Volume 33 Number 3 June 2006 - International Clarinet Association

EXERCISE FOR
TONAL RESONANCE
Sit at the piano, depress the right sustaining
pedal, and play two-octave scales
on the clarinet. Play the scales under a slur,
listening to the sympathetic hum of the
strings. Use eighth-notes, trying to imitate
in your own sounds some of the humming
undercurrent heard in the piano strings.
Then repeat the scale all tongued with
each note finished by breath control re -
lease together with only a moderate tongue
articulation back to the reed. The result
should be an open-ended style of release.
Listen simultaneously to the intermingling
of both your tone and the piano strings
vibrating sympathetically.
Play each scale a third time with short
staccato, again breathing off each tone as
before but tossing the tongue back to the
reed with a violent “tee” stroke, positively
trapping off the sound. Correctly done, a
resonating carry-on past the intended
release point should be heard, regardless of
the extremely short and abrupt release.
Step up the speed with sixteenth-notes and
repeat the routine without the aid of the
piano, trying to retain the ringing effect in
the clarinet sound.
THE TONAL CONCEPT
Developing tone quality rests primarily
with first establishing correct concept of
sound. The abundance of live radio, television
and recorded music offers the student
a wealth of tonal ideas both good and bad.
The teacher must help students become
aware of the finest characteristics of tone
for a particular instrument, then guide them
aurally in selecting and formulating only
the best qualities into a composite concept
as a model to pattern from and to compare
with their own developing sound. Teacher
direction is vital; otherwise players form
tone only through parrot-like imitation of
the sound heard around them.
Certain basics are common to all clarinet
tone and can be taught in a group, but
beyond this, tone becomes individualistic
and personal, based on a composite blending
of several factors including the clarinet,
mouthpiece and reed set-up, the support
area, the use of the lungs, throat, jaw,
lips, tongue, oral cavity, sinus and nasal
cav ities, and even the emotional, intellectual
and nervous make-up of the player.
Page 34
THE CLARINET
Mechanisms have been set up to simulate
clarinet sound such as a pressurized,
stimulated column of air leading from a
tube into a rubberized kind of embouchure
attached to a mouthpiece, reed and clarinet.
What is the result Nothing but a
noise like the honk of an auto horn with
none of the personally shaped qualities and
the delicate, guided, changing nuances
which we know as tone quality. As ex -
pressed by the English clarinetist Jack Bry -
mer, the player must “taste” his tone to cre -
ate fine sound.
When concepts are realized by the phys -
ical self into a beautiful sound, the player’s
inner thoughts, feelings, musicianship, and
yes, his very nature, come through on the
vehicle of his tone. Surely this is sufficient
reason to develop the purest, finest textured,
flexible, liveliest, and more beautiful
tone quality possible.
My first serious attempts at tonal im -
prove ment centered around a discovery
that stronger blowing produced more characteristic
and filled-out tone. By sheer
pow er I was exploiting the overtones, forcing
certain partials into prominence. Al -
though the tone improved, the excessive
effort involved cramped my embouchure,
constricted my throat and tongue, and added
undue tension to my hands and fingers. I
soon found that my tone could not be any
better than my attack mechanism which
precedes and initiates the tone. In other
words, the best tone must be present in
every phase of the attack and likewise
manifest itself in the final fragments of
tonal ending as well. I reasoned that any
faultiness in the mechanism of attack or
release will affect the main body of tone in
a like manner. I concluded that an attack
and release are integral parts of tone.
In my practice of long tones I soon discovered
I was acquiring more harm than
value, doubtlessly typical of the average
young tone seeker who plays a sustained,
hard tone until exhausted while miserably
tightening up in his embouchure, throat,
hands and fingers. This tenseness was
compounded when I added crescendo and
diminuendo. Because of these and other
reasons, I have searched for a means of
achieving fine tone quality without sacrificing
freedom and ease to do so.
Teachers who believe in hard-blown
tone for beginners do have a point in establishing
some true clarinet timbre right at
first by producing prominent overtones;
however, my experience is that once they
apply sheer blowing power it is difficult
later to draw the tone down from over -
blown proportions. Furthermore, the tone
is apt to be spread and harsh.
I turned next to listening to and imitating
prominent clarinetists playing passages
in orchestral recordings. Eventually, I held
a composite tone in mind from several of
these best players’ sounds, a concrete idea
from which to form my own individual
quality. This introspection about a number
of prominent clarinetists’ tones led me to
believe that tone coloring beyond a certain
basic point was a matter of personal and
traditional taste, ranging from the German
or Austrian dark, dense, smooth, liquid
sound to the light, brighter and possibly
slightly reedy tone of the French, Belgians
or Italians. If there could be an American
type it might be placed mid-way between
the above schools of tone.
* * * * *
What Stein has said immediately above
concerning the various national schools of
tone quality is by now, of course, slightly
dated, as these ideas were written by him
some thirty or even forty years ago. Nev er -
the less, although today there is certainly a
very definite American school of clarinet
tone quality, and some of the European
national schools of tone quality themselves
have changed since Stein commented on
them as above, it can be seen that his basic
observation still has a certain valuable va -
lidity today.
In the next issue we will deal with the
remainder of Keith Stein’s materials related
to tone quality.
ABOUT THE WRITER…
David Pino is professor of clarinet in
the School of Music at Texas State Uni ver -
sity in San Marcos. He studied with Keith
Stein for 15 years, and is the author of the
book The Clarinet and Clarinet Playing
(Scribner’s, 1980, and Dover, 1998). He
has performed and toured with the David
Pino Chamber Ensemble (clarinet, strings,
and piano), and is a former Secretary of the
International Clarinet Society.