Tammy Evans Yonce

Tammy is a former classmate of mine (go ‘Dawgs), and a flutist and educator to keep an eye on. Her blog, just a few months old, is outstandingly good: important topics, carefully thought out, and clearly and elegantly written. Tammy writes about flute performance and pedagogy, with a special interest in making practice time really effective. A must-read.

• Practicing: Measuring Progress
• Setting Expectations and Establishing a Culture

Also check out Tammy on Twitter, and at her other new blog, the collaborative Music Collective.

Robin Tropper (Born Again Oboe)

Robin’s quirky blog chronicles his renewed pursuit of the oboe, after finishing a music degree and then spending a few years working on other interests. Robin’s expertise in engineering shows through in his posts, which often describe his methodical, quasi-experimental approach to improving his playing, and sometimes include technical illustrations and schematics. Robin is a genuine polymath, and is also very open about his struggles with chronic pain.

• Reed Season! – New Repertoire.
• Reflections on Telemann – Home Acoustics

David Pierce (Dr. Pierce’s Bassoon Studio)

David teaches bassoon at Eastern Michigan University. He seems to use this blog mostly as a way of sharing good bassoon stuff with his students, but it’s a public blog, so you can pretend that you’re in Dr. Pierce’s studio, too. Quality pedagogical resources.

• Warm up pattern
• Weissenborn op. 8 on the IMSLP web site!

Doron Orenstein (Best Saxophone Website Ever)

Doron has chops and experience both as a saxophonist and as a web professional. His blog is polished and slick, but the most impressive thing is the participation of some of the genuine top pros in the saxophone-playing business. Saxophonists of the stature of David Liebman, Joe Lovano, and Walt Weiskopf have stopped by for interviews, some available in podcast form. Doron’s posts mostly take the position of a busy person with a day job, who approaches the saxophone as a serious creative outlet; topics include gear reviews, technique tips, and reflections on advice from great players. Note that Doron also features occasional posts from guest authors, which are by saxophonists of varying stature and expertise.

• Through the Eyes of Dave Liebman
• Category: Reviews
• And this one of course caught my eye: Do Saxophone Players Really Need to Double?

No clarinet love?

Missing from today’s list: a really excellent clarinet blog. There are a number of them in my feed reader, but none I’m in love with at the moment. Let me know if you’ve got something I should be checking out!

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!

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

Here I am at the far left saying something brilliant and witty. Tereasa Payne, Shelley Collins, David Weiss, and Jim Walker look on in wonder and delight.

At this year’s NFA conference, I had the very cool opportunity to be part of a discussion panel about woodwind doubling. The panel was organized by Florida flutist and doubler Tereasa Payne, and moderated by my Delta State colleague Shelley Collins. The panel consisted of me, Tereasa, Hollywood studio great Jim Walker, and David Weiss, who is the ethnic flutes soloist for Broadway’s The Lion King. It was an honor to be included in a group of such stature!

We spoke to a surprisingly large and enthusiastic crowd. At one point Shelley asked for a show of hands by the doublers in the audience, and we were blown away by all the hands that shot up. The audience asked great questions, and many stayed afterward to talk some more. I was delighted to meet several of you personally who read this blog or who have communicated with me by email or on Twitter.

In advance of the panel, Tereasa had prepared some questions for the panelists to think over. I took some notes to organize my thoughts, and I’m providing them here in an edited version. This isn’t a transcript of the live panel, but it should give you an idea of what was talked about, and of my thoughts about some of those topics.

What instruments do you play in your profession, and in what capacity do you play them?

I teach collegiate oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone, and freelance on those instruments. As a freelancer, I also play the flute, and occasionally some ethnic flutes and woodwinds and electronic wind controller.

Woodwind Specialist, Doubler, Multiple Woodwinds Performer… there are so many titles for what you do. Do you have a preference for what you are called?

Woodwind doubler seems to be the most common term, so that’s what I usually end up using. It can be problematic because sometimes people take “doubler” to mean “dabbler.” It also seems incorrect if you play more than two instruments. “Specialist” also seems like a misnomer, since doubling is really sort of a refusal to specialize. I kind of like “woodwind multi-instrumentalist,” since to me it seems clear enough and has a certain amount of dignity, but I’m still looking for something shorter.

And none of those names really captures the way I want to see myself: as a flutist AND an oboist AND a clarinetist and so forth.

Did you get into doubling for the money? (haha)… What are you in it for?

I got into it because I was interested in it and looking to expand my employability, and stayed in it because interest and ambition turned into passion. As a college student I started gigging a lot more than my classmates, even those who played their single instrument far better than I did. So I’ve probably earned a lot more money by doubling, but on the other hand I’ve probably also spent more doing it.

How and when did you begin adding instruments? Do you have any opinions on the order that students should add additional instruments?

I started as a saxophonist, and dabbled a very small amount in flute an clarinet as a teenager because someone told me I would need those for jazz. As an upperclassman undergraduate student I very deliberately started study of each of the woodwind instruments because I had decided I wanted to become a doubler.

In terms of being the most marketable, I think for saxophonists it makes the most sense to pick up clarinet next, then flute, and then, if desired, a double reed or two. For flutists, oboists, clarinetists, or bassoonists, I would go to saxophone next, then follow the saxophonist sequence. One possible alternative for a double reed player who is headed for an academic career is to add the other double reed and apply for the relatively frequent oboe-and-bassoon teaching positions; however, there are very few performing situations that call for this double.

Did anything or anyone ever discourage you from doubling?

I had a few teachers who were not hot on the idea. I think those that objected felt that doubling would mean I couldn’t or wouldn’t be a serious “classical” musician.

How does doubling affect your flute playing?

It takes time away from the flute. I don’t feel that doubling hurts my flute playing in any ways besides that, like hurting my embouchure or mixing up my fingerings. Occasionally in the heat of battle my lips will be a little swollen from playing reeds, or I’ll be too tense, but that’s evidence that I’m doing something wrong on the other instruments, not on the flute. If I’m playing each of my instruments relaxed and with good technique, and I’ve thoroughly warmed up before the gig, there’s no reason I can’t make a quick switch to flute and play at my best.

How do you manage your practice time on so many instruments?

Often it’s triage: deal with the patient that is hemorrhaging the worst. (Sometimes they can’t be saved.) When I have the rare luxury of not being in panic mode, I try to rotate instruments so that I don’t necessarily get to each one every day, but so that each one does at least get a few days in a row. For example, Monday is flute-oboe-clarinet, Tuesday is oboe-clarinet-bassoon, Wednesday is clarinet-bassoon-saxophone, and so forth. It means each instrument gets neglected for a couple of days, but then it gets practiced a few days in a row so I can hopefully get a little momentum going.

What are the most challenging aspects of being a doubler?

Time and money. If you think if how many hours you would have to practice to be a top-level flutist, and instead divide that time by three or four or five instruments, then you can see how you might start to feel like you’re falling behind. And it’s expensive accumulating good instruments—plus reeds, accessories, lessons, sheet music, maintenance, insurance…

It seems there is a very small percentage of women doublers. Why do you think this is?

I don’t have a good answer to that question. However, data from my recent survey of woodwind doublers does seem to indicate that younger women are doubling more than older women, so perhaps we are witnessing a surge in the number of female doublers.

What advice would you give to flutists wishing to “branch out” into woodwind doubling?

Pick up the alto saxophone, and get some good coaching (including lots of listening) on jazz style. In theater music, the part with the flute solos is often also the part with lead alto writing.

Another good way to expand your skill set as a flutist is to explore ethnic flutes. Recorders, pennywhistles, and simple bamboo flutes are all pretty versatile, fairly easy to play, and don’t have to break the bank.

My general advice for anyone who wants to double is “be a beginner.” Give yourself the advantages you wish you had had as a beginning flutist: a great teacher, a quality instrument, and dedicated practice. Start with a beginning method book and practice those whole notes like they are the most important thing you will ever play (hint: they are). Build your fundamental skills on each instrument with deliberation and thoroughness. Don’t try to skip steps.

Was it always your childhood dream to be a doubler? When did it become your goal?

As a teenager, I wanted to be a professional saxophonist and university professor, so I went to college to study saxophone performance. I was fascinated by musical instruments, and I had dabbled a little in flute and clarinet but hadn’t pursued them seriously.

One day I was sitting in saxophone studio class and realized that one day my teacher would retire and create one job vacancy, but there were twenty of us in the class. I knew at that point that I would need to carve out a more specialized niche to be competitive in the job market. Getting serious about doubling was a solution that made me more marketable and really expanded my musical horizons as well. Now I can hardly imagine going back to playing “just” one instrument.

I’ve been to conferences of all the other major woodwind organizations in the US (IDRS, ICA, NASA), and here are some things that I think the NFA did exceptionally well:

• Organization and planning. From what I could tell, nearly everything ran smoothly and according to plan.
• Engaging younger players. There were a number of competitions and masterclasses for high school and college students, and a Saturday “Youth Day” for flutists aged 8-13.
• Engaging non-professional flutists. My sense is that the NFA has a stronger amateur contingent than the other organizations, and that they are working to ensure its future.
• Appealing to broad musical interests. In my opinion, the NFA is doing a better job than anyone, including NASA, of integrating jazz into their convention in a serious way, and is integrating historical instruments at least as well as the IDRS. Ethnic flutes also got some good representation. Thursday night’s big feature concert was Baroque flute, and Friday’s was world music. Saturday’s concert was more standard concerto fare, but with a strong jazz representation. Kudos to the NFA for acknowledging that there is life beyond conservatory repertoire lists, and to its members for seeming to genuinely embrace and enjoy the varied offerings.

Like the other major woodwind conferences, the NFA’s is packed with so many events that it’s impossible to get to everything you want to attend. Here are a few personal favorites among the things I saw and heard (in no particular order):

• A panel discussion by John Bailey, Tadeu Coelho, and Terri Sundberg on tone production. An outlook-changing hour.
• A no-nonsense lecture by Lea Pearson about the anatomical realities of breathing. Can you point to where your diaphragm is? Are you sure?
• Rachel Brown‘s performance of the J. S. Bach solo partita on traverso. Lovely.
• A hands-on introduction to the traverso for modern flute players, presented by members of the NFA’s historical flutes committee.
• Genius/madman Trevor Wye‘s very entertaining performance of The Carnival of Venice on 60 “flutes.” The instruments included modern, historical, and world flutes, and various other noisemakers. Some of the instruments, which I presume are Mr. Wye’s creations, included flashing lights and other surprises.
• Omar Faruk Tekbilek‘s spellbinding performance on Turkish ney and zurna. Goosebumps.
• A very practical, doable approach to Baroque ornamentation on historical or modern instruments, presented by Na’ama Lion.
• Nelson Rangell playing absolutely jaw-dropping after-hours jazz flute. Confession: I enjoy his stellar saxophone playing, but when I’m listening to his albums I skip ahead to the flute tracks.
• A rollicking final concert, featuring some jazz, some klezmer, mass choreography, silly hats, a 10-year-old virtuoso, a low flutes trio, and other oddities and hijinks.

I also participated in a panel discussion on woodwind doubling with a few of my heroes. More details to come in a separate blog post.

I was pleased to meet several of you in person who I have been in touch with by email or Twitter! It was great to match up some names with some faces.

Next year’s conference will be held at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and NFA President Jonathan Keeble assured us today at the closing concert: “What happens in Vegas, will stay in Vegas.”

View of downtown Charlotte from my hotel room

Group traverso instruction

The lovely Belk Theater, where the evening concerts were held

Trevor Wye playing, I believe, a bicycle pump

Nelson Rangell playing jazz on, yes, a piccolo

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)

This time I came up with a blog each for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone, plus a bonus one. Here they are in no particular order:

Barrick Stees (Barry Blogs)

Barrick Stees is the assistant principal bassoonist in the Cleveland Orchestra, and a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Akron. His blog is fairly new (started earlier this year) but is already full of good stuff. Professor Stees shares some insights on playing excerpts at a level suitable to one of the great American orchestras:

• Tchaikovsky 6th
• Firebird

He also keeps a travelogue of his tours with the orchestra, and comments on other items of interest to professional or developing musicians, such as:

• Practicing – planning ahead
• Myth buster #1 – you’ve either got it or you don’t

Cooper Wright (Cooper Wright Reeds Blog)

Cooper Wright is a doctoral oboe student and a recovering professional reedmaker. This is a guy who has harnessed the reed-related neuroses common to oboists, and turned them into a deep understanding of how the little pieces of cane work. His posts are occasional but meaty, with lots of high-level shop talk. Some samples:

• The gouge and making reeds commercially
• The role of the overlap
• Stability, Projection, and the Opera Pit

Adam Berkowitz (Adam J Berkowitz – Clarinetist)

Dr. Adam Berkowitz is a clarinetist and bass clarinetist with contemporary leanings (and a new book on extended techniques). His posts are practical and focused on technique and performance issues, and sometimes include video demonstrations:

• The Next Step Part II (testing new clarinets)
• I, Breath Mark
• The Relaxed Embouchure

Nathan Zalman (Zalman Studios)

Flutist and composer Nathan Zalman’s quirky blog posts are usually at least tangentially related to flute playing, and always full of the kind of common sense born of experience. Check him out and enjoy the ride:

• Cracked lips–OUCH!!
• I Want to Believe (flute gear and the placebo effect)
• My Flute Is Bent (on doing—or not doing—your own repairs)

Ben Britton (Everything Saxophone, Reviewed)

Ben Britton, jazz saxophonist, does frank and insightful reviews of saxophones, mouthpieces, etc:

• Throwdown: Yamaha’s Custom EX Tenor Saxophone vs. Selmer’s Reference 36 Tenor Saxophone
• Otto Link’s “Vintage” Metal Mouthpiece

…and also shares his thoughts on creative jazz improvisation:

• Improvisation Kick Start: Writing Out A Solo
• Improvisation Kickstart Part II: Motif Based Improv

“EWIChris” (EWI Reason Sounds)

Chris doesn’t reveal his last name on his website, so I won’t share it here. (Chris stops by here now and then, so maybe he’ll choose to identify himself in the comments. If not, that’s cool.)

Chris’s blog is very, very specialized: he deals with the use of the AKAI EWI (electronic wind instrument) in combination with a sophisticated software package called Reason. I’m an aspiring EWI player, but I don’t use Reason (yet?); still, I’m always interested to check out Chris’s latest posts, where he often gives away new patches (sounds) that he has developed for users of Reason, and usually provides an audio clip for the rest of us.

• Sound of the Week – Super OB Airy Clarinet
• Sound of the Week – Country Combo

Blog reading tip: the Google Reader “next” bookmarklet

As I mentioned last time, I find Google Reader to be 100% essential for keeping track of blogs. I subscribe to over 300 myself, mostly woodwind-related (or at least music-related), and Reader makes it easy to skim for the blog posts that I want to read in detail. Many of the blogs that I track with Reader are rarely updated, and this is one area where Reader really makes things easy. I don’t want to spend time visiting individual blog sites that haven’t been updated in a year or more, just on the slim chance that the author has resurfaced to write something new and brilliant. But with Reader, if something new pops up, I know about it right away, and, if not, no further effort is required on my part.

But for me, one downside of using Reader is that it gives me the blog content out of context. I enjoy reading the posts on the author’s website, where I can get a more complete picture: their design flair, their blogrolls, comments that others have made about their blog posts, and more. Enter: the Google Reader “next” bookmarklet!

To get one for yourself, visit your Google Reader home page, and find “Reader settings” (it’s currently in the menu in the upper-right-hand corner, with an icon that looks like a gear). Click on the “Goodies” tab, and scroll down to “Put Reader in a bookmark.” Drag the provided link to your bookmarks bar, and you’re ready to go. Click on it to move quickly through your unread blog posts, presented in their native habitats. Enjoy!

Dr. Sy Brandon has posted his work on the sixth and final movement of the Divertissement for multiple woodwinds soloist and piano.

In some early communication, Dr. Brandon suggested that this movement, the “Galop,” be written for piccolo. I was happy with this idea, and even dusted off my piccolo to start getting my chops in shape. But by the next day he had hit on a new idea that I liked even better: using the sixth movement to bring back each of the five previously-featured instruments in one tour-de-force finale.

While I was pleased to have this piece include a chance to show off my skills at switching instruments on the fly, I did think that this might limit the number of doublers who could perform the piece. I like the idea of a piece custom-tailored to my specific skill set, but, on the other hand, I would like to see the piece become a significant addition to the limited repertoire for woodwind doublers.

The problem, of course, is that a “doubler” might play any combination of instruments, and a piece for five specific instruments does drastically narrow the field of capable performers. My initial hope was that the piece might be adaptable to individual doublers’ abilities, either by selectively omitting movements or by providing alternate instrumentations.

Dr. Brandon, unsurprisingly, was two steps ahead of me. He has announced two different versions of the sixth movement: one version is for piccolo, and the other is for doubler playing flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone—the instruments used individually in the preceding movements—plus a brief surprise appearance by the piccolo at the very end.

Discussing his rationale for writing two versions of the Galop, Dr. Brandon says:

I wanted to do a piccolo version of the last movement for marketing purposes. Each movement of this piece could stand alone as a short piece for flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, and now piccolo. I will also publish the work as a woodwind doubler’s dream (or nightmare, depending upon how one views it).

I am 100% on board with this idea, as it opens up some nice possibilities for doublers to use the piece to put their respective best feet forward. A flute-clarinet-saxophone doubler could, I think, very effectively use the first, second, and fourth movements, and optionally include the piccolo version of the sixth.

The decision to end the multiple woodwinds version of the sixth movement with the piccolo tidily solves a problem that I had mused about in an email to Dr. Brandon:

I’ll be fascinated to see how you deal with the questions I imagine might arise: … Which instrument gets the last word? Etc.

Bringing in the piccolo at the very last moment is a nice virtuosic touch—it keeps the audience guessing, and suits the time-honored tradition of ending on a high note. I think I will keep the piccolo hidden from the audience (using a music stand shelf) to maximize the impact. (I’ll keep the bassoon low A extension hidden as well in the third movement.) It also deals with the compositional problem of one of the other instruments “winning” (to take one possible hermeneutical view) by being the last one standing. To my way of thinking, bringing in a sixth, previously unheard instrument at this point puts the focus on the single performer rather than the several woodwind voices, which provides a sense of unity.

Using the piccolo in this way does create some logistical issues, though certainly not insurmountable ones. The piccolo itself will be completely cold, and the piccolo embouchure will not be at its freshest—and all of this at a crucial moment. Note, as well, that Dr. Brandon has indicated that the final version will end on the piccolo’s third-octave G (as shown in the currently posted version of the piccolo movement) rather than the second G (as currently shown in the multiple-woodwinds movement). The preceding instrument, luckily, is the flute, and largely in that instrument’s third octave, which should help with the embouchure transition. And, as always, I suggest a thorough physical and mental warm-up on each instrument before the performance.

The piccolo is something of a bugaboo for many woodwind doublers. The flute is challenging enough as a doubling instrument, since its embouchure is so delicate and so different from the reed instruments, and the piccolo presents a smaller target. Although I don’t consider myself a particularly strong piccoloist, I’ve made some good money for being willing to give it a shot when other doublers have shied away; although I tend to think that at least a basic command of the piccolo should be a goal for any flute doubler, it may be a deal-breaker for some. My intention is to practice hard and perform this movement with piccolo, but I would suggest that it may be appropriate in the final version to mark the switch to piccolo as optional.

I’m quite pleased with how the Divertissement has turned out, and I look forward to receiving a completed score so I can really get to work. I will continue to blog about the genesis of this piece, including a planned visit by Dr. Brandon to Delta State University in February, during which I hope to get his comments on my interpretation of the piece.

Related posts:

1. Farewell: Buddy Collette
2. YouTubeage: Cool EWI videos

This project developed from my own need to quickly and easily create fingering diagrams for the woodwind instruments that I play and teach. Frequently I find myself scribbling saxophone altissimo fingerings onto a scrap of paper during a private lesson, cutting-and-pasting at the photocopier to put together simplified charts for a woodwind methods class, or penciling cryptic markings into musical scores to remind myself which pinky finger to use.

And so, I’m pleased to introduce the Fingering diagram builder. I hope you’ll take it for a spin.

[One caveat: it currently doesn't work in any version of Internet Explorer, due to IE's lack of support for SVG graphics. If you're an IE user, I hope you'll consider downloading an excellent, free alternative browser and give the Fingering diagram builder a try anyway.]

Here’s a taste of what the Fingering diagram builder can do.

I created and downloaded this array of some of my favorite F-sharp fingerings in under two minutes (really). Click to see them larger.

flute	oboe	clarinet
bassoon	saxophone	recorder

These six instruments are immediately available, but I hope to add a few more soon. Hit me up with your requests.

Some of the instruments have cool options if you mess around with the “Keywork” toolbar. Here are a few of the most obvious examples:

The oboe chart has English horn keys, too.	The clarinet chart can do bass clarinet.	And the saxophone chart can accomodate a baritone’s low A (or even a soprano with a high G).

The “Options” toolbar lets you resize or customize the look of the diagrams:

Change the line thickness.		Use colors to show trills or optional keys.

The downloaded images are in .PNG format, which means they are compatible with virtually all current word processing, graphics, and music notation software. Plus the file sizes are small, so they can be easily dropped into an email or blog post. (You may have seen some early versions of these fingering diagrams appearing in my own blog over the past year or more.)

I’m interested in your feedback, so let me know if you run into any problems, or if you have an idea how the Fingering diagram builder can be more useful. Leave a comment below, or send me email.

And, be sure to subscribe to the feed so you won’t miss upcoming articles with tips and tricks on using the Fingering diagram builder.