 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-11-08 19:27
Ken,
In August last year you made a post about a document:
http://www.woodwindcourse.co.uk/user/image/clarinet_bore_design.doc
…originating from the Newark website:
http://www.woodwindcourse.co.uk
...in which you said,
"While it has some interesting material, it's FULL of errors and misinformation. For every good idea, there's an idiotic one."
stevensfo, who had initially posted the link to the document, immediately enquired what these errors were, to no effect.
That was August 2008.
I noticed the thread when it reappeared a few days ago, and so read the document. As I then said,
"To the extent I understand these matters, the article seems a fair if simplified summary of the situation. I too would be grateful to be told all the points at which I am idiotic to think so."
…again to no effect.
At this point, I must declare an interest. One of the tutors on the Newark course has been my old friend and colleague Daniel Bangham, who made all my period instrument copies: Simiot, Grenser, reconstructed basset clarinet, Griesbacher bassethorn. I haven't spoken to him, but I'm sure that he would be very interested to know what is idiotic about this material inevitably associated with his work.
I look forward to your response.
Tony
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2009-11-09 00:00
Tony -
I read the piece two years ago and posted about it then. I remember being dismayed at the number of inaccurate statements, but I no longer recall exactly what bothered me.
I stand by my statement, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to reread the article and list the problems simply to satisfy your curiosity.
You've now tried to draw me out twice, but I'm not Roger.
What a silly man you are.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Ed Lowry
Date: 2009-11-09 02:58
Why the ad hominem attack? How disappointing to see it on what is, in general, a very collegial list!
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Author: ned
Date: 2009-11-09 03:25
That's, clarinets at twenty paces please gentlemen!
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-11-09 12:56
At moments like this on the board I go back to what my Dad always said..
"Life is too short for bull(*&*(&), and empty minded confrontation."
Tony do you enjoy this ? Or do you seek it out? It says an awful lot about your personality.
I think it is high time Tony writes a book and profits from his genius.. rather than be so high handed with those on a simple message board.
Just some positive input on how to diffuse some this explosive attitude.
I am sure clarinet students everywhere scratch there head over some of the things said and posted here. Sure we all have been involved with disagreements...but can't we agree to disagree?
David Dow
Post Edited (2009-11-09 12:57)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-11-09 13:33
Whoa, hey, wait a minute. I'd like to see everybody involved stay civil, but there's no reason to shy away from a reasonable discussion, including a reasonable disagreement. IMHO, Tony asked a reasonable question. Whether the document in question has factual errors or not (I'm unqualified to judge, but we've got people here who are well-qualified), I'd like to see that question settled.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-11-09 13:44
I think Ken responded as far as he wants to. He stated that clearly.
No slight was meant by my comments. Tony clearly is a great writer and I feel would do well to write a book on any subject.
David Dow
Post Edited (2009-11-09 13:46)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2009-11-09 14:29
D Dow wrote:
> Tony do you enjoy this ? Or do you seek it out? It says an
> awful lot about your personality.
>
> I think it is high time Tony writes a book and profits from his
> genius.. rather than be so high handed with those on a simple
> message board.
>
> Just some positive input on how to diffuse some this explosive
> attitude.
Really? Where's the positive side?
Ken decided not to answer - his prerogative. Everyone else's answer is noise in the system.
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-11-09 14:43
I would purchase any book Tony Pay writes readily. I am not being negative or snide..his articles and reference work in such books as the Cambride Companion to the Clarinet are excellent. I will no longer make noise in the system...
Tony is a rare combination..an excellent academic as well as a fine clarinetist!
David Dow
Post Edited (2009-11-09 14:48)
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2009-11-09 16:33
The best advice I have heard recently was "Life will offer you more than a million opportunities to keep your mouth shut; one would be wise to use each one."
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2009-11-09 17:24
-- "The best advice I have heard recently was "Life will offer you more than a million opportunities to keep your mouth shut; one would be wise to use each one." --
Ah, so no more arguments about being blown out, effect of key platings, swabbing on a full moon or humanity being wiped out by a dirty reed?
What are we going to talk about?
Steve
;-)
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Author: Ryan K
Date: 2009-11-09 17:50
To bring Mr Pay's past into this is offensive at best. Let us look at the matter at hand. One of his personal acquaintances is involved, and would take offense to a comment Mr. Shaw made. At the time he, apparently, provided no basis for his statement, and still does not. For this board to have material of quality, we should encourage, and near demand the factually based argument. Simply stating lack of time and inclination means you should have never posted the comment in the first place. The holds especially true, if you examine the inflammatory language that Mr Shaw used.
Ryan Karr
Dickinson College
Carlisle, PA
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Author: Sarah Elbaz
Date: 2009-11-09 18:18
If Tony Pay is a silly man---I will be honored to be silly.
Sarah
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2009-11-09 18:22
To all -
Tony has gotten into flame wars on the board several times (though they're relatively mild by internet standards). In particular, he drove a well respected player and teacher, Roger Garrett, away from the board by repeatedly needling him with the line "What a silly man you are."
Tony does not take disagreement well. He's been spoiling for a fight with me for several months, going so far as to list the occasions when I have not agreed with him.
I suspect he's bored and wants to liven things up with a good fight. At any rate, he tried to start things by highjacking a two-year-old thread to demand that I justify what I wrote. He then repeated the challenge by starting this thread, using the (to me) frivolous excuse that I had insulted a friend of his.
I'd rather not take up space responding to the chip on Tony's shoulder. My "silly man" comment simply reflected back to Tony what he had repeated written himself. I apologize to anyone who was offended, but I suggest that I was entitled to respond in the same tone of voice as Tony had written.
I intend to write nothing further on this thread and suggest to Mark and Glenn that it might be time to close it, after giving Tony a chance to respond.
Ken Shaw
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Author: GBK
Date: 2009-11-09 19:02
This thread is now closed.
We will however reopen for any of the players involved in the above.
Contact Mark or myself...
...GBK
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-11-10 11:14
Well, first of all I'd like to say in only my second post in this thread that I had no intention of the thread being about ME. I thought it might turn out to be about polycylindrical clarinet bores, and the role of Robert Carree in their development. Little did I know.
So, let me deal with that aspect of the thread first. Until Ken made his final post, I was relieved to see that some other posters had had it begin to be NOT about me, or him, or history, but just about the surely obvious principle that if you say of a technical text that is easily available to all that it contains errors and inaccuracies, you must expect to be pressed to give details.
His making it about me in the first place does look very like just a way of avoiding giving those details, by saying he wouldn't give them TO ME -- "just to satisfy my curiosity", I think it was. That argument doesn't apply to the other people who had started to take their own interest in the matter; nor did it apply to stevensfo's request for details a year (not two years) ago.
I am very surprised to find Ken -- who mostly uses the BBoard to make significant contributions -- taking this line, I must say. I couldn't with a clear conscience do it myself.
Notice also that I didn't claim that Daniel Bangham (the probable author of the text) would be INSULTED. I simply said that he would be interested to know where he was wrong -- if he was. Though I don't suppose he would be especially pleased, he is the sort of person who would be more interested in having it (finally) right.
Now to the more personal aspect. I do think Ken Shaw has his idea of me round the wrong way. He STARTS from the premise that my nature is that I 'go in for' flame wars. (I've been 'spoiling for a fight with him for several months', for example.) From that assumption, it follows that when I'm quite direct with people on occasion, that's explicable on the basis of a character trait in me -- a sort of roving malevolence.
Whereas, I'm operating out of a stance that I've explained here before several times, which is:
(1) to try to make clarinet-related posts that are both true and useful;
(2) to identify the aspects of other posts that are either untrue or not useful, and persuade the authors of those other posts to change their minds.
It seems to me that this is a worthwhile stance, not unlike the process of keeping the environment litter-free: you avoid dropping litter yourself, and try to get other people to pick up and dispose of their own.
Of course, it's (2) that gets you into trouble both here and in real life. What happens to me is that I get into conversations with people who begin to irritate me because they argue irrationally and/or persist in making statements that are untrue. I AM capable of backtracking -- the thread about 'Blowing terminology' in the Keepers section offers some evidence of that -- but I lose patience, it's true, with time-wasters. And unfortunately for me, I find myself in the position of being able to recognise the rubbish AS rubbish more accurately than some people here, who haven't spent their lives encountering it in all its forms.
So the 'directness' comes AFTER, not before.
My attitude also very much depends on the subject-matter. Expressing personal opinions about unimportant issues is one thing. Expressing unsubstantiated opinions about important issues, and failing to respond reasonably to reasoned argument, is quite another, I would say.
Ken thinks it counts against me that I 'listed the occasions' when I disagreed with him. But surely, this is just what you do if you want to engage in discussion with someone in an open and clear fashion? I say, for example, that you shouldn't always phrase with the harmony in classical music, for the very good reason that it destroys an important part of the music's potential in a way that I am willing to explain; and that Arnold Jacobs's opinion that you shouldn't use muscular oppositions in clarinet playing is just silly, and furthermore criminally counterproductive, in a way that I've ALREADY explained. (How it pans out on the tuba is something I'm not qualified to judge.)
But this is not me attacking Ken Shaw; this is me pointing out the areas in which his advice is questionable -- according to me. He may well think otherwise, and it would be valuable to have the discussion with him, so that he can unpack his views. But, just as here, he refuses to engage.
Of course, I forgive him on these two issues; he probably recognises that I would prevail -- because I happen to be right. (Such arrogance on my part!) But on the subject of the present thread, I find that I cannot forgive his refusal EITHER to drop his claim of error in the text in question -- "I stand by what I said," he writes -- OR to explain what the errors are.
I suppose he could still change his mind and do that -- in another thread started by him or someone else.
Finally -- and please feel free to stop reading -- I'd rather hoped the business with Roger Garrett had gone away; but for the record, although Roger and I had many frustrating arguments, I used the phrase "what a silly man you are", as far as I recall, only once, in the following exchange:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2000/12/000680.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2000/12/000685.txt
…where it's fairly clear that I was getting as good as I gave. And I made the remark, not in order to drive him away -- though I actually was glad he went -- but because on that occasion it was TRUE. He may be a respected player and teacher, but he certainly wasn't a Klarinet list poster respected by me either on that occasion or on very many other occasions.
Because both of those posts are by me, including what he said only in quotation, you may feel that he's being misrepresented. In which case (here's something true and useful:-) you can, if you can be bothered, cut off the 00680.text bit of the URL and examine the other posts in this and other threads.
Tony
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