 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: clarinetdaniel
Date: 2009-09-12 19:54
I refer to the classical (not jazz).
I mainly play saxophone and double in clarinet.
I am wondering why in most classical music, clarinetist does not do vibrato?
thanks.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2009-09-12 20:39
...and somehow, it just doesn't work well with that cylindrical bore. Dunnowhy, maybe it's me.
--
Ben
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-09-12 21:54
Many things in music come down to tradition. We think it sounds strange because we haven't heard it much; in the same way, we would think it sounded strange if we heard a flute withOUT vibrato.
Horns are another instrument that does not incorporate vibrato a lot- just the way things developed.
Also, these things go in and out of fashion. I have a recording of Lancelot playing the Mozart Concerto in which he uses a noticeable vibrato on basically everything longer than an eighth note.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-09-12 22:10
Depends on the context - for orchestral playing, quartet or other classical ensemble I'd never use vibrato at all. For dance band work then I would use lip/jaw vibrato on clarinet.
I don't generally play clarinet with any vibrato as I feel the sound is so pure and clean it doesn't need it (and it's easy to spoil certain things with vibrato), though I do use diaphragm vibrato on flute and oboe (and also contrabassoon) and lip/jaw vibrato on saxes to a greater or lesser degree depending how I feel at the time.
Jack Brymer played effortlessly and with a slight and measured vibrato which does sound old-fashioned to us now, but he's perhaps the only player I can think of that employed vibrato in all his playing in a tasteful way. And then I heard him playing alto sax (Eric Coates 'Saxo Rhapsody') which brought a big smile to my face!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2009-09-12 22:16
I remember doing a production of Mozart's Don Giovanni for a visiting Dutch conductor who stopped us after the first twenty bars or so to say, "That's pretty good clarinets, but could you do that with vibrato?" At the time my cohort and I were firmly non-traditionalists and we just "ate it up."
I have to say I don't think I enjoyed playing Mozart quite as much since!
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: FDF
Date: 2009-09-12 23:32
I think vibrato sounds sweet, think Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk, but that the clarinet sound without vibrato sounds deep, resonant, and etheral. Some vibrato, used in the way of trills, or other embellishments is good. Just MHO.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-09-13 04:14
Some clarinetists use vibrato in some situations, even some that are "classical". I think I've used vibrato in every "type" of music I've played (i.e. orchestra, chamber, jazz, improvised, etc.). But I've also played without vibrato in all of those types of music. Basically I decide each time if I want/should use vibrato, sometimes deciding differently for the same music.
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Author: gigaday
Date: 2009-09-13 12:25
I was taught to use diaphragm vibrato when I was learning oboe and when I switched to clarinet it seemed good to carry this on. But when I got a clarinet teacher he told me to stop the vibrato, so I have, but I think it is good to be able to do both as there are appropriate occasions, like when playing Trad Jazz when it's de rigeur.
My teacher likes me to wave the clarinet around on long notes which gives a kind of slow vibrato too.
Tony
Post Edited (2009-09-13 12:34)
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-09-13 14:25
Some classical players do use vibrato. Harold Wright, the former principal of the Boston Sym. always used a very subtle vibrato, Stanley Drucker, the former principal of the NY Phil., just retired, often used vibrato as does the soloist Richard Stoltman. Reginald Kell and many other English clarinetists used vibrato and some still do as do a few other solo players. The problem in my opinion is that when a player uses a wide vibrato on the clarinet they begin to sound like a jazz player and it becomes distracting. Mozart with vibrato, NO! The clarinet has such a richer and fuller tone than the other wind instruments that in most cases it isn't necessary, though I must say all clarinet players do not get a full rich sound. Perhaps those should use vibrato to enhance their tone, but they would probably use too wide a one. I think there are many fine players today that do use vibrato at times but not on a regular basis. Examples of some standard solo works that vibrato works well in certain passages, the Copland Concerto and the Debussy Rhapsody and many contemporary pieces. So it's not really true that ALL classical clarinet players do not use vibrato. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: BobD
Date: 2009-09-13 14:28
If you're playing under a conductor you pretty much have to comply with his directions regardless of your own feelings. If you're playing for a Teacher you have to decide if he knows what is best. Many people, but not all, feel that clarinet vibrato is best kept constrained....like intestinal gas.
Bob Draznik
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2009-09-13 15:28
Perhaps it's better to invert the question and say, "why use vibrato?" For my taste, it's frequently over-done. Flutes seem to be the worst woodwind offenders, and I much prefer flautists who make a cleaner sound where you can actually hear the centre of the note. In string playing, the period performance movement has re-educated ears so that the unthinking heavy vibrato of earlier years makes it almost impossible to listen to e.g. Bach or Handel from the 1960s. The same is true with singing: so many sopranos wobble all over the place, and you suspect it's just to cover up the fact they can't sing in tune. Then you hear Emma Kirkby sing bang in tune with minimal vibrato, and you wonder why anyone would want to sing any other way.
Strangely, for reasons I don't understand, the Oboe is the exception to this. In the UK at least, the trend of recent decades has been away from a direct and pungent low-vibrato tone to an intense singing vibrato as used by e.g. Lothar Koch of the Berlin Phil. I think this sounds wonderful. I don't understand why vibrato like this suits the oboe so well, but more than a little of it sounds horrid on most other instruments.
As for the clarinet specifically, Brymer could deploy vibrato very tastefully - as could de Peyer (the opening bars of his Copeland Concerto are wonderful). But it's such an individual part of their sound, and so easy to over-do, that I tend to shy away from it. The only exception I'd make is that notes in the top octave or so can benefit from a bit of vibrato to make them less shrill - e.g. the top G at the end of Weber 1.
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Author: William
Date: 2009-09-13 16:37
Unlike the oboe, violin, trumpet, vocalist or musical saw (just to mention a few), the clarinet sound is good just the way it is. Who among us has not heard, 'What's the difference between a bassoon and a lawnmower? Vibrato' No jokes like that about our lovely sounding instruments are there?? Good reason--the clarinet sound is perfect just the way it is--no matter whose sound you think is "better". And the clarinet sound WITH vibrato--Angelic (if done with musical taste in the proper idiom, that is).
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Author: srattle
Date: 2009-09-13 21:12
I'm sorry William, but I hate this answer. A lot of people make that statement, but it's ridiculous. An Oboe, or a Flute, or a Bassoon, played by people who really understand how to make a beautiful sound without vibrato, create a beautiful sound on those instruments.
Have you ever heard Marcel Ponseele on oboe? He uses very little vibrato, and I can't think of many oboists with a more gorgeous sound. Many bassoon players play with not so much vibrato, and sound amazing. I always prefer flute playing with little vibrato. Baroque flute for me as a sound is a thousand times more beautiful than modern flute, mainly because of the vibrato.
The reason that clarinet sounds beautiful without vibrato, is because we train ourselves, and hard, to make the sound work without vibrato. If everyone on the other instruments did this too, I'm sure people could say the same thing about all the other instruments.
A beginning clarinetist who doesn't know how to form a proper tone sounds just as bad as a beginning player on those other instruments, and a little vibrato isn't going to help at all. It's all about what we aim for.
I happen to play almost completely without vibrato. I have never trained myself to produce a vibrato that I am happy with, so I don't use it, although there are many instances that I would love to have it at my disposal musically, but I am grateful every day that I don't rely on Vibrato to make my sound.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-14 02:23
Vibrato has a tendency to "muddy" the sound. It obscures dynamic contours as well as intonation. So there are musical reasons to play without vibrato independent of the clarinet's tone quality.
Jazz vocalists, for example, typically sing without vibrato except with using vibrato as an ornament (typically near the ends of prolonged notes). This is in keeping with the emphasis in much modern jazz with clear textures and colorful harmony.
There is at least one orchestra I am aware of that plays entirely (or at least almost entirely) without vibrato, even in the string section--the Radio Orchestra of Stuttgart, under the direction of Sir Roger Norrington. When they play without vibrato, it's amazing how much clearer the musical texture is. One prime example of this is the opening to their recording of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6. Ordinarily this section sounds very muddy and harmonically ambiguous because it's played by the low strings with vibrato. Without vibrato, you can clearly hear the (surprisingly modern sounding) harmony.
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Author: justme
Date: 2009-09-14 03:09
There's nothing wrong with bassoons, they are a great instrument.
There is some beautiful music written for bassoon as well..
As far as jokes are concerned regarding clarinets, there are many.
How many clarinetists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Only one, but he'll go through a whole box of bulbs before he finds just the right one.
How do you stop an oboe from being stolen?
Put it in a clarinet case.
What's the difference between a clarinet solo and scraping your nails down the blackboard?
Vibrato.
Those are just a few.
There are jokes about many kinds of instruments out there.
Just Me
http://woodwindforum.ning.com/
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2009-09-14 08:30
I think it's because an out-of-tune clarinet is a terrible thing. So we get paranoid about being 'bang on' all the time.
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Author: interd0g
Date: 2009-09-14 16:28
Vibrato helps to disguise faulty instrument intonation and for me that is why i feel the urge to do it in classical performances even though I don't actually like it
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Author: BobD
Date: 2009-09-14 18:38
I think of vibrato as I do of using salt on food: A little is sometimes necessary. Too much is bad for your health. If you don't use any you will develop a goiter.
Bob Draznik
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2009-09-15 15:08
Srattle and John Peacock, I agree completely with your comments about flute vibrato. You took the words right out of my mouth.
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Author: Tom Piercy
Date: 2009-09-16 11:54
Re: why clarinetist does not do vibrato?
Simple answer - they do!
Yes, even in classical music.
Tom Piercy
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2017-08-27 02:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR9oxnm66bY
I listened to this a couple days ago and just about fell out of my chair when I was sure I was hearing classical clarinet vibrato (try 3:52). I always thought that was verboten.
So I went looking for vibrato threads here, this is the newest one I found, no surprise it is full of "nobody should do this" kind of comments. But Ed- you did point out that Stanley Drucker did/does use vibrato. Makes me wonder how many artists at all levels eschew it because they've been told to, rather than as a personal musical choice. We all carry our personal prejudices, a few valid but most not.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2017-08-27 02:02)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-08-27 02:35
My former clarinet teacher also plays with a very shallow but measured vibrato - one of the few in my opinion that uses vibrato tastefully as he's mainly a Classical clarinettist. I'm not aware of any recordings he's made which is a shame - can't find any videos of him playing either.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: TomS
Date: 2017-08-27 06:48
Just to comment, I've heard that Harold Wright denied using vibrato, at least intentionally. Claimed it was just they way it came out ...
Tom
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Author: GBK
Date: 2017-08-27 20:37
tucker wrote:
> Like clarinet vibrato? Acker Bilk
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7jZeXvpyZQ
Before you jump all over Acker Bil for vibrato, firstly he's not playing 'classical' music and secondly he can do a LOT more than just 'Stranger on the Shore' (which, by the way, bought him a couple of nice houses)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RonFKv2Ua9M
For better or worse, he single-handedly brought the clarinet back to the public's attention (and to the radio) after a 20 year absence.
...GBK
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Author: tucker ★2017
Date: 2017-08-27 21:01
GBK, why did you take my comment about Acker Bilk as a negative? He's good example of clarinet vibrato and shared the link. As a matter of fact, since the discussion of clarinet vibrato recently resurfaced, I've been playing around with Stranger on the Shore learning vibrato on bass! It wasn't meant as a "jump all over Acker Bilk"!
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-08-27 22:35
TomS wrote:
> Just to comment, I've heard that Harold Wright denied using
> vibrato, at least intentionally. Claimed it was just they way
> it came out ...
>
There was a time when players made a sharp distinction between a pitch vibrato, which describes string vibrato, vocal vibrato and lip vibrato on a wind instrument, and intensity vibrato, which is what most clarinetists tend to use and is produced by pulsing the air pressure. I don't know if this distinction is still in vogue. I haven't been involved in any serious debate about it for a long time.
Some players, maybe Wright among them, didn't consider intensity modulation to be vibrato. Certainly by that definition, the typical pulsing of jazz clarinet and sax tone would be vibrato. Wright may have had this in mind when he denied using vibrato (he called it increased intensity during the one lesson I took with him). Gigliotti played with (and admitted to using) a very light "intensity vibrato", a pulsation I only noticed when I heard him from the stage as a choral singer in Beethoven's 9th Symphony one year. He said it helped breath span for long phrases (like the ones in the third movement of the 9th). I never noticed it in his recordings.
Sam Caviezel, current Associate Principal of the Philadelphia Orchestra, plays with one of the most expressive, well shaped clarinet vibratos I've noticed recently. Not all the time, but when he uses it for added emotional color, it sounds to me quite beautiful.
Karl
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Author: Bob Barnhart ★2017
Date: 2017-08-28 01:12
I've read excerpts from several letters to/about Brahms (on this board) indicating that one aspect of Richard Muefield's playing that Brahms found to be extraordinary was his musicality, which included the use of vibrato. I don't recall clarification of what kind(s) of vibrato he may have employed.
If it's good enough for Brahms...
Bob Barnhart
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2017-08-28 07:33
Not sure when vibrato became de rigueur for the other woodwinds. Also never played a Mühlfeld clarinet, although they're sold now. Maybe they sound and play more like oboes and bassoons, such that they work better with vibrato. Anyway, I don't think most of the artists who have used it on clarinet made the decision in isolation from their feelings on how they were/are driven to approach the instrument. It frequently seems part of a package that they put together themselves rather than doing what everyone else does, which to a certain extent defines the really standout players. Brahms had heard a lot of clarinetists without writing stuff for them, but Mühlfeld was clearly in his own category. There was a lot more going on there than just vibrato.
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Author: Hurstfarm
Date: 2017-08-29 00:21
Emma Johnson shares some thoughts on the use of vibrato in this clip - she favours it where a vocal quality is needed: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxsAGSSUaj8
Regarding Muhlfeld's use of vibrato, there's an interesting reference on p207 of Jack Brymer's book on the clarinet. Brymer was also a selective user of vibrato, and devotes a section of his book to it.
Here's the quote:
"Just before World War II a question was put to a very old viola-player, sometime conductor of the Duke of Devonshire's Orchestra, about the playing of Muhlfeld. The old man had occasionally been called in by Joachim to play in his quartet, and on several occasions had played the Brahms Quintet with the great Muhlfeld. Of the clarinettist's playing he was most enthusiastic, saying that three things mainly stuck in his memory. 'He used two clarinets, A and B flat, for the slow movement, to simplify the gypsy section; he had a fiery technique with a warm tone - and a big vibrato.' Asked again by a startled questioner if he didn't mean to say 'rubato' the old man looked puzzled. 'No,' he said, 'vibrato - much more than Joachim, and as much as the cellist.' (It will be recalled that Joachim was reputed to play with little or no vibrato)."
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2017-08-29 09:49
Bob Barnhart wrote:
"I've read excerpts from several letters to/about Brahms (on this board) indicating that one aspect of Richard Muefield's playing that Brahms found to be extraordinary was his musicality, which included the use of vibrato."
According to Tony Pay:
"The stuff about Muehlfeld, via Brymer, has never been substantiated.
There's no mention of Muehlfeld's vibrato in any other source."
See:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/lookup.php/Klarinet/2003/06/000705.txt
Bob, if you really have a source of excerpts from several letters showing that Mühlfeld used vibrato, please produce them.
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Author: Hurstfarm
Date: 2017-08-29 15:54
In fairness to Brymer, following the passage I quoted above, he goes on to say that the story about Muhlfeld was uncorroborated, so he wasn't aware of other sources then.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2017-08-29 23:17
>> In fairness to Brymer, following the passage I quoted above, he goes on to say that the story about Muhlfeld was uncorroborated, so he wasn't aware of other sources then. >>
The actual quote is: "This account, while of no authority, does at least give one food for thought..."
What makes Brymer say that the account was 'of no authority'? That caveat must surely apply to at least one part of the process by which Brymer came to know of it. The phrasing "a question was put" rather than "I put a question" indicates that someone other than Brymer put the question – Brymer was 24 at the beginning of WWII – and if so one wants to ask, who? Was that person's account of the event not entirely reliable, perhaps? The story itself, as told by Brymer, seems unequivocal.
I wish I'd asked him. Too late.
It is true that none of the biographical material about Mühlfeld that I can find, apart from this one reference, mentions vibrato. Heavenly phrasing, varied tone, yes; but vibrato, no.
Tony
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2017-08-30 00:14
I was struck by the vibrato on some of the tracks on Martin Frost's encores disc "Frost and friends" - particularly noticeable on some of the tracks where he takes lieder and turns them into songs without words. It's a completely different effect from Brymer - putting what I can only describe as a feathery quality into the tone - but it's an imaginative touch, and applied sparingly.
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Author: Bob Barnhart ★2017
Date: 2017-08-30 00:28
Liquorice,
I don't recall sources cited for the quotes I mentioned. If I can find any, I'll post them. Hoverever, Tony Pay's comments suggest that no corroboration is likely.
Bob Barnhart
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Author: BennyShaw
Date: 2017-08-30 07:00
I've been playing since I was 10, joined the union at 17 in 1977 and been a member now for 40 years. I've seen the world and toured with Broadway shows as a clarinetist exclusively and also as woodwind doubler across all woodwinds and and saxes (except bassoon). I've played on NAME big bands on the road and dozens locally where I have lived. I've played classical, jazz, rock, large ensembles and chamber music and everything in between and at times been paid very well for it. So my resume and qualifications speak for themselves.
As far as vibrato is concerned, I'm of the school that the clarinet is a clarinet and music is music and vibrato (from the lip) is nothing more than a means of expression to have in our toolbox. Tradition and legit teachers at one time wouldn't even consider the thought of using it on the narrow-minded premise that "it's just not done". TO THAT, I say HOGWASH!
One of my first clarinet teachers taught me when I was about 13 that the most important thing to develop as a musician who plays any instrument is to develop a sense of PERSONAL style. Too many teachers are so hung up on technique and methods and playing everything by the book and doing it the same way it's always been done just because they have about as much creativity and personality in their own playing as a dead lox.
As students of any age is in our interest to avail ourselves to as many different styles of music as possible because the more we know and get to experience the more we will feel comfortable playing any particular kind of music. Incumbent upon us is that hopefully, along our path of learning we gain an understanding of what "good taste" is and what is appropriate and when, and never settle for the lame insecure excuse that something "is not done that way because it's always been done another way. Says who? There is nobody alive who knows what clarinetists sounded like in the days of Mozart and Spohr. What we do know is that (1) pitch back in 1790 was far from A-440, and (2) Buffet R-13's don't sound anything like 18th century clarinets. And any clarinetist who approaches Stravinsky's unaccompanied Three Pieces the same way they would approach Weber or Brahms probably shouldn't be playing a recital that includes it. The first time I toured in Europe in the late 1980s I was amazed to find that in Germanic and Eastern Europe, you wouldn't even get considered for any kind of orchestral or opera gig if you played a French/Boehm system clarinet. The Bavarian State Radio Orchestra in Munchen had one of three clarinetists who played a French instrument. So, if traditions are to be our guide, then how did the Paris Conservatory even become undisputed experts on German classical tradition to begin with?
So, so much for the Paris Conservatory being the Word of God when it comes to which instrument is the correct one to play and how to play it.
As time went on I have actually come to not only appreciate the sound of German large bore clarinets over "the sweetest clarinet ever made", but I prefer the bigger, darker, woodier sound of German clarinets. But I'm also a realist. Like vibrato, it would never fly at a legit audition or in an American or Western European symphony orchestra or orchestra pit.
So, in the end, it's about tradition. And traditions become traditions because too many people are too willing to just do what they have always been told to do, and blindly and obediently not question it. I would like to point out that as artists, it should be in our DNA to always challenge the status quo, never be afraid to experiment or, dare I say, develop our own personality and voice as an instrumentalist, assuming we know what we are doing, and have hopefully cultivated a sense of good taste and what is appropriate, and are *aware" of how much of anything is enough and how much is too much. After all, music is about expression, not rules, and the music comes from inside you. The horn is nothing more than the means to an end. It is not an end in and of itself. And nothing is more boring than a monotone.
Finally, the last thing I would ever want to sound like, is everybody else.
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Author: Sean.Perrin
Date: 2017-08-30 09:08
When tastefully done I like it. Like everything else in life there is a fine line.
I have played before with vibrato before at the right moment, even on my CD for all to hear for eternity! lol. *hides*
Founder and host of the Clarineat Podcast: http://www.clarineat.com
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2017-08-31 09:00
Barry Vincent has a nice vibrato when he plays clarinet..
I personally don't use it on Clari, but do on my other instruments
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