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Some interesting words written by my son's teacher's husband, a professional flutist
COMPARATIVE WOODWINDS
In presenting a “comparative woodwind” session for the VMTA's Summer Conference, I confined myself to the flute, recorder, oboe, bassoon, clarinet and saxophone. Mindful that the audience would range from highly knowledgeable to blissfully ignorant, I tried to cover the main bases with material ranging from banal to insightful.
“Familiarity breeds contempt” we are told. This is not a happy outlook for the much-maligned recorder, the best-known of the woodwinds. St. Paul said “When I was a child, I spoke as a child and thought as a child, but now I am become a man I have put away the things of a child.” This is advice which all too many promising young recorder players have acted upon when beginning High School. The ubiquitous and overworked recorder has borne the stigma of “primary school tool” for too long.
In reality it is a highly expressive instrument capable of virtuosic display. It does however, present certain challenges. Its very simplicity makes it highly effective in simpler keys, but renders chromatic passages extremely difficult, hence its fine record in music of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Modern composers have produced much engaging and challenging literature for the recorder in both solo and ensemble form, and virtuosi like our own Genevieve Lacy provide fine models across all forms. It will hardly come as a surprise that the most effective recorder groups are those which are led by dedicated and well-supported individuals, either in studios or schools.
Intra-group peer support seems to be an important factor in actively establishing respect for the instrument and its repertoire. And since nothing grows from nothing, the fine work of many hundreds of recorder groups across the country must be acknowledged. The teachers who run these groups have been responsible for seeding many careers, mostly on other instruments. In many cases these teachers are the thin red line between culture and the forces of materialism. I would love to see the work of these teachers carried on to higher levels by their talented graduates.
The flute, which we also know well in its metal form, developed from the recorder, and features an array of keys. The early flute looked rather like a recorder but was held sideways. The sound was produced by blowing across the mouth-hole, splitting the air stream. The recorder channels the airstream down a tunnel, and the stream splits against a fipple (or little ledge) which is fixed in place. The angle of the air stream on the fipple is fixed – you can't change it.
On a flute, you can change this angle, giving the player more control. When the English player, Nicholson, produced a bigger sound than his continental counterparts, they were very annoyed. They found that his flute had large finger holes, producing a bigger sound – he had enormous hands. Boehm, the German flautist, produced an instrument with large holes, but closed them by an ingenious system of levers and springs, which is the modern flute, capable of three octaves at dazzling speeds.
The primitive flute of Mozart's time (he didn't dislike the flute, just abhorred the poor intonation so frequently encountered on it) was soon superseded by the instrument we know today. The lowest register is problematic for the young player, as the tone is naturally weak. This is not an insuperable problem, but needs consistent and dedicated work.
The commonest complaint for a beginner is dizziness. This is merely oxygen surfeit from frequent blowing attempts, and passes quickly. The next problem is the inability to produce a sound. If the player can produce an airstream of the right velocity and focus, the flute (or just the head for starters) can be brought into line with the stream, thereby starting the tone. It then becomes a “knack”. Some have it right away, and others take a considerable time achieving it, but ultimately may do just as well.
Flutes have no reeds, and few moving parts to service. Maintenance is generally inexpensive, and the instrument itself not hard to acquire. Flute groups are fun and are found in most schools. Tuning adjustment is done firstly, by pulling the head joint out a little (this makes the instrument longer, and therefore flatter), or conversely, pushing it further in to make it sharper (often necessary in Winter). This is only an approximate tuning, and the player gradually learns to adjust for more refined tuning, by turning the head joint outwards (sharper) or inwards (flatter). These adjustments are necessary to counteract the tendency of the flute to play sharper in “f” and flatter in “p” dynamics.
One problem for the young flautist is the difficulty of finding solo spots on such a popular instrument. One solution for some has been to play the oboe. It looks rather like the clarinet, being small and black. However, it is a reed instrument, the reed being a double-bladed piece of cane (really “Arunda Donax” the Mediterranean giant grass from southern France). Whereas the flute player communes with their muse in a natural singing style, the oboe player must come to grips with the reed, which provides considerable resistance.
Sitting behind orchestral oboists, one is in no doubt of the back pressure involved, which results in bulging collars and eyes. As you would expect, this is not completely necessary, and there are many players who play beautifully with minimal resistance. This said, it must be acknowledged that the oboe is a very physical instrument. Early efforts at the oboe can be hard to live with, but modest gains become very effective. “A little oboe goes a long way” would seem to be the maxim of many a composer. Pick up the woodwind books of major Symphonies, operas and ballets, and you will find thick volumes for the clarinet, flute and even the bassoon, but the oboe volume is a slim one.
The oboe has two and a half octaves compared to the flute's three and the clarinet and bassoon's three and a half. Good composers realise that the instrument must be used sparingly, for both aesthetic and practical purposes. However, the oboe has a disproportionate number of highly expressive solos to play, making it a satisfying and rewarding instrument. As with the all woodwinds, a good ear is necessary to make the final adjustments in tuning, mainly through altering lip pressure.
The student oboe is usually at least twice the price of the flute, reeds can be expensive, and a specialist teacher is advisable, particularly with reed selection and adjustment.
The oboe's close relative is the bassoon, the tall chimney-like instrument lurking in the orchestra. Most non-musicians, upon being shown a picture of a bassoon, will identify it as the oboe, the sound of which word reminds them of the tone of the bassoon. This is an understandable mistake, based of course, in ignorance.
If you would correct them most bassoonists will be deeply in your debt. The heyday of the bassoon is long gone. Vivaldi wrote 50 concerti for it, Mozart 4 and Weber 1. Yet in that period the expressive powers of the orchestral bassoon increased enormously. The bassoon is a creature of half-moods. In its native register one would use the cello for lushness of tone. With the bassoon one gets dignity. For power the trombone is unrivalled. The bassoon offers earnestness. The French Horn gives grandeur, while the bassoon offers quirkiness. The bass clarinet, snarling, suggest evil, but the bassoon can only manage cantankerousness.
You will hear the bassoon as an unrivalled spare-parts instrument, colouring a cello solo, offering a woody octave sound to the clarinets, being, for all practical purposes, a fifth horn here, and a third trombone there. In chamber groups too, the bassoon is popular and useful. The bassoonist is never short of colleagues, all of whom want that warm, solid bass to underpin their efforts. The reed is larger and more forgiving than the oboe, and the amount of back pressure is quite a satisfying one.
Expense may be a problem, as most school bassoons could cost as much as two flutes, two clarinets and an oboe all put together (or, roughly, six flutes, or five clarinets or three oboes or dozens of recorders). All the instruments so far mentioned are in concert pitch. That means that they can play piano music unaltered.
Now the picture changes. May I introduce – the clarinet! Like the flute and the oboe, pressing down the first second and third fingers of the left (upper) hand, gives us three descending tones. On the flute and oboe and recorder, these are B A and G. On the clarinet, these are called E D and C. However they sound D C and Bb, a tone lower than their names. Consequently, clarinet music must be specially written a tone higher to compensate. There are many instruments like this, and their pitch is named after their named note C. The alto saxophone, playing a written C, sounds Eb a sixth below. It is, in consequence, the Alto Sax in Eb. Other instruments like this are the French Horn, Trumpet, Cor Anglais and Alto flute, just to name a few. It's an historical accident that they have turned out like this. For example, the C Melody saxophone was popular in the 1920s, but eventually it proved to have neither the mellifluousness of the alto or the virility of the tenor saxophones, so was abandoned.
Like the flute, the clarinet is an extremely nimble instrument, featuring the same Boehm system of keys levers and springs used on the flute. However, there is an anomaly in the clarinet sound as it comes out considerably deeper than one would expect for an instrument of this size. This is because it acts as a stopped pipe, the vibrating column of air being a U-shaped one, twice the length of the instrument. This gives a pleasant woody, hollow sound n the bottom register which is easy to learn and admits of fast progress.
However, on the left thumb is a special key, known on the other instruments as an “octave key”. Press this and tighten the embouchure, and suddenly, you're singing soprano. Try this on clarinet and you are in for a shock-the note jumps not eight notes, but twelve. In the upper register one has to re-learn the clarinet. The home sequence of notes in the bottom register is F Major, like a treble recorder, but in the upper register it is C major, like a descant recorder.
Since the clarinet is an instrument of the mid-eighteenth century, it has little baroque or early music, but much has been adapted, with varying degrees of success. It was a highly popular instrument in the 30s and 40s in the hands of the swing masters, but has largely been overshadowed in jazz by its glamorous cousin, the saxophone.
The saxophone was invented in the 1840s and has prospered. It looks like a highly complicated instrument, but in reality all that metal key-work enables a simple technique over two and a half octaves. The precision demanded of a clarinet player's fingers in sealing the finger holes is considerably relaxed on saxophone, the pearl buttons being quite forgiving of less-than-perfect finger placement. Saxophone tone is powerful and manipulable, enabling fast progress, but also allowing great freedom of expression in the right hands. The low notes are hard to produce unless the instrument is maintained in top condition – rarely the case in hard-worked school instruments.
The alto is the best known, and is in Eb, while the larger tenor is in Bb, an octave below the alto. The baritone is rarely privately owned, because of expense, but is an essential part of the stage band saxophone section, and provides a rich bass for the sax section. There is much literature, in both “classical” and contemporary styles, to engage and entertain the young saxophonist. As a family, the woodwinds are highly individualistic and colourful. They are worth getting to know even if occasionally temperamental, and will provide a rewarding relationship.
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我爱我家征文 - 搬家记事 (2008-4-9) patrickzhu 
楼主:intionfang
发表于 2016-9-18 22:01
