Articles for instrument: Folk and ethnic woodwinds (18 found)

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Recorder notation vs. band/orchestral woodwind notation

At the request of a reader, I’m going to try to clarify some things about notation for recorders. (I touched on it previously in an article about woodwind key nomenclature systems.)

Those of us who play modern band/orchestral woodwinds are familiar with a system in which, within a family of instruments, a notated pitch always corresponds to a certain fingering. No matter how large or small the instrument, the same fingering always corresponds to that same written pitch, even though the smaller instruments produce higher sounding pitches and the larger instruments produce lower sounding pitches. For example:

E-flat clarinetB-flat clarinetA clarinetBass clarinet
Notated pitch
Fingering
Sounding pitch

This is convenient for clarinetists because, essentially, they only need to learn one set of fingerings to be (in that respect) prepared to play any instrument in the clarinet family. Note also that even the bass clarinet is notated in treble clef, as are its even lower cousins. All the major modern woodwind families (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and saxophones) use this approach: consistent clefs, and consistent correspondence of notated pitch to fingering. The transposition is a function of the instrument’s size.

Because of the prevalence of this system in the Western woodwind tradition, it’s an understandable error to assume that the recorder family is notated in the same way. But recorders typically use a different system, in which each instrument is notated in concert pitch, and the fingerings change depending upon the instrument. Or, to be more precise, each instrument is notated in a sort of “concert pitch class,” since some of the recorders are notated as transposing by one or more octaves, but a notated C always produces a sounding C. Bass recorder and lower are notated in bass clef. Here are the most common ones:

Descant (“soprano”) recorderTreble (“alto”) recorderTenor recorderBass recorder
Notated pitch
Fingering
Sounding pitch

Recorder players must learn two sets of fingerings, one with the instrument’s lowest note being C (for descant and tenor recorders), and one with the instrument’s lowest note being F (for treble and bass recorders), and must be prepared to read in two clefs. Read more →

Understanding woodwind key nomenclature systems

bamboo flutes
Photo, Allan Reyes

Most woodwind instruments come in several sizes, and a naming system is required for describing the size and pitch of each. The most familiar for players of modern Western woodwinds is that used for (for example) the clarinet and saxophone families, with most of those instruments being described as “in B-flat” or “in E-flat.” However, there are several other systems in use in the larger woodwind family tree. This can be confounding for newcomers to folk, ethnic, and period woodwinds, but I’ll attempt to shed some light on things.

Here are the four primary systems. The names are my own:

  • Modern. This system is used for modern Western orchestral/band woodwinds and brasses. In this system, each member of the instrument family (such as all of the clarinets) match a written pitch to a fingering, so that, for example, a written C can be fingered the same way on any of the clarinets, and the actual pitch produced depends on the instrument’s size. (Playing written C, incidentally, produces the sounding pitch for which an instrument is named: Playing “C” on a B-flat clarinet produces a sounding B-flat, “C” on an A clarinet produces a sounding A, and so forth.) This is convenient to the clarinetist, but awkward for composers, copyists, conductors, and others dealing with multiple transpositions. It also leads to oddities such as the lowest contrabass clarinets, like all their clarinet siblings, being notated in treble clef. Read more →

Report: National Flute Association Convention 2011

This year was my first time attending the National Flute Association‘s annual convention, held this year in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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): Read more →

Fingering diagram builder, version 0.2

Two months ago I introduced the Fingering diagram builder, something that I hoped people would find useful for quickly and easily creating fingering diagrams for woodwind instruments. Since then, something over 1,000 fingering diagrams have been downloaded, which I think is a nice start.

Many of those have been saxophone fingerings, and I attribute this to some kind mentions among the saxophone-blogger community (thanks Doron, Eric, David, Neal, Alistair, and Anton!).

Now I’m pleased to announce the new-and-of-course-improved version 0.2. Go take it for a spin, or read on about the new goodies:

Read more →

December links digest

I try not to just dump lists of links very often, but here are a few fun items that didn’t warrant their own full posts:

Introducing the Fingering diagram builder

I’m pleased to present something I’ve been working on, on and off, for a while now. I’m pretty excited about it, and I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think.

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. Read more →

More on the science/fiction of woodwind materials

Photo, ~Bob~West~

There’s an interesting woodwind-related post by blogger “MarkCC” at Good Math, Bad Math, entitled “My Newest Flute, made of… Plastic?!”

MarkCC recently acquired a new flute of the type used in Irish traditional music, the kind that are most often made of wood. But MarkCC’s is made of polymer, and it sounds like MarkCC has wrestled a little with the issue of whether a plastic flute can really measure up to a wooden one.

But… Plastic?

I’ve seen several acoustic studies that claim that the material the instrument is made of isn’t that important. In a wooden flute, the physics show that the head joint is the only part of the flute that really has a significant influence on its sound. But the head joint of a wooden flute is actually lined with metal. So the wood isn’t really having too much influence on the sound.

As it turns out, MarkCC is something of a doubler, and also plays the clarinet.

Most people (including me) play on mouthpieces made of hard rubber or plastic – so the primary sound-producing piece of the instrument is plastic. The barrel of a wooden clarinet is (obviously) wood, so according to the physics/acoustics, that’s the only piece of wood that actually has any measurable acoustic effect. And the physics of this isn’t sloppy stuff put together by an instrument company trying to sell their plastic clarinets: to the limits of my ability to understand it, it’s good, solid stuff.

And yet, I’ve played a whole lot of clarinets, and by god, there’s nothing like a grenadilla wood clarinet. Even the best clarinet makers, even when I put my wooden barrel on a polymer body, it doesn’t sound the same. Of course, that’s subjective, and we humans are notorious for hearing what we want to hear in a subjective situation. And, by god, I’m a math geek. I’ve seen the math, and it’s correct.

One of the most-linked articles on my blog makes the same point about our expectations about materials coloring our playing experience. It’s worth pointing out, too, that a different barrel made from the same material will also affect the instrument’s sound.

I do think it’s a grey area to refer to a mouthpiece or barrel (or flute headjoint) as “sound-producing.” The instrument’s parts don’t produce any audible musical sound (unless you hit them with drumsticks)—it’s the column of air contained within them that vibrates in a musically useful way.

But MarkCC goes on, I believe, to hit the nail on the head: Read more →

New York Times blog: Steve Gorn

The New York Times’s “Lens” blog did a nice piece on Steve Gorn, a woodwind doubler who has turned his primary focus to the bansuri (Indian bamboo flute). Surf on over to see a nice photo and hear audio of an interview/performance. (Both photo and audio feature Gorn’s soprano saxophone playing.)

Steve Gorn on his beginnings as a woodwind player:

I advanced relatively quickly with the clarinet. When I got into eighth or ninth grade I got into a lot of jazz, and I started playing saxophone at that point. Jazz became much more of a focus. I played clarinet in the school orchestra.

Read more →

Pedro Eustache: Suite Concertante for World Woodwinds and Orchestra

Ethnic woodwind guru and composer Pedro Eustache (“ayoo-STAH-chay”) has posted videos on YouTube of most of his recent work Suite Concertante for World Woodwinds and Orchestra, featuring himself as soloist playing a staggering 21 instruments over the course of 12 movements (45 minutes).

The instruments are mostly ethnic flutes and reeds, though a few modern Western instruments appear as well. Since some of the instruments are Eustache’s own unique creations or modifications [link auto-plays music], it would seem he doesn’t intend for anyone beside himself to perform this piece. Certainly few woodwind players would have the ability to do so, nor to obtain or make the unusual and customized instruments required.

Here are the movements currently available on YouTube.

Mvts. 1-2: Three different bansuri (Indian bamboo flutes).

Mvt. 3: “Oryxophone,” neys (Middle Eastern flutes), mezoued (Tunisian reed instrument), and flute fitted with ney headjoint

Mvt. 4: Duduk (Armenian reed instrument), blul (Armenian flute)

Mvts. 6-7: Soprano saxophone, flute

Mvts. 8-9: Quenacho (South American flute), “double tarka” (customized version of South American flute)

Mvt. 10: Fjitchu (South American flute)

The missing movements include shvis (Armenian flutes), fujara (Slovakian flute), didgeridoo (Australian lip-reed), and apparently vocal percussion. There is some additional information on Eustache’s website and in a Spanish-language concert program. Even if your Spanish isn’t good, it’s worth looking through the program to find the picture of Eustache surrounded by his instruments.

Elsewhere on this website, I list more compositions involving performance on multiple woodwind instruments.

Handout from Mid-South Flute 2010 lecture: Folk, ethnic, and period flutes for fun and profit

Here is the handout from today’s presentation at the Mid-South Flute Festival at the University of Memphis campus. The audience was small but enthusiastic, asked good questions, and some of them stayed extra long to try out some instruments from my collection.