 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2016-01-12 03:48
In the excellent Larry Guy interview on Youtube, recently mentioned here,
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWZ7zO6ILsY)
he makes mention several times of "flexibility", near 11:30, 14:45, 15:10, 30:00, and 30:35.
Mr. Guy seems to be talking about tone.
Today for fun I was playing through some of John Gibson's "Advanced Clarinet Technique - a New Approach From Great Orchestral Literature". One of the excerpts therein is from near the end of "Poet and Peasant Overture, involving high articulated notes. A note above the excerpt says, "Goal: to achieve flexibility in the high range."
And, in the same book there's one page that's not excerpts, but some scale & articulation patterns; the page is labelled "Flexibility/Warmup Exercises".
I don't get the sense that Gibson is referring to tone.
Regarding clarinet playing, what is flexibility?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-01-12 04:08
When the conductor says, "I want that faster, but with longer note lengths." Or "I want that slower but with shorter note lengths." etc.
It will be advantageous to be able to just DO IT instead of saying in reply, "But Maestro, I only can play it this way."
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2016-01-13 02:27
When I saw the question here, my first reaction was about tone flexibility, mostly the ability to manipulate tone widely as a way to enhance music, in the sense the way Larry Guy was using the word. In my Advanced Clarinet Technique book I was using the word to describe both a mental and fingering facility on the instrument. Maybe "facility" would have been a better word to use than flexibility.
Flexibility of motion or limberness in a person's physical activities has to do with an ease and range of motion. In the same way, being able to have flexibility in playing in the altissimo range means to play the notes without difficulty or forcing. For years I have used a flute scale book (Gillet's Exercises for Flute) for the purpose of maintaining ease and facility in the upper range on clarinet.
In the scale section Philip mentions, the scales I used were not of the usual type, using a triplet figure and also scales in 7/8 time. Playing scales in two octaves in a triplet pattern (slur 2, tongue 1) requires one to play the scale 3 times, each one having the pulse falling on different notes until the pattern resolves itself after the 3rd time through. To me, that provides both a mental and physical flexibility for players only accustomed to straight 4/4 style scales.
John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2016-01-14 21:29
Thank you, Paul and John. My impression from the video was that, as John said, flexibility indicated something about tone or sound, especially given the context of the discussion and the connection with Harold Wright. But the term can also apply to other aspects of playing, especially interpretation.
I never heard Harold Wright live, but I greatly admire his sound in recordings. However, I'm not sure I ever detected his modifying the sound for musical reasons; it was probably there but I just heard it as part of the music. I'm curious what specific things he (or any clarinetist) might have done in that regard. I'm vaguely aware that I can change my sound a couple ways, but I've not yet studied doing it.
To further the "recordings aren't as good a live" position, I'll mention that about the time Karl Leister retired from the BPO, I read a tribute to him that included a list of excerpts where Leister modified his tone to attune with the particular music. I couldn't hear any of it; it all just sounded like Leister's characteristic glorious sound to me.
John, I get what you mean about shifting the pulses. I encounter that difficulty frequently in practice, often when I'm trying to smooth out a rough sequence with ad hoc exercises. It seems that looping the sequence needs to be done starting at different points to really get control - the difference is often surprising. And that very much applies to scale patterns.
By the way, John, thanks for putting out that excellent book. It's both instructive and fun. I wouldn't object too loudly if a volume 2 appeared.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-01-14 22:40
Sorry I missed the idea of TONE flexibility.
You are correct in assuming that recordings don't pick up most of this. Clarinet generates its sound in a unique fashion, with the wave form actually folding over itself (like a pipe organ), and I believe that even the best microphones are incapable of capturing all the aspects involved in this complex sound.
There are testimonies from George Szell about how flexible Robert Marcellus' sound was, shifting effortlessly from one style to another (French to German as examples). All of this is lost to posterity due to the limitations of recording technology.
As for Harold Wright, if you can listen to his recording of Schubert's Octet, you can get a sense of what his tone could do (possibly other chamber recordings too, but this one I know for sure). Wright used double lip embouchure and that produced such a delicate sound. Where many clarinetists can "bounce" articulation wonderfully, Wright seemed to be able to do that with the notes themselves (and I wish I could explain it better.....but listening to the Schubert will give you an idea).
In the Larry Guy interview, Guy laughingly refers to wishing he could sound like a combination of Marcellus and Wright. I think he laughs because this is impossible. You can't have this feathery light response from note to note like Wright AND have a thick massive wall of sound as Marcellus produced! The two styles are sonic opposites of one another.
..............Paul Aviles
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