As my colleague Betsy Sturdevant pointed out in a recent post on her Bassoon Blog, the Columbus Symphony has a busy schedule with wildly varied repertoire this weekend.
Actually Betsy and I have a particularly full weekend, since we are both playing at a fundraiser for the Columbus Symphony, and which takes place after a relatively full day of a rehearsal and “Meet the Orchestra” Family concert Sunday afternoon. I plan to play the Rachmaninoff Vocalise and an arrangement of a Chopin Nocturne, No. 20, Op Posthume. These slow, songful pieces will nicely balance the virtuosic Vogel piece Betsy plans to play, a mini-concerto for bassoon and three strings.
However, before that all happens, we have a pops concert tonight featuring jazz singer Dianne Reeves. Dianne’s voice has a gorgeous, velvety tone, and her improvitory abilities are remarkable. Her singing range is huge, from throaty low notes to squeaky, flutey high tones. It’s a pleasure to hear her sing and play with her. Her arrangements, mostly by Billy Childs, are excellent, and the orchestrations are good as well.
The orchestra is featured on the first half of tonight’s program, with Jerry Steichen conducting. Included in the music are excerpts from “Harlem Symphony” by James P Johnson, the earliest African American symphonic composer.
There are some other tricky pieces, including several jazzy arrangements with clarinet solos. Dixieland bands were a traditional group for early jazz. To create that authentic sound, the orchestra drops out in a few spots, leaving clarinet alone with trap set playing rhythm and a string bass player, joined later by trumpet and trombone. The solos are written out, but the style, a light, perky, rhythmic freedom, is not. To help me get into the mood, I imagine I’m playing on an old scratchy 78 rpm record from the 20s, with the piercing and jaunty tone of an early jazz clarinetist.
Unfortunately, the training I received as a classical player did not include jazz improvising. If I were in charge of a university classical clarinet department, I would require all students to take an improvisation class, and to learn to play along with a few jazz recordings to get the style right.
We wear many hats as musicians, from baroque to classical to romantic to jazz to modern.
I often think of a story Clark Brody told me. He was was the principal clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony for 40 years or more. He was a great player. Yet he lamented that whenever his orchestra played Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, he was unable to perform the proverbial glissando clarinet shmear which opens the piece. Now a days, that solo is on almost every audition list.
Times have changed, and so has the job of a principal clarinetist.
I turn 50 next Wednesday. Instead of a mid-life crisis, I am experiencing a powerful maturation of emotions and attitudes toward my vocation, clarinet. I hope it never ends. I am as happy as I’ll ever be, content in my bubble bath of ideas about breath, voicing, articulation, phrasing, equipment, concentration, freedom in playing, etc. I am truly blessed to be able to focus on the one thing I madly love to do: play clarinet.
A little over a year ago, I had a website made (www.DavidHThomas.net), a professional looking site which featured past performances, repertoire, philosophy of teaching, lecture ideas. I planned for my “new” career as a soloist. I have soloed successfully numerous times with the Columbus Symphony and several times another orchestra in Maryland, the National Philharmonic. So I expected to be able to find a niche and perform a few solos a year. After a bit of research, however, I realized that I was already one of only 20 or so clarinetists who had soloed with orchestras in the past few years. Most of them are the principal clarinetist of the orchestra they soloed with, as I am. The others are top level international players, like Stoltzman. I couldn’t, or didn’t want to, compete in that world.
But that popped bubble didn’t curb my enthusiasm. I continued passionately forward, though I wasn’t sure where the path was going. I just knew I wanted to know the clarinet inside and out, backwards, forwards, in my sleep. I wanted to answer the why more than the what of how to play the instrument. Though I am a high-level player, the occasional slump in playing has sometimes been difficult to navigate out of. This time I wanted to solve any problems I might have had, or might encounter in the future, once and for all.
Another interesting development occurred in my perspective. Sometimes, near the end of a fairly intense practice day, I would find myself playing in a trance, lost in some other time zone, a rare world where music is the only air needed to survive. I breathed that musical clarinet air deeply as long as I could play for that day, knowing I may not easily find my way back to that sweet paradise the next day.
After several experiences like this, I began to sheepishly admit to myself: as much as I enjoy performing, I actually enjoy practicing and playing music for myself even more! Who needs an audience! I find myself by losing myself practicing a deeply challenging Jeanjean etude, or a musically rich Bach unaccompanied cello suite. Performing almost ruins the spontaneous beauty of it all, with the accompanying high standards one must meet to be approved; and with the perfectionist expectations most listeners have nowadays from hearing so many artificially perfected recordings.
Over several months of this kind of thinking, it dawned on me that for most of my life I had wrongly motivated myself regarding music and clarinet. I had performed because it was what I was supposed to do. I am a clarinetist after all. It’s what I do. Please don’t misunderstand. I have never hated performing, only misunderstood the larger picture of why I do what I do.
That’s when I decided I would prefer to share the whole experience, the struggle of the process along the way to (hopefully) perfecting one or any number of pieces. My sights latched lovingly onto the biggest (unaccompanied- remember, this is a solo journey) musical mountain which presented itself. The result was: The Jeanjean Project, my commitment to share the process of learning all 18 Etudes of Perfection. And it still stands.
To those of you who may be wondering if I still plan to follow through- What may have appeared as aimless wandering is actually part of the project, albeit a somewhat unplanned side journey. All my experiments with equipment in the past few months, the mouthpiece and instrument trials and audio samples, have been a vital foundational refinement toward performing the etudes. I must love and breathe my equipment before I can live and breath the music without interference.
Now that I have a real goal, a goal I have chosen and committed to, the big picture is more apparent. It’s just that the scenery is so vast, it takes time to map it all before forging on the journey to the mountain top. But I have all the time in the world, since this is my world and my mountain. I love breathing clarinet air. Follow me if you like. See you at the top.
Happy New Year Fun. Got this from ArsGeek. “Zach Galifiankais of The Hangover fame has made a loyal internet following with Cha-Ching Pictures with their series of videos. This most recent collaboration features a star-studded cast of Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, Vinnie Jones, Henry Rollins, Chuck Liddell and Olivia Wilde as they lovingly lampoon the old school G.I. Joe.”
At about 2′50″ there’s a fun, suggestive scene with clarinet playing.
The Musician’s Way blog by Gerald Klickstein, Guitarist, author, educator, Professor of Music at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He blogs about the helpful topics from his book, The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness (Oxford, 2009).
He “explores issues of music practice and performance, creativity, music careers, collaboration, wellness, and the myriad aspects of living a musician’s life.” Definitely worth checking out.
Third Stream Music Education Third-Stream is “about music education, usually about student performing ensembles, and specifically about bringing cutting-edge modernism to the high school wind ensemble rehearsal.”
“Third-Stream is written by Cary Stewart. Cary is the Director of Bands and Middle School Fine Arts Team Leader at a medium-sized American international school in Asia.”
Good stuff. I particularly like his post on Yoga of Wind Orchestra. Sounds like something I would write. All musicians should learn yoga and Alexander Technique. I vote yes.
I have spent the past few days re-accustoming myself to my beloved Buffet clarinets. Sweetness over size. Ring over darkness. Tangy lemon cream chiffon rather than chocolate cake. These are not preferences of quality, they are instead qualities of preference.
Choosing and developing a tone for yourself is a very personal process. One Buffet may sound better than another, one Selmer design better in tune. But a good Selmer and a good Buffet clarinet are merely instruments of tone, not producers of it. The player is the real tone producer, the shaper of it. The choice to play one instrument over another is only one of countless decisions in the process of creating a your own special tone.
My tone production mechanisms had recently become somewhat generic; my breath, embouchure, voicing, the whole package had adapted to switching back and forth between Buffets and Selmers. Though this generifying adaptation was instructive, it felt good to slip back into the same familiar shoes several times a day, and to relish that intimacy and let it re-evolve toward my personal tone.
Yesterday I made the difficult decision to stop playing the Selmer Privilège model clarinets that I loved, and which only last Spring I considered to be the next best thing since sliced bread.
My reasons are complex, and I’d like to share them with you.
I have recorded myself playing the Selmers a number of times, and they usually win over my Buffets on that measure. I have also played them in my orchestra (Columbus Symphony) numerous times over several months. In that context I occasionally had the feeling of pushing up against some barrier in their sound, which, if I tried to exceed it, would render the tone more spready, even “honky”.
The Selmer Privilege instruments are beautifully made, well crafted, and have a meaty tone. They tune well (with a few notable exceptions) and have a very even scales tonally. In many ways, they are superior in design and craft than my Buffet R13s.
However, I have developed as a player around the Buffet model R-13’s famous poly-cylindrical bore, with its particular feel and resistance (designed by Robert Carrée for Buffet in 1955). For 30-some years of playing, I have responded to that particular resistance and shape as my cue how to play and sound my best.
With the Selmers I had to blow a little differently, but they took that and made it sound beautiful. So I didn’t mind. However, over time I realized I couldn’t get “into” the sound and “spin” it (a very slight vibrato I occasionally use to create a vocal feeling, to warm up a note). And I had trouble getting as much of a “pear” shaped tone with the Selmer as I can with the R-13. (The pear-shape image was used by Robert Marcellus, and perhaps other teachers to describe and ideal core shape of the clarinet sound, slightly bulbous at the bottom.)
I found with the Selmers that at the bottom of the pear-shape I attempted to create with my air, I would hit a limit in what the bore would allow me to do, which prevented me from shaping the tone as I wished. I wanted a bigger room to dance in! It was for this reason I decided to stop playing them.
At this point I don’t think I will sell them, at least not yet. I want to try them again in a few months and see if I come to the same conclusion. If I still feel the same after that I will try to sell the set. (let me know if you might be interested)
It has been a very interesting learning experience and I have come to love my Buffets even more, with their complex poly-cylindrical bore and slightly more open feeling. I am now even more sensitive to “tightness” in Buffets. I am careful to look for enough openness, enough give, enough play in the sound where I have freedom to shape my tone, and I can get the bottom of that “pear” with enough ring and roundness and fullness.
While I was in the throes of re-examining my equipment, I tested out all my current barrels and bells with my two sets (Bb and A) of Buffet R13s. I also re-considered the various “tightness” of each of my Buffets to be sure each set matched well. (When switching from Bb to A or back in orchestra, it’s nice when the instrument switched to feels as similar as possible)
I matched up barrels and bells to individual instruments, again (I have done this before, but had the Selmers in mind as my primary instruments then). I found that certain Backun barrels (for more on Backuns, see Backun Fever and Backun Fever 2) went better with certain instruments, and the Morales-Backun (MoBa) barrels with the other set.
The grenadilla “Fatboy” Backuns seemed to sound best with my chosen orchestral instruments (first set) with their more solid core of tone, with the MoBa bells for those, since they add just a touch of roundness and softness to the tone to balance the directness of the Fatboy barrels.
I chose the MoBa barrels, with their slightly softer wood and more rotund shaped tone, for my second set of instruments, my solo/chamber music instruments, which I will also use for practicing at home.
My newest R13 A clarinet, which I bought last year, and which has a fantastic sound, became my choice for my home instruments (second set), while my older A, which is a bit more open, with that larger, rounder “pear” shape, was moved to my orchestral set (first set).
This decision felt right, for my current orchestral Bb has a very extroverted and flexible tone, and the older A, purchased around the same time, matched its tonal shape well. My second Bb, which is also a beautiful, but slightly tighter feeling, will now pair very nicely with the newer A and its similar feel and resistance.
Enough shop talk for now. If you made it this far, I hope I have opened your eyes to the subtleties of tone and equipment and their intrinsic relationship to the personality of the player.
If you are intrigued by the fame of Buffet’s R-13 tone, please read the following testimonial from an oboist in S America:
I write after hearing a moving concert of the Mozart clarinet concerto played by an ex-colleague (Jose Botelho), who is older than Drucker and plays… in the opinion of many out here at least, almost if not just as well as the great NY Phil clarinetist.
In any case, he is still performing on a Buffet, with a new type of mouthpiece and ligature. giving it a round and big sound –in contrast to years ago. Nevertheless the Buffet clarinet, at least out here in Brazil, seems in a declining period as most young instrumentalists are purchasing a lovely clarinet made in Chile by an Argentine called Rossi. [Luis Rossi Clarinets are beautiful. I have played one, and loved it, but feel quite content now to stick with my sweet Buffets]
But still, to these aging ears there is no clarinet sound like the Buffet. For me not even Selmer comes close to it. And the sound of the clarinet is important to double reed players…
I can only imagine my own reaction to the decline of the Buffet clarinet, is similar to those who were opposed to the great changes in the oboe,when it converted to a full key system after the top of the top many moons ago was an open hole system.
Any reaction is always appreciated, updating this observer how the Buffet clarinet is doing in your part of the world.
Regards,
Harold Emert
There you have it. Mr. Emert brings up an interesting point: the decline of Buffet in some musical cultures, where a slightly different concept of tone, led by different clarinet makers, is replacing that famous sound of older players.
Even in the US, a change in tonal culture is taking place, led by the Morales Backun collaboration with Leblanc, and the slightly more “bulbous” tones produced by their equipment. (My Backun equipment, carefully chosen to match my needs, adds a mellower color and more rounded shape to my “pear”.)
I can’t pretend I haven’t been around awhile. Robert Marcellus and Harold Wright still emit the ultimate clarinet tones to my ear, and they played Buffet clarinets.
