Interesting discussions of late on both lists regarding Clamsaa, intonation, quarter tones. These are all related. The origin of using the word "clam" to describe a missed note is rooted in the theatre TTBOMK. As I understand it, actors would describe an untimely entrance or forgotten line as "making a clam." Certainly, if that was the case, horn players in the pit would have readily taken up the use of the word and spread it around the musical community. As to when this occurred, I really don't know but I will guess it would have been in the late 19th-early 20th centuries as theatre was in its heyday with vaudeville and Broadway musicals. I heard the word used for the first time in my career at the age of 13 when I joined the "Original Hobo Band" in Pitman, NJ. This group was comprised of amateurs and semi-professionals who actually played quite well and wore "rags" instead of band uniforms. The group was popular in the area and we performed many outdoor concerts and at many parades during the summer and marched in the Mummers Parade in Philly on New Years Day. We even got paid now and then, lunch money, for the many baby parades we did at the Jersey Shore. As to using tuners, they are of great help in the practice studio and to the oboists who give the A to the orchestra. In MN, we had co-principal oboists and they had a tuner on the stand to ensure a consistent A was produced. Giving two A's, one for the strings then one for the winds, assured that everyone performed the ritual consistently and then went about playing in the usual manner with the usual differences, strings consistently sharp and winds, well, you know. My slides stayed in the same place for years, same as Phil's. We also use a tuner in our chamber group to keep the pitch consistent and to make fine adjustments when performing with piano. They are handy and useful devices but they are only an aid, like the metronome, in helping musicians to perform better. You have to have a good ear in order to be a successful musician and especially a decent horn player and there is no substitute for the study and practice of solfege and ear training to achieve that. I can also recommend Steve Colley's Tune Up System and the computer course Aurelia published by Sibelius to provide help. I have been called upon to play quarter tones at times in contemporary works. Like anything else, some practice and experience is required. I'm looking forward to seeing Dan's etude book at some point and I will speculate that it has use particularly to students and others interested in the subject. If you can get paid to play quarter tones, what the heck?! Even if you don't get paid, it might be fun. Now, the origins of CLAMSAA are a much greater mystery and here there can be nothing but speculation and it is also a "chicken or egg" theory as well since we really don't know for sure whether the cave man or south sea islander missed or played correctly the first note emitted from the termite hollowed out log, ram's horn or conch shell that they blew into that fateful day in prehistory when our noblest o farts was discovered and its eventual evolution to what we do know no as the so-called "Art" of horn playing was started but my educated guess is that the note was missed and I was trying to remember the first day I ever played the horn and whether or not I missed the first note I ever played but since it was Christmas Day when this occurred, it is only natural that my teacher, Prof. I.M. Gestopftmitscheist, started the official celebration of Clamsaa some years ago and please remember, that Clamsaa is celebrated by horn players every friggin day they play but the official yearly anniversary celebration is around the time of the Winter Solstice so that's why we are having all of these discussions now and I am happy to tell you that I have not missed a note in public since August but I will have the opportunity soon as I have some recitals coming up so I am practicing the horn again in will go public in short order in February and if you want to see and hear the Denver IHS lecture on Clamology, you can go here _http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Professor+IHS+40&aq=f_ (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Professor+IHS+40&aq=f) for the whole story. Two feet of snow here yesterday! Time for me to get shoveling the white stuff and stop shoveling the other stuff here! A Happy, Successful and Prosperous New Year to all and I hope to see you the NE Horn Festival in March and/or at KBHC or an IHS event somewhere, sometime! Kendall Betts _______________________________________________ post: horn@memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
