 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Grendel McGrenadill
Date: 2021-11-18 06:07
Hello dear BB,
so far I have only been reading here with great interest but alas, I finally have a question that might find an answer here.
I only started a year ago on an older boehm clarinet and my long term aim in sound is the "olden" lyrical tone of yore.
Now, when I listen to Bechet, Louis and Bigard I hear these wonderful slides / glissandi a lot and rumor has it that these have been inspired a lot by these cats playing the Albert system.
Here is an example of what I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKF2qlzdwlY&t=139s
Jumping straight into the gliss down in Bigards solo.
I assume this also must be possible with the boehm mechanics?
Or is the Albert system so very different that some things dont translate well into Boehm?
Thanks a lot for all suggestions; maybe including exercise tips as well?
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Author: Late_returner
Date: 2021-11-18 14:19
Hi
It is often said that a Simple / Albert System clarinet is needed to replicate the great performances of the early players, including your glisses etc. And this is what Johnny Dodds played, surely king of the tone benders. Listen to Perdido Street Blues and many others of the 1920s.
But Artie Shaw played Boehm, and he could produce a gliss or two.
Perhaps the Simple / Boehm argument is another example of us wanting to believe " its the horse, not the jockey" which may inform so much of clarinet kit obsession ?
As for tips, i suspect the old guys learnt much as a million would be rock guitarists do today... listen to the music, work out whats going on.
Good luck !
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Author: Grendel McGrenadill
Date: 2021-11-18 15:13
Thank you!
thats what I suspected anyway.
There are no tricks it's just how much time the jockey spends with the horse.
And its not like the difference between a slide and valve trombone, i suppose.
So back into the stable.
Cheers!
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2021-11-18 19:37
Some use fingers as an integral part of a gliss, I've always just added or subtracted fingers in a sorta "keeping up" way. The main part for me is to ride your embouchure/air as if it were just under the note. To get started, begin with a note in the middle of the clarion and see how far you can bend it down (usually a minor third down from the fingered note is pretty common). Then it's just a matter of adding fingers (not necessarily accurately either) as you bend down to continue a gliss down. It is actually easier going up with a similar feel.
.............Paul Aviles
P.S. I've NEVER been able to gliss in the chalumeau but I'm pretty sure some of the old timers of yesteryear could.
Post Edited (2021-11-18 19:39)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2021-11-18 20:10
In Barney Bigard's autobiogrphy, "With Louis and the Duke" (Oxford, 1956),
he details many of the influences that shaped his style. These included formal study with Lorenzo Tio and keeping his ears wide open to the playing of Jimmie Noone and Ed Hall. He not only took lessons from Tio, he also spent hours near the bandstand listening to Tio play and admired him for his technique, ability to sight read, and his improvisations. The Tios, of course, taught the first generation of early jazz clarinetists in New Orleans (including Albert Nicholas and S. Bechet).
I grew up in New Orleans in the 1950's, when there were still players who knew and remembered Barney Bigard from before he gained fame with Ellington. The clarinet was to them a street band instrument vying alongside the trumpet and trombone for a play in the gumbo of improvised jazz music. Clarinetists approached their instrument more like a member of the brass family, to be pitched and humored by the lips. They would "lip" everything; that is they would play the clarinet as if it were stopped up at the bell end and would respond like a claribugle. This approach gave them control over the palate, tongue, throat and air column that made glissandos easier. With practice it can be made to work over the throat register break. Bechet played this way even when he wasn't making glissandos. Marching out in the street for hours at a time, these jazz players developed tremendous lip flexibility. Some could simulate the lip trills that trumpet players do. Bigard grew up in that culture and helped develop it to a higher level. Shaw, mostly self-taught, no doubt took the same route on Boehm clarinet. Bigard especially admired Shaw's ability to play in the altissimo.
Eric Seddon has some great quotes from Bigard's book here: https://www.thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/2013/03/barney-bigard-on-everyone.html.
Post Edited (2021-11-23 05:31)
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Author: Max S-D
Date: 2021-11-18 23:09
When I was trying to learn how to do smears and glissandi, I found I was distracting myself with my fingers and not focusing enough on the embouchure and voicing part. I started out trying to learn how to bend the pitch down from a given note in a way that I could control enough to do the same way each time. That involved dropping the jaw and adjusting with the embouchure and tongue position to keep the tone right (whatever that means for you). At least the way that I play, I only really have range to bend downwards any meaningful amount. The next step is to learn to "scoop" starting at the bottom of the bend, approaching the fingered pitch. That comes relatively naturally once you have a feel for how much jaw drop corresponds to how much pitch.
From there, I started experimenting with lifting/sliding my fingers off of the tone holes and getting a feel for how those two things can interact. I find that if I am trying to do it all with my fingers, that works OK sliding from a clarion G to A, since there is no ring there, but because some of the tone holes have rings, trying to do the smear completely "mechanically" results in some abrupt pitch steps as the tone holes covered by the rings open. This is probably where the Albert/Simple clarinets have an advantage.
To smooth that out on a Boehm clarinet, it takes a combination of sliding the fingers off and using that "scooping" technique to smooth out the steps. I assume that Albert players do the same to really control their smears/slides and are not just doing the finger sliding thing.
It all sounds a lot more complicated to write out than it really is to do, I think. I definitely don't consciously think about all of those things at once. I suspect it will start to click once you're comfortable controlling your bends and scoops and then start fooling around with how you slide your fingers on/off the toneholes. Some people find it easier to slide down, I find it easier to slide up. There is a very sweet spot where the pitch just feels pliable and it's sort of a "you'll know it when you're there" kind of thing.
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Author: Grendel McGrenadill
Date: 2021-11-19 03:48
Thanks for all the infos.
I started practicing the embouchure slide just with the mouthpiece and then I will slowly incorporate the finger slides.
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