Your Developing Clarinet Choir: Goal Setting, Risk Taking, and the Role of Repertoire

by Margaret Thornhill

The two articles that began this column in 2007-08 offered suggestions for "Starting a Clarinet Choir." In this issue, I'll consider ways an established group with a core membership and a performance history can envision new goals, sharpen performance skills, and improve player morale. 

Recipe for Technical Growth

Developing your group's technical ability starts with valuing your players—respect for your students, appreciation for your colleagues. Musicians play best when they feel valued. As a conductor or coach, acknowledging your players means publicly complimenting the good, both during and after rehearsals or performances.

But the most immediate way to encourage individual players to grow technically--and to show that you value their participation-- is to offer solo opportunities, however small. Preparing to play a solo raises that member's stake in the performance (and her performance level) tenfold. It's important to keep these opportunities scaled to the abilities of the player and help that player master his solo in rehearsal.

You can show appreciation to your principal players by giving them opportunities for larger scale solos with choir. Among the many excellent works available:  Gordon Jacob's "Tartini" Concertino arranged by the composer for solo with clarinet choir (Boosey and Hawkes, out of print); David Heim's arrangement of the von Weber Quintet Fantasia and Rondo (Shawnee Press); Roland Cardon's transcription of Ponchielli's Il Convegno for two solo clarinets and clarinet choir (Andel); Andy Scott's eight clarinet arrangement of his original salsa, Paquito (www.astute-music.com), which has a featured B-flat soloist. Don't be afraid of showing preferential treatment: featuring section leaders is what your members will expect and what confirms for them your confidence in the section leader as a model to emulate (In my opinion, this is the only reason for designating "principal" players). If you have spectacular players who aren't often noticed in the group, their solo work can serve as an inspiration to the entire group to improve and may even surprise you. 

Equally important, find chances for players who aren't section leaders to show what they can do best in a solo passage. These opportunities are especially important in motivating part-time players toward more frequent and productive practice. When selecting new repertoire, I frequently look for scores with solo opportunities in many parts, keeping particular individuals in mind. At a recent concert, Paul Harvey's cinematic British romp, Dances of Atlantis (Renard) served this purpose nicely. While the piece is pure froth, even the contra gets a challenging, if darkly lugubrious, solo turn.

Featuring members of the group serves a different purpose than extending solo invitations to guests. Celebrity soloists are inspiring to hear, and they can help draw new audiences to concerts. The soloist colleague, however, is an approachable role model. We may adulate famous players, but we suffer with, cheer on, and hope to catch up with our peers.

Making Players Collaborators

An additional way to show respect for your players is for you, the conductor, to accept and listen to comments offered in rehearsal. 

Yes, every group has at least one player bursting with good ideas. The sharing of ideas shows you that your members are stakeholders in the outcome of the group. This is what you want! As long as you can keep suggestions from disrupting the rehearsal (keep them short!), show respect for what your players have to say, whether you act on the suggestions or not. Annoying as this may be to some conductors, your players' comments are your best feedback on what you have to offer them. If you are yourself a performer, take care not to forget how it feels on the "other end" of the baton.

Engaging your players with the group's future is easy. But treating them as respected friends and co-creators is essential. You should stay attuned to what is going on with a player's gigs, horns, day job or personal life, especially as it relates to music making and attendance patterns. Your attention to these matters is even more important if you are the conductor of a college student group.

Conductor as Teacher

Here's another way of viewing your mission with the group: you are nurturing individual talent, not just group performance. This is perhaps easiest with a group of your own students, of course, but it's largely a question of being aware of opportunities that come up naturally in rehearsal where you can, and should, offer needed expert information about the clarinet. This is the single most important advantage of having a performer-teacher as conductor of a same-instrument group. There is never a rehearsal in which I do not make some offhand technical comment that derives from my years of private clarinet teaching. When I assign new works, I also make it a point to play through all the soprano parts, anticipating what might prove difficult for the people in that section. 

Sometimes I prompt musical awareness just as I would in a private lesson, by asking my players to problem solve: which way of phrasing this sounds best to you? Are the basses soft enough? What happens if you play that passage ppp? Which section has the primary voice in this passage? Sometimes we conduct experiments to find out what works: does this unison passage have better intonation if the principal bass matches the contra, or if the contra matches the principal bass? Which is easier? (FYI: Bass should match contra.)

With non-students, you may not be able to remake someone's embouchure or technique, but you can offer solutions to problems and refine musical taste. You can create teachable moments in rehearsal by making players aware of nuances or technique needed to produce a certain stylistic effect. Make them aware of the various options and why you prefer what you are asking for. Hear player differences in articulation or phrasing in a passage? Publicly identify the best of what you are hearing. Ask a section leader to play the passage alone and if it's successful, ask the other players to match it. 

Musical Chairs

In my group, I have one or two players on each soprano part who rarely move from that part, and other players who rove back and forth between soprano parts for different pieces. I find that this helps create a wider range of learning experiences for all.

Roving players serve several purposes. We have many people who would be excellent as first chair players in a larger group, but that is not possible for balanced allocation of the soprano parts. 

A very experienced player who roves can offer skill and encouragement to different sections as a natural teacher or catalyst. This player may be able to energize a difficult 3rd clarinet part or provide rhythmic verve for a syncopated inner voice. 

We also want to give all players a chance to play lyrical material so that their expressive instincts continue to grow.  A player who has the tone but not the technique to play first or second in all pieces can still make a good contribution by occasionally moving up in selected repertoire. This creates a better sense of collaboration as well as a musical change of scene for the roving player. 

Tonal blend is also shaped by the repositioning of individuals in the section. Why not also try out some of the experimental seating techniques vocal conductors use to promote blend? Scatter firsts among seconds and thirds; rearrange the sections; evaluate the result of forcing players to listen differently.

Members and Morale

As a rule of thumb, I believe in auditioned groups, no matter how open the membership. It's really important for players to be heard—for their abilities to be known to the conductor. In most situations, the "audition" eliminates the prospect of dissatisfaction with placement.

Most morale problems in long-term performance groups are the result of frustrated ambition. In my own group, every player must be willing to play any position --no primadonnas allowed! A player of modest skills who feels "overqualified" to play 3rd clarinet won't be asked to stay. The amazing thing about my group is the way friendships have evolved; people genuinely like each other and support each other's efforts as musicians. It's high achieving, without being "competitive."

Reconsidered Goals

In a conducted group, the mentor has the additional responsibility of continually reassessing the group's mission, direction and artistic goals. As members learn to play together and commit to a higher level of performance, the group's potential goal may change from the simple, original one of learning pieces and doing concerts. When appropriate, calculated risks, whether in repertoire or performance opportunities, can rapidly move a group into a different category. 

My own 14-member community group, the Los Angeles Clarinet Choir, is now starting year five. In hindsight, year one was about stabilizing membership, learning repertoire, developing a characteristic group sound, and fixing intonation. People had fun.

In year two, everything changed. We were presented with the challenge of a commissioned work in a style that was more difficult than our previous repertoire. There were numerous solo opportunities in all parts. The group was so enthusiastic about learning the piece that each of them improved (as a clarinetist) in order to master it. Because we felt that work deserved to be more widely known to performing groups, learning and performing the work soon led to a second, unanticipated goal of taking it to ClarinetFest07, which proved achievable.  Repeat performances and a recording prior to the trip built confidence and a sense of professionalism, necessary to the challenge of performing for peers in a critical venue. The trip strengthened the social bonding of the group, which in turn strengthened its musicianship further.

High school and college groups have long known the value of touring: burnishing performance skills while repeating repertoire for new audiences in unfamiliar surroundings, while also building shared memories. While playing at a ClarinetFest may be an extreme case, even a run-out concert could create a big boost in self-esteem for your clarinet choir. Better still, try participating in a local clarinet day or traveling to the  Vandoren Clarinet Ensemble Festival, held annually in different regions.

Social bonding

Is the social side of being part of a performing group important to musical success?

Many of my players consider 2008 to be remarkably different because we had a number of parties and rehearsals in people's homes. This started because we couldn't get the rehearsal time we needed in our sponsored venues but it continued because people felt so appreciated and close to each other in a relaxed setting.

My group loves to eat! They play better after consuming a mound of Vicky Ramos's four-star shrimp ceviche.

Repertoire as Risk Taking

What are your hopes for your clarinet choir's next concert?

Risk taking with repertoire is another way to jumpstart your group to a higher level. As leader of the group, it's your job to search out reasonable challenges, though—matched to your players in difficulty and to your ensemble's realistic future size.

Maybe you've dreamed of playing one of Harvey Hermann or Dan Freeman's symphonic transcriptions (March, 2009) but can't find the bodies to grow your group to 25 players? Can you "grow" in other ways with the personnel you already have?

 I personally love the chamber music sound of 14 clarinets.  Since 2005, I've been modeling my choir after the outstanding, but relatively small, Piet Jeegers Clarinet Choir, based in the Netherlands, but  best known in the US by their numerous high quality performances on CD. Among their excellent arrangements, suitable for modest forces, are the Ancient Aires and Dances of Ottorino Respighi (arranged by Jac Corstjens) which flatters the sound of massed clarinets almost as well as Respighi's original does the stringed orchestra.

An even more daring repertoire move is to focus on expertly-crafted, idiomatic original works.

In 2008, my group was frustrated after repeated performances of a difficult transcription for which we were dedicatees. One thoughtful member decided to gift us with scores to original compositions by Sammy Nestico, Robert Roden, and Elliott Del Borgo, none of which make great technical demands. These skilled and experienced composers for woodwinds instead challenged us to play our best and most blended and nuanced sound. We grew expressively as we lived with these pieces. They also formed the core of a dynamite "pops" concert.

Coming back to the Nestico A Study in Contrasts (Kendor Music) after our two month summer vacation in 2008 proved its worth as a study for tone. Using it as a warmup at our first fall rehearsal, we were stunned to find that the sound and intonation needed to perform the piece somehow "stuck." The group sounded just as good reading it at that rehearsal as we had performing it at the previous concert! We've been able to continue at a higher level than before, with less need for talk about blend, tone or tuning--indeed, starting and continuing many rehearsals with no tuning activity at all. We've continue to seek out and perform original works of greater complexity, such as Linkola's Chalumeaux Suite (see September, 2008).

There's a larger risk in trying works that are far beyond a group's current abilities.  In 2009, we were offered a  collaboration with a composer whose work proved far more labor intensive than we originally thought we could manage. With a commitment to performance already made, the honor of the group's promise was at stake, and we reorganized all our rehearsals to accommodate this unexpectedly chop-busting work. Everyone rose to the challenge, and though the work remains on the edge of our ability as individual members of a volunteer ensemble, successful preparation and performance has added new respect for the ensemble's learning curve.

Why we do what we do

One of the founding members of my group, Sarkis Hardy, put this best:

"I do not believe people will volunteer to put in the time and effort if they do not feel good about and have a trust for the other participants, no matter what the musical connection. Everything we have done is fun, including the anxiety filled performances.  All have shown concern for and trust of one another.

I believe the homogeneous sound, and the striving for a high level of musicianship and ensemble (we like to listen to one another) are important. My guess is that by and large everyone has a preference for or at least a strong affinity to chamber music. The group has grown and improved because musicians of a certain ability and inclination have heard us and became a part of it.

Performance is extremely important. Most everyone enjoys being associated with a successful group...In most cases performance and the preparation for it also takes each of us to a higher level musically on the clarinet." 

What Happens Over Time

As a group matures, part of its continued success is due to musical challenge, part to social affinity. These two factors can be reinforced by the conductor's willingness to view players as collaborators, to project higher goals for all its individual musicians, and to embrace reasonable risk-taking as a source of opportunity.

Copyright 2009, by Margaret Thornhill. All Rights Reserved.

This article appeared in the September, 2009 issue of The Clarinet.