 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: DougR
Date: 2005-11-16 14:44
I just did an "extra" job on a movie shooting locally, and the clarinetist in the "orchestra" was using a Rovner-BG-Eddie Daniels-esque fabric ligature. But the movie was set in 1939! I was sitting there as part of the "audience" & thinking to myself, Ohmigod, this is awful, what a gaffe, -- all the more so because the production had taken such huge pains to kit everyone out in period costumes, even down to passing out rimless wire-frame glasses. (I finally decided my "due diligence" extended just far enough to mention the gaffe to a props guy, and let him take it from there, which I did...he thought for a second, replied carefully "thank you very much, sir" very much in the tone of "I have a loonie on my hands here," and that was that.) So the sequence was shot, from many different camera setups, and all I could see was that damn ligature.
Anybody ever heard of Rovner-style fabric ligatures in 1939? What kind of setup would have been correct? Does anyone else notice that sort of thing, or am I just a crank? (actually, I KNOW I'm a crank; the question is rhetorical). This may be the most anachronistic use of musical equipment I've seen in a movie; anyone else have any others worth mentioning?
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2005-11-16 15:00
If I worried about every movie gaf that I see I'd be locked away. I worry about all the directorial gafs as well--like leaving doors open when people leave a house or get out of a car. But, I guess that's the former drama student in me. The Rovner ligature will just be a test to see if people are paying attention.
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Author: Mike Clarinet
Date: 2005-11-16 15:39
Not just musical gaffes: anything involving a steam railway filmed for British TV is usually wrong. Steam preservation is a national pastime and there are within the region of 600 preserved locos in this country, whose owners are all desperate for money, there is no excuse for getting at least close to the right thing. I am also told by people who know these things that militaria is usually wrong as well. Whoops! This topic about musical gaffes. Stay on topic, Mike.
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2005-11-16 16:05
I just saw "Pride and Prejudice" which had a beautiful clarinet solo in it. (Can anyone identify the piece or artist?) [Note: This is now a clarinet-related post.]
To mention something non-clarinet-related, in one scene, it showed a fountain on Mr. Darcy's property with two jets of water shooting ten to fifteen feet in the air. This struck me as highly odd, since, in this period, electricity wasn't in use and they certainly couldn't have had submersible electric pumps. A steam-powered pump might have been possible, but who would have kept a steam engine running just to power a fountain? A nearby elevated reservoir could provide the hydraulic head needed to create the jets, but I think this would have been unlikely as well, especially since the fountain would also have had to have an underground drainage system to remove water at the same rate it was jetting in.
Were there any musical gaffes? Hmm...some of the period pianos they played in the movie had a better tone and were better in tune than I might have expected them to be, but I'm not an expert in such things.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2005-11-16 16:36
Hi,
The biggest movie gaffe was "Mr. Holland's Opus."
I have not been able to get past 5 minute doses of that opus before bolting (I have tried many times to watch the movie and have been thwarted by the whole thing- maybe it gets better). What I saw was nothing like any of the experiences I had in 16 years as a HS band director.
HRL
PS The "Competition" was a close second. Richard Dreyfuss needs a new agent!
Post Edited (2005-11-16 16:38)
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Author: joannew
Date: 2005-11-16 17:14
Mr Darcy was definitely not the type to construct such an elaborate and frivolous monstrosity!
I will keep my ears open for the lovely clarinet solo...
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-11-16 17:32
it doesn't help that "movie people" are notoriously "up themselves" and often (for some odd reason) the people in charge aren't really that smart.... and have under their power people who are actually smarter than them, and needing to preserve their dignity (thus taking offense at some minion "extra" who thinks they know everything)
this has invariably been my experience with film/tv types. i have met some of the thickest people in the world doing this job, but they love power.
donald
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2005-11-16 18:04
As to Mr. Holland...
My big issue was his holding the baton with the left hand. Correct me if I'm wrong, but even the most liberal of trained music educators in the 50's and 60's would not have done this. Ever.
Katrina
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2005-11-16 18:33
Hey, I liked "The Competition." Taped it off Cinemax years ago in college and still watch it (okay, so I meant to tape some... OTHER... late-night movie that played often on that channel, but I goofed the timer and got this instead). That's why the Prokofiev 3rd is one of my favorite workout tunes on my iPod.
Did you know that Adam Stern, the guy who plays Mark Landau (the finalist whose only line is "Liszt, E-flat"), is now the director of the Seattle Philharmonic? Some good came out of that movie.
That movie has good piano faking. Almost as good as the type that I, uh, tried to tape.
________________
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
- Pope John Paul II
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Author: frank
Date: 2005-11-16 21:28
All I have to say to the origional poster and others who contributed to this thread is: You guy's are major nerds! 
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-11-16 22:01
This is one of the most famous ones:
...GBK
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2005-11-16 22:14
WOW! I only play like that if I'm bored, or if I have a particularly sore right wrist!
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2005-11-16 22:29
Attachment: goodman.jpg (15k)
You'll find flipped photos/pictures a lot. Sometimes the "standard" version just doesn't cut it. Ad makers go for visual effect, for attraction rather than whatever correctness.
But it's really a nice one.
--
Ben
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Author: DougR
Date: 2005-11-17 05:17
Hey Frank:
Yep. I confess. Major, MAJOR nerd. (speaking purely for myself, of course.) But, God help me, it's one of the first things I look at in movie sequences involving instruments being played. ("Is that a Mark VI?? Wait, that's not right! They didn't have those until...") I take my hat off to Scorsese in The Aviator for hiring Vince Giordano's entire band to provide the onscreen visuals, and the horns looked right for the period, as near as I could tell. (The band was featured mostly in distance shots, as I remember.)
Oh, enough. I'll go lie down now.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-11-17 05:56
Tictactux of course the original version doesn't cut it, the letters are reversed ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2005-11-17 17:40
OK, I'll admit I liked Amy Irving in the "Competition" as she was fetching, comely, and...
DougR is right about looking at the saxes and datings the manufacture period. It is fun and not nerdy at all.
HRL
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2005-11-17 18:08
Disney did a thing about the life of Beethoven.
The clarinetist was playing on a black instrument with rubber mouthpiece.
OK....hard to get boxwood for the movies....but at least it looked like a C-pitch horn.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2005-11-17 18:40
Well this isn't as bad as brass players using modern brass instruments for CD recordings by famous 'period instrument' ensembles. I was told this by one of the players himself, who heard from Sir So-and-So afterwards about how wonderful he thought the music sounded played on the original instruments. What a joke!
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2005-11-17 18:56
Alseg,
I noticed Walter Grabner has a boxwood clarinet for sale. Go to his website and look up his for sale items. Maybe the movies should buy one and keep it on hand.
smiles,
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2005-11-17 19:36
It wouldn't be difficult to make a fake boxwood clarinet for a movie prop. Turn a piece of wood, drill some holes in it, stain it, paint the ivory bands on and add a key.
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Author: A2Clarinetist
Date: 2005-11-17 23:58
Here's an article about how fountains worked before electric pumps:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question33.htm
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Author: Steam Clarinet
Date: 2005-11-21 10:09
MikeClarinet - quite right! Film crews will go to extraordinary lengths with props and costumes, then use a locomotive which was built several years after the film is set, and painted in an even later livery.
Frank - of course we're nerds! Some of us are nerdy enough to care about apostrophe misuse as well :-) (sorry, couldn't resist).
But it's all down to visuals. Remember the scenes in Amadeus where Mozart is standing in front of the orchestra conducting, rather than directing from the keyboard?
Don't get me started on continuity errors though...
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2005-11-21 11:26
I had a different spin on this the other day. Turned on daytime TV and ran into a very strange show called The Nero Wolfe Mysteries. At first I thought it was just an old movie (filmed sometime in the late 50's / early 60's or thereabouts)... everything looked and sounded period, even the colours and the way the sound was recorded. But after a while I began to suspect something was up - it was all just a bit 'racy' to be authentic. Lo and behold, it was filmed for TV in 2001.
Two things:
1. Sometimes, makers of period productions can do a very good job. It had me completely fooled for a good half hour.
2. The soundtrack to this show had some LOVELY clarinet work in it. Too quiet to be heard properly in parts - shame! I'm going to have to find out who did it (... dunnit?) :-)
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