic reed gone bad.
Towards the end of his life, according to the recordings available, his approach was always self centered and affected...good musicanship gone to waste. The Camarata recordings are a disgrace. Maybe he was an object lesson....
But a lot of people do love his style. That's OK by me; Hey I think Emma Johnson's the cat's pyjamas!
Clarinet Redux
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-05-13 16:49
Kell has always sounded to me like he played with a rather loose saxophone-like embouchure and an open throat. A lot of jazz sax players play in subtone (Paul Desmond, for one), so maybe that's more what Alan Hacker was referring to.
When I think of subtone on clarinet I think more of Jimmy Giuffre. Or on saxophone, Paul Desmond. More dry-martini-like.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2008-05-13 17:52
I'll check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure that the Camarata recordings were made fairly early in Kell's career -- probably during WW II. Also, remember that they're pops repertoire.
I agree that Kell's mannerisms sometimes got in the way -- for example in the Saint-Saens Sonata. However, his technical finish was amazing, his staccato was infinitely varied, and his phrases always moved forward. Listen to his Weber Grand Duo, which I think is as good as it's possible to be. If you can find it, his Holbrooke Quintet has some astonishing high-speed finger-work.
Kell had a long decline from Alzheimer's. His final recordings may have been affected by it.
Ken Shaw
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Author: graham
Date: 2008-05-14 18:29
Much of the commentary here does not ring true. Even if Kell played Boosey & Hawkes occasionally, he mainly played on a Hawkes & Sons clarinet c. 1920. The difference is considerable. As Ken intimates, this was an attempt to copy the Martel, which B&H did not do. The bore was 14.8 or 14.9mm. Clarinets of the 1930s/40s were usually 15mm. Kell was not playing wide bore by the standards of the time. Thurston, who had a much more focused sound did play on wide bore 1010s (15.2mm).
I have read somewhere that Kell's facing was close and his set up on the soft side. I think it would be very hard to tell how true this was without hearing him live some time close to his prime.
My own feeling is that without instruments that are very similar to Kell's it would be very difficult to sound much like him, and you would probably need a soft blowing set up that required little embouchure pressure, and a very open throat (i.e. tongue fairly well forward in the mouth to open the rear oral cavity). But it would be difficult to know that unless you had received lessons from Kell, and I am not aware of anyone around now who has done.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-05-14 21:33
It’s interesting how so many can love the tone of one clarinet player and others dislike it just as much, Thank goodness we have such diversity in the clarinet world. Can you imagine if everyone could and wanted to get the same tone quality, no matter whose it was. I for one disliked Kell’s playing. I even had a friend exchange a recording of his Mozart Concerto he gave me as a gift. I was young and closed minded. Now I do think he got a nice sound but not what I tried to emulate then and now. I heard a clarinet player years ago on the radio who’s tone haunted me for months because I loved it, can’t think of his name at the moment, I tried out many mouthpieces, I always have a large collection via Russianoff, for my students to try. Found one that with the right reed combination I thought I got the quality I wanted, I still think I do, I love my sound. You have to get the sound in your inner ear and experiment with different equipment to find the sound you’re looking for, Kell’s or someone else, but realize you will never sound exactly like someone else. He had his voice, you have yours. You can get close but never the same. By the way, the last time I heard that player I didn’t think he sounded the way I heard him the first time, I still like it, but I like mine better. Take care, ESP
www.peabody.jhu.edu/457
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-05-15 11:12
"Bring it on, Mr. Pay.......(lol)"
"Mr. Pay has left the room"
Bob Draznik
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Author: Bill
Date: 2008-05-15 12:47
Thanks everyone for the interesting comments! I'm glad I asked the question.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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