Enjoy:

Joseph Robinson: Principal Oboe, New York Philharmonic

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Saint-Saëns Sonata, Piston Suite, Poulenc Trio, Nielsen Two Fantasy Pieces, Dring Trio, Shickele Gardens, Still Incantation and Dance, Martin Petite Complainte

Anthony McGill

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Poulenc Sonata, Debussy Premiere Rhapsodie and Petite Piece, Messager Solo de Concours, Rachmaninoff Vocalise and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Gershwin Three Preludes, Summertime, and It Ain’t Necessarily So

Judith Leclair: Works for Bassoon

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Saint- Saëns Sonata, Andres Chants d’arrière saison, Boutry Interférences, Glière Humoresque, Milde Andante and Rondo and Polonaise

Kenneth Tse: Saxophone

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Feld Sonata, Muczynski Sonata, Heiden Solo, Morosco Blue Caprice, Benson Aeolian Song, Kaufmann Meditation, Bernstein West Side Story Medley

…and a clarinet.

A few weeks ago, I replaced the bell tenon cork on this clarinet with a composite cork product, made from compressed cork bits. It’s cheaper than traditional solid cork, so I thought I would give it a try to see how well it compares. But the cork I used was too thin, and the bell was too loose. I’m going to try the experiment again with a thicker composite cork, but you can do this exactly the same way whether you’re using solid or composite. You can get either kind from MusicMedic.com.

First peel off the old cork.

Remove as much of the old cork and glue as possible, so the new cork will be smooth and even.

Measure a piece of the old cork to see how thick it was. A small sliding caliper is handy for this, if you’ve got one.

Find a new piece of cork that’s the right thickness. In this case, I’m intentionally going a little thicker than the old cork.

Cut a strip to the right width for the groove in the tenon, long enough to wrap around plus a little extra. Since the cork is crumbly, especially the composite cork, you need a very sharp blade to get a clean cut. I’m using a new razor blade.

At one end of the strip, sand one side to make a ramp.

Wipe off any leftover cork dust from the sanding. Apply a very thin coat of contact cement to the ramp, to the entire back side of the strip, and to the groove in the clarinet tenon.

Wait a few minutes until all the glue is completely dry.

Starting from the ramp end, press the cork into the groove on the tenon. The ramped side faces up. The dry contact cement bonds instantly, so take your time and make sure everything is lined up right. Sort of massage the cork into the groove with your fingers, to make sure as much surface area of the cork as possible bonds to the wood.

Wrap the cork all the way around, and up onto the ramp. Pay special attention to where the cork overlaps onto itself, and make sure it’s securely bonded.

Trim away the excess cork, and sand the seam smooth.

With the composite cork, the seam is practically invisible if you do a good job with the sanding.

Generously apply a quality cork lubricant.

Assemble carefully.

That’s it!

I’m pleased to share some audio from my Delta State University faculty recital a few weeks ago.The big event of the evening was the premiere of Sy Brandon’s Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano, which seemed to be well received. It’s gratifying to be involved in the creation of a piece that fills a gap in the small multiple woodwinds repertoire—something than can be played by a woodwind doubler, without having to bring in a concert band, a truckload of electronics, or obscure instruments. The audience seemed to enjoy the derring-do of the final movement, which involves six instruments.

I’ve studied the Bonneau Caprice en forme de valse in the past and have had students perform it, but this was the first time I played it in public myself. Since I’m trying to balance a half-dozen or more instruments, I tend to shy away from pieces that seem too technical, and, in that respect, this was the riskiest piece on the program. I was mostly pleased with how it turned out.

All of Poulenc’s woodwind sonatas are on my short list of favorites. I learned the oboe sonata from scratch for this recital. The clarinet sonata I have performed in bits and pieces, and, having spent a good part of the summer focused on the clarinet, I wanted the clarinet sonata to be essentially the finale of the program (the Ray Pizzi piece being a sort of programmed encore). The clarinet sonata ended up being the performance that I was least satisfied with—there were a number of mistakes, several of which were total surprises, and my sound on that instrument still isn’t what I want it to be.

Ray Pizzi’s Ode to a Toad has been on my to-do list for a while now, and it was a hit with the audience. Finishing the program with an unaccompanied piece, and on the bassoon to boot—an instrument that is still in many ways outside my comfort zone—wasn’t a choice I made lightly. But after the recital I could hear people humming it in the lobby, so I’m calling it a success.

Time to starting thinking about next year’s program!

• The oboists don’t have anything Baroque yet.
• The clarinetists don’t have anything by Weber yet.
• The bassoonists don’t have the Mozart concerto yet.
• The saxophonists don’t have the Glazunov concerto yet.

I think I found some great recordings to fill those voids. As a diversity bonus, three of the four are talented women, and one of those is a native Israeli.

Here are the selections:

Ray Still: A Chicago Legend: Baroque Oboe Sonatas

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Bach Sonata in G minor, Handel Sonatas nos. 1 and 2, Telemann Partitas 2, 5, and 6, Vivaldi Sonata no. 6

Sharon Kam: Works for Clarinet and Orchestra

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Mendelssohn Konzerstücke, Spohr Concerto No. 4, Rossini Introduction, Theme, and Variations, Weber Concertino

Kim Walker: Mozart/Hummel/Wolf-Ferrari

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Mozart Concerto, Hummel Concerto, Wolf-ferrari Concerto

Debra Richtmeyer: Extravaganza for Saxophone and Orchestra

Find it on: Amazon | iTunes

Repertoire: Glazunov Concerto, Strauss Oboe Concerto, Ott Concerto, Rachmaninoff Vocalise

Faculty Recital
Delta State University Department of Music
Recital Hall, Bologna Performing Arts Center
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
7:30 PM

Program

Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano
Sy Brandon (b. 1945)
World premiere

1. Intrada
2. Nocturne
3. Valse
4. Marche
5. Romanza
6. Galop

Caprice en forme de valse for alto saxophone
Paul Bonneau (1918 – 1995)

Sonata for oboe and piano
Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)

1. Elégie
2. Scherzo
3. Déploration

Sonata for clarinet and piano
Francis Poulenc

1. Allegro tristamente
2. Romanza
3. Allegro con fuoco

Ode to a Toad
Ray Pizzi (b. 1943)

Notes

Sy Brandon’s Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano (an adaptation of a prior work for oboe, percussion, and piano) was written in fulfillment of a Co-op Press Commission Assistance grant award, and is presented tonight in its world premiere performance. It is one of few existing works that features a woodwind musician playing multiple instruments. The composer says about this piece:

The Intrada [for flute] is energetic and playful with a lot of interplay between instruments. The Nocturne [for saxophone], being a night piece, is both lyrical and mysterious. The Waltz [for bassoon] is in a flowing waltz tempo with occasional shifts away from three beats in the measure. The Marche [for clarinet] is not a piece that would be used in a parade. It is a march that exists in the mind of a child who is playing with toy soldiers; therefore there is playfulness and humor that would not occur in a functional march. Lyrical lines and expressiveness are the predominating features of the Romanza [for oboe]. The piece comes to a rousing close with the Galop [for multiple woodwind instruments], which is a “perpetual motion” type of movement with a lot of rhythmic variety.

Paul Bonneau wrote the Caprice en forme de valse for seminal French-school saxophone soloist Marcel Mule in 1950, and it remains a favorite of saxophonists and audiences today.

Among composer Francis Poulenc’s final works is an incomplete set of sonatas for woodwind instruments with piano. The sonatas for oboe and for clarinet, presented tonight, are frequently performed, as is the flute sonata; a planned bassoon sonata was never begun. The oboe and clarinet sonatas were written within a few weeks of each other, and dedicated to the memories of two of Poulenc’s departed friends and musical colleagues, the oboe sonata to Serge Prokofiev and the clarinet sonata to Arthur Honneger.

Ray Pizzi is best known as a virtuoso jazz artist and studio musician on several instruments, and one of few to distinguish himself as a bassoonist in jazz and commercial music (some of his unique bassoon sounds can be heard in movie soundtracks like Return of the Jedi and Predator 2, as well as television shows like Family Guy). He describes Ode to a Toad as a “whimsical swamp blues.”

—Bret Pimentel

Detailed review follows, but here is the quick summary:

Price

Current street price on both the single reed case and the double reed case  seems to be about $20. This includes one Reed Vitalizer pack. If you choose to use the Reed Vitalizer packs on an ongoing basis, they go for about $5 apiece, and Rico says you will need a new one every 45-60 days (so, up to around $40/year, not counting tax or shipping).

Looks

These are basically good-looking cases. They are plastic, but an appealing plastic with a vaguely leather-like finish. The single reed case is black, and the double reed case is a sort of coppery brown. I can’t see any reason for them to be different colors, and I guess I would prefer for both to be black, since I like to keep my accessories low-key on stage, and I’m more likely to fuss with my double reeds than my single reeds during a concert. Both feature a raised “silver” (plastic) badge that says “Rico,” and a raised blue insignia for the humidity control system. The logos don’t bother me visually, but do cause another minor problem (see “Design,” below).

Humidity

I live in a very humid climate, and my instruments live in an older building that tends to be a little on the damp side. I find that I can generally leave reeds sitting around without any kind of case and not suffer any ill effects. I have also lived in very dry climates, where I found it absolutely necessary to use some kind of humidification system, but using any of those previous methods here has resulted in thriving and colorful mold colonies.

I kept clarinet, saxophone, oboe, and bassoon reeds in the cases over a period of several weeks, playing them regularly. I used the “73%” Vitalizer packs that came packaged with the cases (58% and 84% are also available). Rico claims these packs provide a “2-way” humidification system, which I presume means that the packs can either raise or lower the case’s humidity as needed.

As far as I can tell, the humidification system had no effect on my reeds. This includes a conspicuous absence of mold. I do think that it would be worthwhile to test these in a climate where dryness and warpage are real issues, and I welcome comments below from anyone who has tried these cases under those conditions.

On the other hand, the Vitalizer packs are unobtrusive and don’t add any significant bulk to the cases, so for me there’s no harm in keeping them in there. They are optional, and the cases work fine as ordinary cases without the Vitalizers.

The single reed case keeps the reeds on a fluted surface, presumably to allow some airflow around the reeds. The double reed case has fluted mandrels, which should allow some air to get inside bassoon reeds.

Design

While my overall impression of these cases is positive, I do think there are some design issues that  could use a little tweaking.

First of all, if you have to provide printed instructions on how to open the case, then it’s not designed in a user-friendly way. Even having read and fully understood the instructions, I still occasionally (and embarrassingly) fumbled with these cases trying to get them open. It’s not difficult, just not natural or intuitive.

The eight-single-reeds capacity should meet most clarinetists’ and saxophonists’ needs, but a five-reed case will be unsuitable for some double reed players, particularly oboists. Oboe reed cases sometimes have a capacity of two dozen or more reeds, to allow for reeds in various stages of completion plus possibly English horn reeds. (I chose to try the five-reed case as part of a personal quest for more focused and quality-over-quantity-oriented oboe reedmaking, and may continue to use it for that purpose.)

Doron at bestsaxophonewebsiteever.com reviewed the single reed case recently, and complained of a problem breaking saxophone reed tips against the rubber band that secures the reeds in place. While I haven’t broken any yet, I did come close a couple of times. I also find that the case’s latch slightly blocks access to the two center reed slots unless you lift the reed tray.

The raised logos on the outside of the case protrude by a couple of millimeters, which means that the cases don’t stack tidily. I think I would find this vaguely annoying if I were using two or more in an instrument case.

Rico includes a set of labels with the cases, so that you can indicate what kind of reeds are contained within, but for some reason the label spot is on the bottom of the case. (I suppose you can put the stickers anywhere you want, but a clear label-sized area is marked out on the bottom.) And both the single reed case and the double reed case came with this set of labels:

My biggest gripe about the Rico cases is wasted space. I like my reed cases as slim and trim as possible, to conserve valuable real estate in my instrument cases’ accessory compartments, and to slip easily into a pocket before heading out on stage. Rico has designed these cases to fit a variety of reeds, with a result that is unnecessarily bulky. I think these cases would work better designed for individual instruments. (I believe Rico originally offered a clarinet reed case and an alto saxophone case, though now they offer only the multi-instrument cases.)

Here’s what the single reed case looks like loaded up with clarinet reeds:

As you can see, without changing the outer form factor of the case, the inner tray could easily be redesigned to hold five reeds across (ten total), or be narrowed to hold four across without the extra space. There is also significant wasted space above the reed tips, which gets fully used only if you are storing baritone saxophone reeds.

The double reed case suffers a similar problem, being designed to hold either oboe or bassoon reeds:

The mandrels are conical, so they accommodate both oboe and bassoon reeds, but the oboe reeds have to sit up fairly high on them. The bassoon reeds sit lower on the mandrels, but leave unused space beyond their tips. The mandrels are spaced to allow for the width of bassoon reeds, leaving wide gaps between the oboe reeds—at least six, possibly seven oboe reeds could fit here.

I don’t see much use in having multi-instrument reed cases. Although I’m part of the minority of musicians that plays both oboe and bassoon, I would rarely have any reason to store the reeds together—it seems this design is for Rico’s convenience, not for the reed players’. Storing, say, clarinet reeds and E-flat clarinet reeds together, or soprano saxophone and alto saxophone reeds, seems like a slightly more likely scenario, but the single reed case is still too large.

Verdict

I think these cases have a number of positive qualities, and the humidification system seems potentially useful for those that live in a climate that demands it. But the design issues, stemming primarily from trying to make multi-purpose cases, are significant enough that I’ll be keeping my eyes open for some other options.

The United States Library of Congress’s National Jukebox project makes American recordings from the days before microphones available for streaming online. This is a fantastic resource for recordings—classical, jazz, and more—from the turn of the 20th century until the mid-1920′s.

These recordings are not in the public domain, like you might think; Sony, the owner of the recordings, has given the Library of Congress special permission to stream them.

Naturally, I’ve been searching the National Jukebox for woodwind players, and here are a few of my favorite discoveries. Some of the gems include oddities like the Heckelphone and bass saxophone, and there are a few woodwind doublers in there, too. Take note of how woodwind playing, like recording technology, has changed over the past century!

To kick things off, here’s a nice tour of the woodwind section of the Victor Orchestra in 1912:

• Instruments of the orchestra

Flutists

• Clement Barone (of the Detroit Symphony and the Houston Symphony)
• John Lemmoné (musician and manager for Nellie Melba)
• Darius Lyons (of the Sousa band)
• George Schweinfest (early studio musician)

 Oboists

• William Adams (see also his English horn listing)
• Alfred Doucet (of the Philadelphia Orchestra)
• Ross Gorman (of the Paul Whiteman band; a woodwind doubler, heard here playing some jazz Heckelphone! See also his clarinet and saxophone listings.)

Clarinetists

• Matthew Amaturo (of the Edgar Benson band; see also his saxophone listing)
• Louis H. Christie (of the Sousa Band)
• Ross Gorman (of the Paul Whiteman band; see also his oboe and saxophone listings)
• A. C. Mignella (of the Three Vagrants)
• Nathaniel Shilkret (of the New York Philharmonic, New York Orchestra, and Metropolitan Opera, but mostly playing lighter fare here)
• Larry Shields (of the Original Dixieland Jass Band)
• Leon Witkowski (polka band leader)

A bassoonist

• William Gruner (of the Philadelphia Orchestra; )

Saxophonists

• Matthew Amaturo, soprano and alto (of the Edgar Benson band; see also his clarinet listing)
• Hale Byers, alto and tenor (of the Paul Whiteman band)
• William Foeste, bass (of the Edgar Benson band)
• Ross Gorman, alto and bass (of the Paul Whiteman band; see also his oboe and clarinet listings)
• Chuck Moll, alto and bass (of the Henry Halstead band)
• Thomas Thatcher, tenor (of the Edgar Benson band)
• Rudy Wiedoeft, C-melody (popular saxophone solo artist)

Coaching on the Poulenc Sonata with Dr. McClellan. Photo by John Coppa.

I’m back from the Clarinet Academy of the South, a weeklong series of masterclasses by Robert DiLutis and D. Ray McClellan. The “Academy,” in its inaugural year, was held at the lovely campus of my recent alma mater, the University of Georgia. Dr. McClellan is the clarinet professor at UGA, and a former member of the President’s Own Marine Band. Mr. DiLutis is the clarinet professor at Lousiana State University, and formerly of the Rochester Philharmonic and the Eastman School of Music.

Around two dozen clarinetists attended. Most were college or graduate-school clarinet students, but there were also some professionals and educators. Many were current or former UGA or LSU students, and some were newly-admitted students looking to get a leg up for the fall.

Although the attendees found time to socialize, explore the campus, and try some favorite local eateries, the overall tone of the camp was studious. Each day’s itinerary began with practice time at 8:00 A.M., and finished after three intensive masterclass sessions at 9:00 P.M. Most of the attendees stayed in inexpensive and convenient on-campus housing.

Some highlights of the week included an opening recital by Mr. DiLutis and Dr. McClellan, sessions on reed adjusting and reedmaking by Mr. DiLutis, a class on phrasing by Dr. McClellan, a mock orchestral audition, and sessions dedicated to the Mozart concerto and the Nielsen concerto.

Both Dr. McClellan and Mr. DiLutis were students of David Weber at the Juilliard School, and the late Mr. Weber’s influence was omnipresent at the Academy. Evening masterclass sessions ended with reminiscences, often humorous, of their time under his tutelage. An end-of-the-week dinner in Dr. McClellan’s home turned into a “listening party” with recordings of David Weber and other fine clarinetists that fell within his sphere of influence.

As the end of the week, Mr. DiLutis and Dr. McClellan expressed their intent to hold the event again next year, and to consider some variations on the format (possibly to include private lessons and more performance opportunities for attendees).

I found it to be an enjoyable and educational week, at a surprisingly affordable price. Dr. McClellan and Mr. DiLutis are artists and educators of the highest caliber, and anxious to share their knowledge. Keep an eye open for it in 2012!

The idea as a “doubler” is to make whatever instrument is in your hand not feel like a foreign object. One should really study the instrument as if it is the only instrument you play. Practice the same method books, etudes, solos, as a clarinetist in a symphony once did.

David devised a plan to work his way through a book of technical etudes, and carried it out. His plan was based on the a similar system he had used as a university saxophone student. The result?

I can say after all of that, I really do feel like I’ve taken my technique game up several notches on clarinet.  It may be hard to believe, but about half way through the book I felt more connected to the instrument.  Even though I was in more difficult keys, larger interval jumps became easier than when I started.  By the end of it, I didn’t have to think much about playing 4ths in the key of D# harmonic minor.

It’s worth reading the whole thing. There’s one key point from David’s story that I’ve discussed here before, but which is worth restating: as a woodwind doubler, you have to be a beginner on each instrument. David had already completed a technique-building regimen on the saxophone, prescribed by a good saxophone teacher, but hadn’t done so yet on the clarinet. Many of us make the mistake of thinking that such things transfer automatically. They don’t!

I know that many of my readers are college students and/or educators, and may have some discretionary time coming up when the spring semester ends. What fundamental techniques can you spend the summer shoring up?