Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-10-21 04:13
Let me be clearer about this.
A ligature makes a small difference to the behaviour of a given reed/mouthpiece/clarinet setup (hereinafter RMC).
Do you doubt that? I can assure you that it does – and it's not surprising. Vibrating things are especially sensitive to small changes. (Even how you HOLD a bow when playing a string instrument has an effect on the sound – and yes, BOWS VIBRATE!)
An RMC is also sensitive to small changes. A tiny deposit on a reed can change its character; so it's not surprising that how the reed is held against the mouthpiece (like how the bow is held against the string) – and therefore how its bottom end vibrates – can alter its response.
The difficulty comes when people want to say, is that particular change of character GOOD?
That always depends on what we're doing at the time, as well as what the current behaviour of the reed is. After all, we spend our lives learning how to alter the behaviour of a reed by touching it with our embouchure so that...well, so that what???
So that it produces the musical sound we want; and that's the sound that is appropriate to the music at that point. See, we always have to ask about the context too.
Take another example. Suppose you ask an expert, what's the best computer to buy?
They'll answer, What do you want to do with it?
And you may want to say, Well, I don't know, I just want THE BEST ONE...
...but there's no answer to that, despite what the adverts tell you.
So, you may want to know what the PROPER embouchure is, you may want to know what the BEST ligature is, you may want to know what the BEST reeds are...
...but there's no answer to those questions either.
There MAY be a best ligature among the ones you've got, given a RMC AND A PIECE OF MUSIC TO PLAY – but it's not the best ligature in any other sense.
Look at it from the other standpoint: you're used to choosing reeds, given a mouthpiece and clarinet (and a ligature). You choose the one you think sounds nicest, I suppose.
But if you're a working musician, you'll always be thinking about what you have to play TODAY. You want the best reed FOR THAT.
I once had a little go at programming computers. I read some books that told me that languages like LOGO and LISP and SCHEME were superior to languages like BASIC and PASCAL because they were modular, and had variables with local scope. I even started to believe that, and said so in company. I wrote some trivial programs.
Then I talked to my sister's boyfriend, who was a REAL programmer.
"I pretty much do the same sort of thing whatever language I'm using," he said. "It's just a question of what's convenient".
So I gave up being a believer in the idea of 'the best computer language'.
Tony
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The Clarinet BBoard
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