[Dixielandjazz] Vibrato

[Charlie Hooks]

Vibrato usage among classical clarinetists has varied greatly over 
time.   We now, of course, admire (I certainly do) the clear white 
column of sound produced by Larry Coombs of the CSO (my favorite 
player) and by all international class players.  But it was not 
always so.

The great English clarinetist whose name escapes me at midnight now 
(and I'm too lazy to break and look him up) has written a book on the 
clarinet in which he recounts having met in his youth an aged 
musician who had worked with Muehlfeld, Brahms' clarinetist.    "He 
had a marvelous sound," the old man said.  "The vibrato--as wide as a 
cello's."   "Surely," objected our modern player, "you don't mean the 
cello!"   "Ooh, yes," the old man remembered, "very wide and 
powerful."

Interesting.   I really should look up that book tomorrow, somewhere 
on my shelves, and cite it for you all: every clarinetist should read 
it--along with the text of a German clarinetist, Oskar Kroll, who 
published under the 3rd Reich's rule and is less well known that he 
should be.   In it he discusses experiments made by the Germans on 
materials used in clarinet construction that might be of interest to 
the list:

The material used in constructing the clarinet body, they discovered, 
made absolutely no difference to the sound: they tried glass; they 
even tried concrete.  No difference.  But the material of the 
mouthpiece made total difference.  Wood, rubber, metal, glass--all 
gave totally different sounds.  I can't recall whether they tried 
concrete.

Charlie Hooks
____________________________________________
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long 
plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die 
like dogs.   There's also a negative side."--Hunter Thompson