Of course I forgot my recorder. After having managed to get my horn, my sheet music and my crappy tape recorder, I didn't realize till I was at Kirt's house that I didn't have my little digital recorder. Now I have to just reconstruct what I can.
In no particular order then:
We talked a lot about the recording of the concert that I attended at clarinet symposium. I have to say I have been listening to this recording quite a bit, and I am quite fond it of. It has given me an appreciation of the classical clarinet that I did not have before this. Let me also say that all the players on the tape are about 10,000 times better players than I am, and I would be happy to play anywhere near their level.
Kirt, being a teacher, is quite opinionated on all the players, and can frankly hear things that I cannot. I miss some of the spots where the players are sharp or flat - sometimes even in the same phrase.
Most intriguing to me of what Kirt pointed out was what he calls surging, and this is a bit difficult to grasp so bear with me. Two places where surging is apparent: when the player is playing a long phrase with lots of notes in succession, where the notes don't come out evenly during the phrase. Think of how if you are not careful, when you do something as simple as playing a C scale above the break, once you hit the G above the joint in the horn, the note can easily honk. You know what I mean, it will not sound dynamically or tonally the same as the other notes. I will pop out, and in a bad way. Bear in mind, these variations are not intentional, not artistic in intent, especially since classical players in particular want to have above all a clear, even tone.
The other part of surging to consider is when the score calls for note to be held for a long time. In this case, you can hear the amount of breath support ramp up and down, which also affects the tone. The most important point here, that I cannot stress too heavily: surging is NOT the same as dynamics! What I am aiming for is the ability to produce the same tone at low or high volumes. That is why when I play long tones, I start quietly, quickly ramp up to a high volume and do as long and gradual fade out as I can - and always trying to make the same tone. In every situation and on every instrument I have studied, that is the main thing: can you consistently produce the same tone and volume in whatever you play? Because as far as I am concerned, if you can't do this you are crippled. Its not at all like I am saying that anyone should not vary the dynamics and tone of a piece of music when they are playing it; that would make the music lifeless. But if you work at being able to control the tone and volume at both times, you will be the one in charge, and I would say, playing will become much less difficult for you. This is my experience with the guitar, and on the one or two occasions on the clarinet when this has happened, the whole playing experience becomes not effortless but just pretty easy. It's a hell of a lot more fun too, let me tell you.
As you know Kirt was taught, and played for years until he found his teacher that taught him the method he is teaching me, the standard classical technique of playing, which in part consists of very heavy reeds (think #5s if you can imagine) and a much more locked down approach to the embrosure, where instead of chewing up towards the beak of the mouthpiece, you are more biting upwards towards the rails of the mouthpiece. I know, I know it sounds crazy, and please excuse any glossing over of the classical method, but remember I am not being taught that way, thankfully. As Kirt has said several times, where the classical player is totally focused on the embrosure and making adjustments there Kirt's method is to move the focus back into the throat, as I have written about many times. The classical player with their setup and focus provides them with security, so that they can back off slightly on their breathing to get the tone. The method I am being taught, therefore, is much less rigid and less physically secure, if you will, but the result is once you get it much much less work for the player, where you can breath less and play longer phrases, for a long period of time, than with the classical method. Part of this ability to play longer amounts of time on one breath is that you don't increase dynamics by playing harder, but by opening the glottis more, which will allow more air to come out, thus more volume. But you are still putting the same amount of air through the horn.
Again, with the classical system, you are playing differently with each note you play; on this system, you are playing one long tone (with obviously very subtle adjustments of the gliss) and using the fingers to simply lengthen and shorten the column of air to produce the different notes.
So back to how this fits into phrasing and the problems of surging: the way I am being taught, you phrase with your fingers, not with your breath. Doing it this way, I think once I get better at this, will allow me much more flexibility in doing all the things that make a piece of music more than just notes on the page: the expression of thought as rendered through the instrument.
Just a final comment here from Kirt after reading this entry::
"The one main thing I would say is that the approach I teach is in fact the classical approach. There's just more than one approach. Ralph McLane and others blew one note while they moved fingers; they don't surge."