Playing too loud

[Gandalfe]

I read about a tenor player whose community band director criticized his choice of a link STM. He was emphatic about it. Too harsh. Didn't blend. Cut through everything.

At the next rehearsal the tenor player had the link carefully dressed in black electrical tape. The director commented on how much better the blend sounded.

Sometimes these guys hear with their eyes.

Uh, not in this case. These aren't subtle blend problems I'm talking about. Think of a loud-playing 6th grader playing everything blastissimo in a good high school band. Scary actually.

The first step is to get them to listen and to do that they have to play softer. Not by a lot but enough so that they realize they have no air support. If we were talking semi-pros, the ask is much less or not worth pursuing.

 

[Al Stevens]

Think of a loud-playing 6th grader playing everything blastissimo in a good high school band. Scary actually.

What's scary is that someone agrees to put a sixth grader in a good high school band.

 

[bari_sax_diva]

As a point of information the conductor and I are the same age, seventy-five. I have made the decision to resolve the situation by resigning from the band.

If you think the situation is unresolvable, then do what you have to do.
Another possibility--especially if you like playing in this band--would be to inquire whether anyone had an inexpensive bass clarinet lying around they would loan or sell you, and then play THAT in the band. The same things that annoy your director when you're in the clarinet section will probably make him LOVE to have you on bass clarinet... especially since you appear to have no other low woodwinds.

And then... someone ELSE can deal with the impossible situation on the 1st clarinet book.

 

[Gandalfe]

If you think the situation is unresolvable, then do what you have to do.
Another possibility--especially if you like playing in this band--would be to inquire whether anyone had an inexpensive bass clarinet lying around they would loan or sell you, and then play THAT in the band. The same things that annoy your director when you're in the clarinet section will probably make him LOVE to have you on bass clarinet... especially since you appear to have no other low woodwinds.

And then... someone ELSE can deal with the impossible situation on the 1st clarinet book.

Whoa, very clever there.

 

[SOTSDO]

Also, what is the state of your vibrato?

I have heard the code words "You're too loud!" uttered when what was meant was "You play with too much vibrato!", these words being addressed to clarinet players who came to the craft via the saxophone.

As a young lady kept uttering in the movie Fired Up, which was a choice forced on us last week but one that these two old folks were glad that it was, "I'm just sayin'..."

 

[Ed]

Volume is always a challenge. Most directors in wind ensembles are still trying to figure out why saxes are even allowed in the band and why we all just don't play a sensible instrument like . . . anything else.

I play in a classical group and the director hates fibercell reeds. I asked her how I sounded on tenor and she said I had a nice sound. I then told her I had been playing on fibercells for the last six months. She was shocked. I have since gone back to cane on everything but soprano but at least the perception was changed a bit.