Introduction:
Working in the film studios...
Performance syles...
Reed-making...
Beveling the Cane...
Forming the Tube...
Wiring...
Contouring...
Reaming the Tube...
Flip Keys...
Brief Tips...: EMBOUCHURE, TONGUING, SCALES, DOUBLE TONGUING, VIBRATO, MULTIPHONICS
About the writer...
Introduction:
In part one of this interview, Don talked about one aspect of his career - performances in the 30s, 40s, and 50s with Schonberg and Stravinsky. Of special importance during these years was Don's involvement with Evenings on the Roof and Monday Evening Concerts. These two concert series in Los Angeles introduced young conductors and included the professional debuts of Michael Tilson Thomas and Lawrence Foster and the West Coast debuts of Robert Craft, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen - all appearing with Don's LA Woodwinds.
In part two, Don talks about performing in film studio orchestras and about reed-making. Of special importance to all bassoonists i's Don's work inventing and perfecting reed-making tools. His work has produced a large body of information about reed-making basics.
The interview was conducted at Don's home in Sherman Oaks, California in 1984 and through mail and phone conversations in 1985.
Charles Lipp: What
was bassoon instruction like when you were a student?
Don Christleib: I find it irresistible to compare the advanced state of oboe and bassoon instruction available today, at all levels, institutional and private, with what existed in the late twenties and thirties. Back then, symphony performers, if available, were almost the sole source for instruction. Of the few students being taught, it was usually the star pupil who benefited from the master's candid and complete instruction - a hangover from an old European guild system. The teaching of reedmaking was practically nonexistent, and sophisticated fingerings were guarded the same way mathematics was guarded by Egyptian high priests, revelation could mean the death penalty.
You see, when I started studying the bassoon in 1929, there were only two bassoonists teaching in town - one good and one bad. I got the bad. When I finally changed teachers, the new one didn't know how to make reeds. Only two players in town knew how to make reeds, and they weren't telling. So I was a typical, rebelling, young student. I was determined that if I ever found out how to make reeds, it would be as common a knowledge as I could make it.
By contrast, instruction today is rapidly proliferating. I am particularly gratified by the candor and devotion of my colleagues throughout the country to the needs of the young performer and to the applied and performing arts.
Some of these dedicated artists have been elevated to the position of professor or assistant professor. For the most part, they are the exceptions. Most are sought by the universities for their glamorous name value, to increase enrollment, or to show off to competing schools. Often, they are relegated to a vulnerable position - without rank, little pay, and no tenure.
I can think of a no more depressing example than Arnold Schonberg's coming to UCLA to teach composition for an insulting $2600 a year. At that time, a colleague of mine, clarinettist Bill Ulyate, was a graduate student at UCLA. When he obtained a contract to play for the Twentieth Century Fox film orchestra, he notified the head of the music school of his good fortune and his decision to terminate classes. Bill got a lecture instead of congratulations and was told, "In a few years, you'll wish you had my job. You know, I now have tenure, and that means I can kick Schonberg around." Such is the quality of some of our university heads.
Tragically, this absurdity is more typical than exceptional and occurs when first-rate professors, wanting to teach and compose, decline chairmanships in favor of lesser talents who thirst for power. For example, Gerald Strang, one of Schonberg's first American pupils, after being asked to head the music department in a new university, designed the auditoriums, rehearsal rooms, and a state-of-the-art electronic laboratory. After selecting his faculty, Strang turned over the chairmanship to an eager volunteer who upon receiving tenure fired Strang. Of course, another university drafted Strang, but the affront was taken personally by every composer in southern California.
Working
in the film studios...
CL: How
did you get started in the film studio orchestras?
DC: Before starting with Alfred Newman, with whom I worked for thirty years, there was a preliminary introduction to the film scene by working with Max Steiner, the major composer at Warner Brothers. He had been invited to conduct the WPA orchestra performing his Bird of Paradise with Delores Del Rio. Steiner liked the bassoon section, and we got word that we would be hearing from him.
I am obliged to say, however, that he invited me to play in the Warner Brothers orchestra because of another recommendation from his oboist, Lillian L'hoest - Lillian knew my playing from our playing together in woodwind quintets. She was one of three women musicians employed in all of Los Angeles. (The other two were Ethel Averill, oboist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Helen Little, flutist in the film studios.) All three were first rate performers and were highly respected by their comrades. The WPA orchestras became a major factor in opening the door for women performers. Men and women were almost in equal numbers in the WPA string section.
A new player coming into the studio orchestra scene was news. That meant that Alfred Newman was among the first to know of my playing at Warner Brothers. The next job call I got was from him.
In the Newman era, every studio had its orchestra, and his was one of the best. He was also an early student of Schonberg. But more than a student, he was a caring friend and played tennis with him two or three days a week. At his own expense, Alfred recorded the four Schonberg string quartets. As a child protege on the piano, Alfred had developed an uncommon respect and consideration for his performers, but he would never settle for anything but a player's best effort. It was through playing chamber music, one of my greatest preoccupations, that I grew closer to Newman in 1936 when we played the Mozart piano quintet together.
I left the WPA orchestra to join the LA Philharmonic under Otto Klemperer, for about half a season. I played in the bassoon section with my teachers, Achille Heynen and Frederick Moritz, with the intention of leaving to do studio work as soon as I was eligible. In those days, you had to be a member of the local union for one year before being cleared for studio work. But the year with the Philharmonic was a pithy one. We did Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel and Zarathustra, Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the first six weeks, following with the ballet Petrushka with Stravinsky conducting. It was the last season of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo featuring both Laschine and Massine.
Most of my work was with Alfred Newman and Twentieth Century Fox, but I had a chance to work at other studios, while he was negotiating for a release from his contract with the
Samuel Goldwyn studio. Here's a summary of my work in film studios.
At MGM, I worked with Stothart doing The Wizard of Oz and Greta Garbo's Camille; with Heyman doing Ninochka; with Dimitri Tiomkin doing The Great Waltz, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Rebecca; and with Max Steiner doing Gone with the Wind, A Star is Born (1937), The Life of Emile Zola, Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, Elizabeth and Essex, and Jezabel.
I also worked at MGM with Franz Waxman doing The Christmas Story. On the day The Christmas Story was recorded, the MGM orchestra had completed the recording of five pictures in thirty continuous hours with only time off for meals. The Christmas recording would mean a total of thirty three hours. While the orchestra members were moaning, Warwick Evans, former 'cellist with the London String Quartet, protested, ''Bakie, this is inhuman." Whereupon the contractor, Constantine Bakaleinkoff, replied in his best, Russian authoritarian manner, "You don like? Der's da door." At the next musicians union-film studio negotiations, this example was brought up resulting in a rule of time-and-a-half pay for playing after midnight. The reason for the marathon sessions in the first place was a law that taxed a studio's unused film if it were held past a certain deadline date.
For the Disney studios, I played in Pinocchio, Snow White, Peter and the Wolf, and both Fantastasias.
With George Gershwin I worked in The Goldwyn Follies and Shall We Dance (with Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astaire).
With Hugo Friedhofer I played in Marco Polo, The Lodger, Broken Arrow, The Young Lions, Lifeboat, Boy on a Dolphin, and One Eyed Jacks.
There were twenty-three pictures with Bernard Hermann, including Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, All That Money Can Buy, Jane Eyre, Anna and the King of Siam, Hangover Square, The White Witch Doctor, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Marni, and his last film, Taxi.
With Victor Young I did For Whom the Bell Tolls; with Miklos Rozsa I worked in The Four Feathers and The Macomber Affair.
I worked in all of David Buttolph's pictures, about fifty, at Twentieth Century Fox, including Chad Hanna, Immortal Sergeant, Guadalcanal Diary, The House on 92nd Street, 13 rue Madeline, and The Foxes of Harrow.
With David Snell at MGM, there were about twenty films including Madam X and Calling Dr. Kildare.
I worked in all of Cyril Mockridge's pictures (from 1940 through 1952) at Twentieth Century Fox, the most prominent being: The Ox Bow Incident, Cluny Brown, My Darling Clementine, The Late George Apley, and Miracle on 34th Street.
With David Raskin, I worked in Laura, Smoky, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Forever Amber, Suez, Attack in the Pacific, and Storm Warning. Dave loved wind chamber music - that's how we met. Later, he not only conducted my LA Woodwinds in performances of Mozart's K. 361 and the Dvorak Serenade, but he composed pieces for us like Morning Revisited for thirteen woodwinds. I still remember the morning we recorded the score for Laura. I arrived early at Twentieth Century Fox's stage one and met David entering also. He said, "Come over to my bungalow. I'll play you the theme. " He did and said, "It can't miss, but what about all those great song writers on the lot who are doing musicals and hate composers that do themes? Well, you know Preminger, protocol never enters his head. If it's a winner, criticism will be in check; if it's not, my name will be mud. "
With Bronislaw Kaper, I worked in San Francisco, Comrade X , and A Flea in Her Ear; with Alex North in Cleopatra, Spartacus, Daddy Longlegs, The Sound and the Fury, The Shoes of a Fisherman, Viva Zapata, The Long Hot Summer, The Agony and the Ecstacy, and The Misfits.
The name of Maurice de Packh should not be excluded because he was an arranger rather than a composer. He arranged for all of the above composers, and that sometimes meant composing whole cues. The same applies to Arthur Morton and Conrad Salenger.
In recent years, I did, with Leonard Rosenman, Fantastic Voyage, with Tom Scott, one of the Planet of the Apes series, and with John Williams, jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Next to Alfred Newman, I respect Jerry Goldsmith most for his originality. His prominant films for me were My Man Flint, Logan's Run, Mesada (the first halo, Breakout, Patton, and Tora, Tora, Tora.
With Alfred Newman, I did about one hundred and sixty films. The ones I enjoyed the most were Stella Dallas, Prisoner of Zenda, The Rains Came, Blood and Sand, Brigham Young, Drums Along the Mohawk, Bell for Adano, The Black Swan, The Song of Bernadette, Dragonwyck, A Royal Scandal, The Razor's Edge, Prince of Foxes, Pinky, All About Eve, David and Bathsheba, The Robe, How to Marry a Millionaire, Carousel, Bus Stop, The Diary of Anne Frank, Counterfeit Traitor, Keys of the Kingdom, South Pacific, and The Greatest Story Ever Told. Newman received Oscar nominations for Wuthering Heights, The Captain from Castille, How Green Was My Valley, Anastasia, South Pacific, Flower Drum Song, and How the West Was Won. Newman won an Oscar for The King and I.
Performance
syles...
CL: How do you make the adjustment
from playing chamber music to playing in the film studios?
DC: just as chamber music requires a style of performance that differs from symphonic playing, film music performance demands a carefully contrived, safe manner of phrasing developed over the years for reasons of economy - to minimize mistakes and ragged entries.
First, a film score requires a read through for correcting mistakes and then a read through timing. Then, the "takes" begin - one it there is a limited budget, several if the budget is big. If the conductor is well known, like Alfred Newman, Alex North, Jerry Goldsmith, Max Steiner, or Eric Korngold, they will take the time they need.
Alfred Newman could take one or two sessions for microphone adjustment and orchestra seating changes. He would usually shoot for the overall sound with a high, overhead, back-of-the-conductor microphone. Several mikes over each section, as many engineers preferred, were there but sparingly used and on an extra film track. Newman's directions to the players was I 'play as though this were a concert. " You need only to listen to reruns of Al's scores today to make a comparison with other techniques of recording.
Again, film studio performers have a safe, sure style of performing that is ideal for films. Of course, they are first-rate sight readers, but they use a style that cannot be used in chamber music or symphonic performance because the phrases are shorter, with clean rests and minimal "hangovers" or "tails." It's very similar to reading a new chamber piece for the first time. You do more listening to your colleagues and adjusting to coincide than to giving in to your personal phrasing preferences. Then, as you begin to get inside the work, you fill in the gaps or spaces in the phrase structure to give an overall shape of the movement - a luxury that films never allow.
Some of the living legends that set styles of performance that still prevail in the film industry were French hornist Alfred Brain (uncle of Dennis Brain), oboist Henri de Busscher, and bassoonist Frederick Moritz. All three were in the Los Angeles Philharmonic and pioneered in Al Jolson's The jazz Singer.
At MGM in the thirties, the outstanding performers were Phil Memoli, oboe; Jack Cave, French horn; Lou Raderman, concert master; and Manny Klein trumpet. At RKO, concert master Louis Kaufmann was a Bernard Herrmann favorite. At Twentieth Century Fox, were Louis Kaufmann and Felix Slatkin concertmasters; Kolya Levienne, Kurt Reher, and Eleanor Slatkin, 'cello; Ray Menlennick and Juscha Veise, viola; Chico Rivera and Mike Rubin, double bass.
Reed-making...
CL: During this time,
you were also making experiments with bassoon reeds.
DC: Yes, that's right. Much of the work was summed up in a film on reed-making.
A few years ago, the American Band Directors' Association convention gave me a chance to show this film, photographed by Harry Robin, an award-winning filmmaker. The film shows my machinery and the various steps of construction. The audience was fascinated and wanted to know how I got involved with machinery of such sophistication. I could only say it was born of frustration and anger, of not being able to find someone who would or could teach me how to make a reed.
I think my inventions, leading to the first automated profiler, the high speed diamond cutter, and the dial indicator, read like an adventure story. These solutions to reedmaking problems find us with a whole generation of reed makers who have never made a reed from anything but a profiled and shaped piece of cane. Even though many of my colleagues have chided me for my detailed work, to simplify the reed-making process has been more gratifying than trying to restrict, hide, or patent my discoveries.
The earliest desire to make reeds came while in high school. I got a piece of gouged cane. Taking an old reed apart, I traced its shape on the cane and then whittled the cane with a pocket knife. Of course, I had seen the sketches of shaped cane in the old French and German instruction books. I bought every hand tool I had seen in woodwind stores. In a primitive way, I got the tube formed and the blades filed down and cut apart. To make a long story short, I got a sound, not great or even good, but it was enough of a breakthrough that I never stopped exploring. I still am.
With my first payroll check from MGM, I spent every last cent commissioning the best mechanical engineer I could find. He came up with plans and scale drawings that he said involved the pantograph principle, which profiled the cane by following the contour of a template. Trial and error and dollars later, the machine was finished and ready for testing.
CL: Didn't some fundamental reed-making vocabulary get a start then, too?
DC: Yes, every engineer and machinist including tool and die makers, looking at the contour of a reed blade referred to it as a profile. I liked the description and used it, finding all my colleagues did likewise.
The machine worked, and I think it is safe to say that here was the birth of the fully automated, bassoon-reed, profiler. But there were flaws in the first design: the motor turning the fly cutter to trim the cane was too slow and, as a consequence, burned the cane. A faster motor solved the burn problem, but only temporarily. I spent a fortune looking for the hardest steel and carbon alloy cutters on the market but only achieved a minimal improvement. It was only after I met Herman Hansen, a clarinetist who worked for Roy Meier's reed company, did I find the solution. Herman was a diamond expert at the Meier company when it was making ten million clarinet and saxophone reeds a year. From him, I learned that diamond was the only material hard enough to cut cane.
CL: The first printed information I saw on reed measurement was your book on using the dial indicator micrometer.
DC: That was my treatise Notes on the Bassoon Reed. It initiated a lot of similar research, and the Notes wound up being quoted in more than one doctoral thesis. Most gratifying, however, was Lyndesay Langwill ascribing "Engineer" to my name in a review. The review attracted attention, and I had to reprint six hundred more copies of Notes to accommodate requests.
Also, my treatise of the bassoon bore ruffled some feathers but made a few bassoon factories reassess their techniques. Again, some quotes and independent investigations that followed wound up as doctoral thesis material.
CL: When did you get started with using a micrometer for making reed measurements?
DC: It was not until World War IL While working for an aircraft parts manufacturing plant, I found a whole new world of measuring. I was introduced to the micrometer and dial indicator. I could not help but wonder why these tools and their usage had been overlooked by our music world. All at once, I felt that we musicians were in the "pick and shovel" age when there were bulldozers all around US.
I shared my findings with my friend Ray Nowlin and, together with our Los Angeles bassoon club, we began measuring and plotting the contours of reeds from every bassoonist we could contact. Since dramatic similarities began to show up and our reeds began to benefit from this new knowledge, we started corresponding with colleagues throughout the country to exchange ideas.
Soon, we began to make dial indicators of the best quality for all those who became interested, indicators with jeweled actions. We knew that before long our design would be copied. Cheaper dial indicators hit the market. By then, we had established the principle of careful measurement, and there was no way the idea could be stillborn.
When I show the film on reed-making, it replaces a lot of words, but for those who have not seen the film, I'll outline the steps.
Beveling
the Cane...
From audiences' questions,
I found that next to the contour of the blades, the function of
beveling is the least understood step in reedmaking - even among
the old pros.
Beveling is cutting a bit of cane from the edges of the shaped and profiled stick of cane to help make an air-tight, round tube. Beveling, as taught by Frederick Moritz, my teacher, allows the shoulder at the first wire to act as a fulcrum - in other words, a pivot point. The second wire takes on the function of control. It controls the opening of the lips of the blades. Instead of constantly squeezing the sides of the tube at the first wire to keep the lips open, a one-time squeeze, top and bottom, at the second wire is all that's needed.
Using a file, start the bevel near the shoulder or ledge. Gradually increase the depth of the cut to where it coincides with the rind just beyond the second wire. Make sure the angle of the file is held at 27 degrees, increasing to 30 degrees at the crook end. The two seams - inner and outer - should match perfectly when the tube has been formed. Too great a bevel will cause leaks at the inner seams, while too little a bevel will allow the reamer to open the seams and again, leaks will occur. This is, indeed, the case where beveling is not done and where the maker resorts to crushing the cane around the mandrel with pliers. (See the figure "Checking the Angle of Bevel.")
An aside remark is worth noting here. If the reed tube design has the proper flair for the crook, very little, if any, reaming should be necessary.
Forming
the Tube...
After the bevel, forming
the tube comes next. I make five slits in each half with the point
of an X-ACTO blade (number 24). Penetrating about half way, I
start near the ledge and draw to the crook end. I prefer Mordecai
Rechtman's method of slanting the knife blade at an angle. It
diminishes the tendency of the center slit opening out into the
lay. If the center splits, I find it is not always a tragedy.
It can indicate, for those who don't use the steam method of forming
the tube, that the cane is not too soft. Center splits, for the
most part, never enter the interior to cause leaks.
For the forming operation, I have no quarrel with wet string and steam or wet string and a hot mandrel. In fact, I have even adopted mandrel tips to electric soldering irons to update this method. I see nothing wrong with those who twist on one or two wires and then insert the mandrel, but I myself have preferred to use tightly stretched rubber bands.
I soak the shaped and profiled cane in hot tap water for about one hour, tightly wrap on the rubber bands (avoiding the lay by 1/32") to a point half way down the tube, then lessen the tension on the rubber bands and continue to wrap. Less tension at the back permits the mandrel to enter more easily. Then, after the mandrel is inserted, I wrap another rubber band around the back end like a turban to pull all four corners of the tube cane into the mandrel.
Keep an eye on the throat. If it seems large, allow the rubber to remain longer. If it is normal, cut the rubber back 5/16" and tie off. The I cutting back" prevents the rubber from acting like a tourniquet and diminishing the throat hole size.
Wiring...
The first wire is the problem because, if it does not make a flat
fit around the entire tube, there may be bulges at any of the
four degrees. Look at the wires from the front end or the back
end, and top and bottom - if you see air space, you are inviting
trouble in performance. Quite often during attacks, there is a
delayed response. The notes will not speak properly, particularly
in the high register. After sweating this out for 25 years, making
pupils replace the first wire until it was right, I came to the
conclusion there had to be a better way. Sometimes just thinking
about it in the correct way helps. It brings to mind what Schonberg
said to his pupils: "If you can frame the question properly,
therein lies the answer."
After some trial and error, my solution was to place the mandrel holding the reed into a vice. With two pin vices (Model Makers 94-A made by General), I clamped five inches of 22-gauge, brass wire between them. Holding one wire perpendicular with the left hand, over and to the left of the cocoon, while the right hand was held directly over and parallel. Wrapping twice around the tube, the vices are brought together, both perpendicular. Twisting completes the step. The remaining wires can be put on in the conventional manner, with thumb and forefinger. (See the figure "Using Pin Vices to Wrap the First Wire.")
Using this method, the pulling and cinching that goes on with pliers is avoided, especially the tension that draws the lips of the reed into a I I smile " or a " pout " - depending on whether the reed "face" is up or down. Total avoidance of this is not always possible, and some makers recommend pulling wires around to the opposite side and counter cinching. Part of this smile phenomenon is caused by the gouge not being perfect, and it almost never is. If one of the tube halves is so much as a thousandth of an inch thicker, it will be the first to form; the other half goes along for the ride - contrary to what one would expect.
I prefer not to wind on the time-consuming turban of thread or string to complete the cocoon. Rather, I daub on some acetate plastic that has been made into solution form by acetone. It's not always as pretty as thread is, but it's durable and won't unravel when the cane shrinks. Also, the time saved allows you to make another reed. The sheet plastic is available at any plastics store and the 22-gauge, brass wire can be bought wholesale from the Alaskan Copper and Brass Co., P.O. Box 3546, Seattle, Washington.
Contouring...
The next step is contouring
the lay, which the film gives in some detail. I'll just make some
general observations here.
If we think of both our childhood play with a grass tube flattened with the corners slit and the ancient Egyptian flattened reed, we have our basic double reed of today, parallel scrape and all. From once dissecting a Knochenauer reed, I noticed an example of extreme parallelity in one blade that not only suggested, but demanded, experimentation. I constructed blades that measured .015" thick at the ledge, with no thinning out toward or at the tip and no side gradation or thinning. It worked.
The next target was to find a workable reed whose lay showed constant gradation, from ledge to tip. The basic design was a perfect cuniform from .002" at the ledge to .005" at the tip, with very little lateral tapering. I found the wedge to be like a teeter-totter, with shifting weights related to distances. If thickness is added at the rear, we compensated by removing some at the front, and vice versa.
I find today's averages boil down to variations of the parallel scrape, generally .030" at the ledge, .025" in the center, and .005" at the tip. The parallelity begins to give way to an accelerated thinning out at the two-thirds point, with a little flaring out at the final one-eighth. Lateral thinning-out measurements read .007" or .010" thinner at ledge sides, .005' or .006" thinner at the center, .002" or .003" thinner at the two thirds point, and no thinning at the tip sides. (See the figure "Profile Contour Map".)
By contrast, some makers prefer .040" at the ledge, meaning a little thinner at the two-thirds point. Others prefer a "window" at the ledge, meaning a couple of thousandths less but leaving more at the center.
In general, thinning the rear makes the low notes speak, thinning at the two-thirds point brightens the sound, and thinning the extreme tip makes for touching off in attack response. Lateral thinning has a lot to do with timbre.
I strongly recommend that contours be practically completed before folding and wiring - that goes for making little corrections and adjustments that are so difficult after the forming takes place.
If the profile, however, remains thick and major scraping is required, after soaking the reed, I suggest pushing the first wire back to the second wire and flattening the reed with a spring clamp over a flat, plastic guitar pick. All the hills and valleys of the lay are revealed. File in the ledge or shoulder where the contour begins. Next, file or scrape the edges using a Swiss warding file number 0, 4 inch cut. Finish the tip with a finer file. (See the figure "Scraping the Lay.")
Reaming
the Tube...
Occasionally, it makes
good sense to take a reed apart and inspect the halves. You might
learn that the tube is rough because of the reamer. If it is,
I suggest rolling a piece of wetand-dry sandpaper onto a rat-tail
file for polishing after using the reamer. If the reamer is a
little thick at the tip, it can cut a shoulder into the inside
of the tube.
It is not too difficult to alter the reamer tip with a sanding wheel. Hold the reamer against the sander at an estimated angle and, as you bring pressure, rotate it away from the cutting edge. This is for single flute reamers only.
Flip
Keys...
The next subject most people
ask about is the use of flip or flick keys. It's a practice of
flipping the a, b, or c keys with the left thumb that cleans
up slurs involving wide interval leaps and staccato notes on middle
c, b, and b-flat. I like the chance to get into
this subject because there is so much controversy and misunderstanding
involved. Antagonists call it cumbersome and unnecessary while
protagonists swear by it, even though they may have an incomplete
knowledge of its function. I strongly suspect this incompleteness
stems from the old Guild practice of being secretive in the teaching
studios.
Flip-key work occurs in a system, often called the "Viennese system," where flip fingering is incorporated into the regular fingering. Both Walter Guetter of Philadelphia and Frederick Moritz of Los Angeles were schooled in this system and attributed its development to the time when crooks had no vent holes or whisper keys.
There's a letter I wrote in the Spring 1986 issue of The Double Reed about preventing cracked attacks with the use of the flip keys and showing how Moritz altered the keywork for the left thumb.
A word of caution: one has to guard against unnecessary thumb usage (with intervals of a second) when slurred. You have to practice as much not using it as using it because habit comes into play.
I've watched and listened to some well known soloists crack an attack now and then. I call it premature multiphonics. It always seems to be a matter of timing and coordination. When the attack and the thumb flip are not together a cluck or split tone results. Sometimes a performer will deny hearing anything or say that the sound is "characteristic" of the tone.
There is no way to escape it; band directors are always interested in a clinician's approach to some problems. I can just list them here.
EMBOUCHURE: Is the Andy Gump position still in? With me it is, but subject to modification to suit individual performer's jaw formation. (Gump was a cartoon character years ago with a receding jaw.)
SKIN OVER THE TEETH: Yes, upper and lower, but think of adding a smile.
TONGUING: Changing none of the above, draw a quick breath as always and think of spitting a hair off the tip of the tongue.
SCALES: Sure, all of them, major and minor, but for beginners I find that note identification with fingers comes more securely with thirds. Practice thirds like scales, for an octave, then repeat, starting a second above, and so on. Thirds make you think.
DOUBLE TONGUING: Don't wait - begin at the same time as single tonguing, and do it every day. For the gutteral response, think of KEE instead of KAH. I find it a better cooperating companion with TEE. Incorporate in your practice of scales and thirds, the TEE KEE TEE KEE attacks, and then reverse them with KEE TEE KEE TEE. At some point, it is well to keep the KEE attack short. There is plenty of time later to incorporate the smooth legato attack, DEE GEE DEE GEE.
The next problem with the double tongue is speed. With speed, all the problems you thought you solved return with a vengeance. Begin the speedup with rapid and repetitive bursts of TEE KEE TEE, TEE KEE TEE, TEE KEE TEE, up and down the scale, with separations between each group. After strength builds, lengthen the groups to four and then eight. Don't forget to handle triple tonguing the same way.
VIBRATO: I use three methods. First, the jaw. This vibrato is a modified "chewing" action. Some players recommend thinking of YEH YEH YEH YEH. The second method requires a column of air pushed through the throat by the diaphragm in repetitions of crescendo-diminuendo. The third method involves the throat, and a simple way to describe it is to think of what happens when you whistle a series of staccato notes rapidly. One can build coordination by slowing the tempo and exaggerating the throat responses.
MULTIPHONICS: I have put together a few "split tones" in pictorial form, ones that responded best for half a dozen players and their instruments. The Bartolozzi book catalogs a host of fingerings that don't always work and are difficult for some instruments. I also found composers, fascinated with the new idiom, use fingerings that look good on paper with no regard to their difficulty.
CL: Now that most film scores are recorded in Europe instead of the States, what keeps you busy?
DC: I just returned from the Popkin-Glickman Bassoon Camp in North Carolina. It was a great place, an ideal setting to meet students. I also had an opportunity to perform a new, unaccompanied bassoon solo that Aurelio de la Vega wrote for me.
As a last minute brainstorm, I decided on an approach that the students couldn't get from anyone else. On cassettes, I taped excerpts and solos from motion picture scores - about twenty-five or thirty, including Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Snow White, and Fantasia. They seemed totally absorbed by film segments featuring bassoon solos.
CL: In closing, I'd like to give a quote from an award that Don received in 1983.
... whereas, the National Association of Composers, USA, seeks to acknowledge outstanding performers Of music who have rendered special service to the cause of contemporary music, both American and International, therefore, be it resolved that this organization wishes to honor and celebrate Don Christlieb for his continuing dedication to the performance of new music and his constant search for the challenging and provocative new musical compositions of this era.
About
the writer...
Charles Lipp is an active
bassoonistcomposer. In addition to musical pursuits, he writes
technical documentation for computer software at Gould Computer
Systems Division, Urbana, Illinois.