Chapter V: Tone Development, Breathing, and Phrasing

    One of the most unique and attractive features of the clarinet is its beautiful tone. Since its appearance around 1700, it gained the reputation of having great dynamic range and flexibility, and a sound that is unlike any other wind instrument; able to sound shrill as a trumpet on one hand, and sweet and clear on the other hand.
As clarinet pedagogy developed, more focus was given to sound production and quality, starting from a written description of the tone the player should aspire to, and later providing many exercises that aim to achieve the desired result.
As the quality of the tone partly depends on the type of embouchure and reed position - a topic that will be covered in a separate chapter - in this section I will focus on the different aspects of sound production.

Tips for Choosing and Making Reeds

    Most writers name the resistance of the reed and the quality of the cane as important factors in easy and free sound production, full and stable tone, and the player’s endurance. In his earliest method, Vanderhagen provided useful recommendations for the beginning clarinetist, and guidance and explanation of the reasoning behind his suggestions:1

"A beginner must not use a strong reed because it makes the instrument more resistant for him than is effective [...]. Strong reeds can also make the clarinet screech and cause it to lose a lot of air through both sides of the mouth. It is necessary then to make a soft reed for the beginner, but not too weak because the sound will resemble a duck."2

Thus, a beginner needs a soft-medium strength reed, that would enable him to produce a nice and full sound, without straining the embouchure or compromising the tone quality and stability.
In order to test the reed, Vanderhagen suggests testing the reed in the chalumeau register of the clarinet, playing within the octave between the lowest e to e’. Then, “if all these notes come out well and velvety and without squeaking, the others will come out the same, at least up to high C or D”.

In his 1799 method, he repeats his call for the student to choose a reed that is not hard, nor too soft. He offers to reach a “good compromise by taking a very strong reed and weakening it because it is very easy to perfect its fit by shaving it a little with a penknife”.
In his last edition, he made a remark that suggests that as the player strengthens his embouchure, he may need to use harder reeds:

"[…] you will strengthen [the reed] by gradation as your lips become stronger, stopping however, when you have managed to obtain a pleasant tone, full of softness; but one obtains these advantages only by constant work, preservation, and above all patience."3

In his 1802 Méthode de Clarinette, Lefèvre suggested the same, presenting similar arguments:

"One must also take care in choosing reeds. With a reed that is too weak, one can only get a thin sound, disagreeable to the ear and ineffectual, especially when articulating, which will misrepresent the beauty of the instrument; besides, a weak reed does not possess the consistency required to make the sound. A reed which is too hard is also ineffectual for the reason that it tires the chest, hurts the lips, ruins the embouchure, makes the sound erratic, and makes the breath leak from both sides of the mouth, lowering the air pressure in the clarinet; therefore, one must have a reed that is neither too weak nor too strong."4

Other writers elaborated more on the topic of making and improving reeds, choosing the cane, etc. Backofen, for example, stated in his Anweisung zur Klarinette nebst einer kurzen Abhandlung über das Bassett-Horn that while some players prefer a softer reed, others may be inclined to use harder reeds.5 Regardless of the player’s personal preference, however, the cane chosen for the making of the reed should be as hard as possible, with golden color. To this claim, Lefèvre added that acquiring a good, ripe cane is a hard task, as the cane was often cut too soon, while it’s still green, or too late, when it has already gone dry: “When they are too green they are spongy and render the sound flat; when they are too dry they lack the sap to make the essential vibrations.”6
Going back to Backofen, he also provided a list of tools needed for reed making, including a sharp knife, a small piece of wood on which the reed should rest, a piece of broken glass, and a wide file. He also illustrated several possible designs for reeds, that one can choose according to the shape of his mouthpiece.
Much more can be said about the topic of reed making, but I chose to highlight the basic factors that can affect the sound quality, and are relevant for the beginning clarinetist.

    Vanderhagen was the only author of the three who discussed the process of breaking in a new reed.7 Recommending not to make the reed too soft, and playing it a little for a day or two. Then, the cane stabilizes, gets used to the moisture and vibrations, and reveals its true character, difficulty, strengths, and weaknesses. Once the reed is stable, he adds, the player can go back and re-work the reed if necessary.8

Dynamic Nuances, Phrasing, and Breaths

    The early methods show a great connection between the dynamics and other aspects of music making such as tone quality and phrasing. In his methods, Vanderhagen claims that in order to achieve a beautiful sound, one should learn to “swell” the note. This effect, called messa di voce, is a vocal and instrumental technique “which consists in beginning the note very gently and softly and letting it swell little by little to the loudest forte and thereafter recede with the same artistry from loud to soft.”9
Vanderhagen claims in his 1785 book that acquiring good sound is the most important achievement for a beginner. He speaks against challenging the student with technically demanding pieces that are out of the student’s reach and argues that the way to achieve a beautiful tone is by playing simpler melodic pieces. He also connects beautiful sound to finger technique, by suggesting that the beginner is inclined to “roll his fingers” on the instrument, resulting in uneven motion from note to note, poor intonation, and strange and unintentional glissando-like effect.
For developing a good tone, he provides the following suggestion, demonstrated by an exercise. This is the first time that this type of exercise, which became a staple in all wind instruments pedagogy, appears in a clarinet treatise:

"For acquiring a beautiful sound, do not try to roll your fingers on the instrument, but on the contrary, play the scale very slowly and swell the sound of each note. When you play the scale, play also Adagio or Andante, and finally all melodic pieces, banishing Allegro and Presto until you are sure of the sound and of the fingers. […] Here is an example of a scale that I want you to look over. Sustain each note as much as your lungs will permit and begin each note with very little air and then swell gradually."10

    Although he did not mention the topic of tone development in the 1799 print, he returned to it in his 1819 edition, saying:

"Sound is the most essential thing for any instrument. A beautiful sound can only be acquired by playing scales long enough and very slowly. When starting the very soft sound, swell it to the middle of the note. and then descend gradually while decreasing the sound; everything here depends on the constant work of the student. The master can contribute to it only by advice."

He also adds this interesting comment: “I agree that this kind of study may seem boring to a beginner who, even before being master of his embouchure, would already like to play tunes, however I do not know of any other way to acquire a beautiful sound, other than by studying the examples above. as well as those that follow; and then slow airs until the sound is proper, the embouchure and fingering well formed.” 11

Other authors who gave similar importance to dynamic nuances as essential to the making of a beautiful tone are Backofen, and Ozi, as demonstrated in examples 5.3 and 5.4.

    Some authors, I have found, preferred to approach the topic of dynamically nuancing the sound differently, focusing on whole phrases. Lefèvre, for example, treated the nuancing of the sound as means of expression, and not as means of acquiring a good, shaped tone. He used dynamic nuances similar to the manner he would apply different articulations and embellishments. As he writes in his own method:

"Playing the clarinet can sound monotonous when the artist does not nuance the sound and his articulation, and plays without intention or expression and without aplomb. It is not sufficient to read the music and play the notes, it is also necessary to add the required expression appropriate to the character of the piece. One must divine the intentions of the composer, seize hold of the style he wishes to portray, supply what he did not write down – what he could not have written without causing embarrassment or confusion. The uniformity of playing of articulation has often given the instrument a reputation for coldness and monotony, which must be due to the player who does not know how to benefit from his instrument. The nuance of the sound – this is to give it greater or less force when beginning or finishing, as required by the style. To vary a melody means to add notes in good taste, thus when the same phrase is repeated several times in the same mode, one must vary them each time with nuances or grace notes, although this should only occur in the solos, and it is necessary that the artist has good taste, that he is a good reader and that he understands harmony, because instead of adding to the charm of a piece of music, he may destroy the effect of it by the inept addition of defective notes which bear no relation to the harmony."12

Ozi also provided similar examples for dynamic nuances, articulation, and embellishments as means of expression, as demonstrated in example 5.6.13

And finally, as also seen in Backofen’s earlier example (5.7)14

    According to these examples, it can be determined that the phrase dynamically progressed with the direction of the melody: if the melodic line ascends, then the dynamic rises, if the melody descends, so does the dynamic. It is fair to assume that both approaches were just two sides of dynamic nuances that were practiced and applied all at once; one is a technical aspect of dynamic nuance, that is used in order to strengthen the embouchure, round the tone, and assist in developing the proper finger technique, and the other, a more musical, expressional approach.

    However, the topic of phrasing does not end in dynamically building the phrase and is strongly connected to the element of breathing. Different writers highlighted different aspects of taking a breath, but they all seem to have been in wide agreement when it came to phrasing: the breath should never disturb or break the musical phrase. In his 1799 method, Vanderhagen thoroughly covered the subject while listing the places one can or mustn’t take a breath:

• In order to take a breath, one can shorten the value of a note.

• Breathe after a group of slurred notes, never between them.

• It is possible to breathe after phrases of four or eight bars.

• Never breathe between the penultimate and the ultimate notes of a phrase.

• One must never wait until he’s completely out of air in order to take a breath. This, according to the writer, is a very common mistake among beginning students. Not breathing for too long can cause fatigue, and in the end, creates the opposite effect by forcing the player to take an inappropriate breath in the middle of a phrase.
  
  

He later repeated the same bullet points in his latest edition, while comparing breaths to periods and commas in speech; meaning, that an inappropriate breath can disfigure a phrase in a way that may turn it unrecognizable, and not understandable.

Examples 5.8-5.10, taken from his 1819 book, demonstrate these concepts.15

    Finally, on the topic of breathing, Vanderhagen made an interesting remark, rarely mentioned in early clarinet literature. In his two earlier method books, while discussing the structure of a good posture, he also connects the positioning of the head to the ability to breathe freely. Therefore, the head mustn’t be angled up or down, as this disturbs and constricts the player’s breathing.