I recently met a fellow woodwind player, and the conversation inevitably turned to gear. We had each recently tried out an instrument by a relatively new maker. My new acquaintance found it not to his liking. “I’m a _____ snob,” he proudly explained, naming a very popular and well-established instrument maker.
I also recently read a woodwind-related message board thread (why do I torture myself?) in which some discussion was taking place about an accessories maker who had recently branched out into a new venture. A commenter scoffed at the new product and at the maker in general, indicating his disinclination even to sample any of their (generally well-regarded) products. He offered no explanation for his strong and seemingly arbitrary opinion.
Your gear choices are your own. But if you find yourself clinging to brand names, and defending those choices with something besides objective comparisons, then you might be missing out.
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When my students work on études (musical pieces intended for study but not performance) I stress with them the idea of making everything on the page audible. That means that if I were unfamiliar with the étude but a skilled transcriber, I could listen to my student play, and write down with confidence every:
Pitch
Rhythm
Articulation
Dynamic marking
Tempo change
Breath mark
Expressive marking, like “dolce” or “pesante” or “broadly”
Title or form indication, like “Aria” or “Folk Dance” or “Rondo”
And any/all other words or symbols left by the composer/editor
Sometimes it’s easy to get wrapped up in the pitches and rhythms and ignore or gloss over some of the other markings. But all of them have to be executed in a clearly audible way (otherwise, what are they there for?). If a performer technically tongues some notes but they sound slurred, then they weren’t tongued right. If some notes are marked with horizontal accents (like >), and some are marked with vertical ones (like ^), then they have to sound audibly different from each other. If the composer indicates that a certain passage should be played “dolce,” then it needs to sound audibly different from passages that don’t have that marking.
In performance repertoire, I do think there are (rare) cases when it makes sense to ignore or alter the composer or editor’s markings. But well-edited études (my students most commonly play Ferling or Rose) are an excellent opportunity to practice making each and every marking meet the ear with clarity and precision.
“Firm up those embouchures!” An efficient embouchure is relaxed, not tight (nor “firm” nor any other euphemism) and allows the reed to vibrate easily for a beautiful, seemingly effortless sound.
“You’re flat!” This is very, very often a voicing issue. It’s not helpful in the long run try to fix it with biting (or “lipping up”), overly resistant reeds, or needless equipment purchases.
“Next year, I’m making you all move up a reed strength.” Stiffer reeds won’t make you play better any more than larger shoes make you better at basketball. Use what fits.
“You all need to switch to a ________ mouthpiece.” Sweeping gear recommendations aren’t useful. Often they are based on outdated or incomplete information, plus mouthpiece purchases in the beginner stage are often pricey lateral moves. Mouthpieces aren’t always made consistently, either, and having a student switch blindly to a bad specimen (even of a highly-regarded model) may actually make things worse. Generally, stock mouthpieces are fine for beginners, and advancing players would be wise to consult with a private teacher who can work with them individually on upgrades. And the finest professional clarinet sections in the world play on non-homogenous equipment and blend beautifully—having everybody play the same thing isn’t the key to matching tone or pitch.
“Get ready, because next month you’re going to learn how to cross the break, and it’s going to be hard.” Crossing the break is only as hard as you make it. If you are teaching good tone production and finger technique, crossing the break is a non-event, not even worth mentioning.
“Keep those chins flat and pointed.” “Wow, your chin sounds amazing,” said nobody. Focus on the real issue: forming a relaxed embouchure within the space of an open jaw, backed up with good voicing and breath support. You will know it’s working because of good response, characteristic tone, and stable intonation, not because everybody’s chins look a certain way.
Focus on the important and too-often-overlooked fundamentals for success in your clarinet section.
“Record yourself when you practice” is common advice, and good advice. I frequently recommend it to my students, but few of them do it. I think it can seem overwhelming. Recording seems like a big production: getting the material to performance level, using complicated and expensive equipment, playing beginning to end, doing cruelly thorough analysis followed by self-flagellation and sadness.
When I ask my students about their interpretation of a piece of music, their answers are often about shaping phrases. The phrases should have some kind of beginning, middle, and end, often expressed in some kind of dynamic shape, like starting softer, growing to a louder peak, then gradually getting softer again.
That isn’t wrong, but it’s really just interpreting individual phrases. The next step is to give those phrases some relationship to each other. Does the next phrase continue the previous one in some way? Answer it? Contradict it? Make a contrast with it? If your favorite tool for expressing your interpretation is dynamics, then the answers to those questions might determine whether the next phrase, say, picks up at the same dynamic level as the previous, or at a dramatically different one.
Then the phrases should build a larger structure, such as a theme. The individual phrases that make up the theme should have beginnings, middles, and ends, but they should join together into something bigger that also has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
The themes might combine to build a movement, and the movements to form a complete work. And multiple works may even construct a complete concert program.
Small-scale phrase shaping is a good start, but mature interpretation requires thinking on a larger scale.
It’s easy to think of articulation markings as being black and white (and not just literally). But sometimes the instructions aren’t completely clear.
For example, I think most people would see this marking…
…and understand it to mean that the D gets some extra length, perhaps so much that there’s no silence between the D and the following C. And there’s an implication that the other notes shouldn’t be that way, so perhaps they should have a bit more space by comparison.
But how about this? (I ran into this marking in a piece I am working on this week, by an experienced composer.)
The slur seems to preclude any space between the notes, so how does the tenuto work? You can’t reduce the space if it’s already zero, right?
I think most experienced musicians would say that in this case the tenuto gets some other kind of stress, like a little extra volume, or a slight stretching of the beat, or maybe more intensity in the vibrato. But those are substantially different from the first interpretation. And if I do interpret the tenuto as some kind of stress, how is it different from, say, this:
To interpret the markings, you have to take them in context. Musical notation is an expressive language, not a set of precise instructions for note-playing robots.
And sometimes the markings are bad. There might simply be mistakes, or maybe the composer or editor isn’t entirely familiar with how wind players interpret articulations. How about this one?
Wind players tend to think in terms of slurred or not slurred, and map this directly to a technique. When the slurs are doubled up like this, it doesn’t quite compute—I’m already slurring, I can’t make it any more slurred.
So often the go-to explanation is that the larger slur is some kind of phrase marking, to show that those notes belong together, and the smaller one is an actual slur. Or, I guess, maybe another smaller phrase marking? And why do I need a phrase marking anyway—shouldn’t I already be playing phrases? And, if I decide to take out the smaller slur, then does the larger one still remain a “phrase marking,” or does it transform back into a slur?
Here are some things I try to keep in mind as I try to interpret articulation markings:
If the composer put it on the page, she or he wants to hear it. How can I make the marking audible? What is the composer’s likely intention?
Why did the composer pick that particular marking? If there is ambiguity, is it intentional, or at least knowing?
Do similar markings appear elsewhere in the piece, or even in the composer’s other works? Does that shed any light? For example, if the composer uses both tenuto marks under slurs and accents under slurs, the composer probably wants them to sound different from each other.
Is there a tradition surrounding this piece? Sometimes frequently-performed pieces begin to develop a sort of standard practice for how certain markings are interpreted. Sometimes these are reasonably reliable, such as if a recording was made with the composer’s input, but sometimes they are just popular guesses. If you have a better guess, you can use it, but it would be wise at least to know what the tradition suggests.
We are used to thinking of music itself as an expressive thing, that hopefully causes our audience to respond in some way. But the art of music notation is also expressive—the composer/editor/copyist is trying to get some kind of response from the musician. (Which in turn gets the response from the audience.)
If you have been reading articulations like a robot—or ignoring them—return to the score again and listen to what the composer is telling you.
What are the best instruments, mouthpieces, reeds, headjoints, method books, and other products for woodwind doublers?
I often see this question asked on online message boards (“I’m a saxophone player, so which clarinet mouthpiece should I buy?”) or answered in advertising copy (“The perfect flute headjoint for the woodwind doubler”).
When aspiring doublers ask this question, I think often what they are really asking is, “What product can I purchase that will save me having to really learn a new instrument?” If you’re serious about playing the flute, you’ll want to use the kind of flute that a good flutist would use. If you’re serious about the clarinet, you’ll seek out the kinds of reeds, mouthpieces, and instruments favored by fine clarinetists. In other words, the best clarinet for a woodwind doubler is… the best clarinet.
To double successfully, you have to abandon the idea that you can double on flute and clarinet (and so forth) without having to commit to being a flutist and a clarinetist. There are no shortcuts!
I tell students or people to get whatever works for them. Just because Michael Brecker played a Selmer doesn’t mean you have to as well. Heck, Phil Woods plays a Yamaha after decades on a Selmer.
Going to a lot of these “boards” (or rather “that board”), you get the arm-chair philosophers waxing poetic on everything and proclaiming winners left and right. I think it’s funny to read “that board” and the questions and answers people put there. I wish I had the money to own or have tried all these horns the “experts” there have.
Back on topic…….It is also good to consider that people tend to stick with what works, especially musicians. You find a sound or an instrument, and you stick with it. I know I do that. I very seldom try different brands of reeds, I buy the ones I’ve used for years and years. Instruments, honestly, I rarely try anything out. Why? I have no interest, and I don’t want to start chasing that “if I only had that ______ sax things would be better” thing. I have good instruments, I don’t need to get the latest Cannonball Alto or whatever. I don’t need to relearn all the little quirks it will have. I know the quirks my horn has. If I won the Lottery, sure, I’d go out and buy a bunch of horns…..probably….in addition to a boat, couple of cars, houses……
There are PLENTY of excellent instruments being made, even by people/companies not known. If you are shopping for something, for a first time purchase, then totally check them out. Cannonball, RS Berkeley, Barone, Yanigasawa, etc, etc. I’d be happy with any of these if I didn’t already own horns (I grew up in the era in the 80s/90s when there were not the plethora of good makers of instruments and for better or worse ended up with two Mark VI horns and a Yanigasawa soprano).
If I were shopping for horns, I’d not even consider Selmer……way way overpriced for what you get. You can get a whole set of horns from one of the other makers (say Barone) for the price of ONE Selmer horn. For $5K I could get an alto, and tenor Barone and maybe a Soprano…..
I tell students or people to get whatever works for them. Just because Michael Brecker played a Selmer doesn’t mean you have to as well. Heck, Phil Woods plays a Yamaha after decades on a Selmer.
Going to a lot of these “boards” (or rather “that board”), you get the arm-chair philosophers waxing poetic on everything and proclaiming winners left and right. I think it’s funny to read “that board” and the questions and answers people put there. I wish I had the money to own or have tried all these horns the “experts” there have.
Back on topic…….It is also good to consider that people tend to stick with what works, especially musicians. You find a sound or an instrument, and you stick with it. I know I do that. I very seldom try different brands of reeds, I buy the ones I’ve used for years and years. Instruments, honestly, I rarely try anything out. Why? I have no interest, and I don’t want to start chasing that “if I only had that ______ sax things would be better” thing. I have good instruments, I don’t need to get the latest Cannonball Alto or whatever. I don’t need to relearn all the little quirks it will have. I know the quirks my horn has. If I won the Lottery, sure, I’d go out and buy a bunch of horns…..probably….in addition to a boat, couple of cars, houses……
There are PLENTY of excellent instruments being made, even by people/companies not known. If you are shopping for something, for a first time purchase, then totally check them out. Cannonball, RS Berkeley, Barone, Yanigasawa, etc, etc. I’d be happy with any of these if I didn’t already own horns (I grew up in the era in the 80s/90s when there were not the plethora of good makers of instruments and for better or worse ended up with two Mark VI horns and a Yanigasawa soprano).
If I were shopping for horns, I’d not even consider Selmer……way way overpriced for what you get. You can get a whole set of horns from one of the other makers (say Barone) for the price of ONE Selmer horn. For $5K I could get an alto, and tenor Barone and maybe a Soprano…..