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!

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:

• New instruments!
  • Contrabassoon (choose the bassoon fingering diagram, then open the Keywork menu and click “Keys,”, then select the contrabassoon preset)
  • Akai EWI wind controller
  • Yamaha WX5 wind controller
  • Simple endblown woodwinds. Presets include pennywhistle, quena, shakuhachi, Native American flute (5-hole; 6-holed flute diagrams can be made with the pennywhistle preset), duduk, 6- and 8-hole xiao, and (why not?) valved brass instruments.
  • Simple transverse woodwinds. Presets include “simple flute” (which works well for “Irish” flutes, dizi, and many others) and bansuri.
• You can choose your own filenames now. Or just let the FDB continue to automatically give each one a unique number (the numbers are UNIX timestamps, if you care).
• I’m really excited about this one: Dropbox integration. If you’re not already using this amazing and free service to keep your important stuff synchronized between your computer(s) and handheld device(s), then you are seriously missing out. I personally use it approximately one million times per day. And now you can choose to save your fingering diagrams to your own Dropbox instead of downloading them—just log in using the Options menu. This should be an excellent option for iPhone/iPad folks and others who are download-challenged. [Full disclosure: the Dropbox links I've provided are referral links, and if you use them to sign up, we both get some bonus space. You're welcome.]
• Other general interface improvements for users of at least some mobile and touch devices. I think the best user experience for the FDB is still a large screen and a mouse, but I do what I can for you iPhone/iPad people. Note that I am not cool enough to own those devices (I’ve tested on my iPod Touch, though), so I welcome input and bug reports from people who do use them. I could use input from Android users, too.
• Lots of small improvements to the way the fingering diagrams look and behave.
• Lots of small improvements to the way the interface looks and behaves. I also moved around some menu items into places that I think make more sense.
• Some problem fixes for users of Safari 5. Based on my tests using Safari on Windows, I think everything is okay now, but let me know if you run into continued problems, especially Mac users. Thanks, those of you who reported issues with the previous version.
• Since it seems many people want to create blank diagrams showing all the keys, I’ve added a “Blank diagram” button, which instantly turns on all the keys for the current diagram and keywork preset. You can click “Restore defaults” to go back to something cleaner. To find the buttons, open the Keywork menu and click “Keys.”

I regret to say that I still can’t support any version of Internet Explorer. Maybe if I were a good enough programmer I could figure out how to make the problem child behave. In the meantime, I urge you to consider one of the other excellent, free web browsers, and you may just find that your web experience improves in lots of ways.

As always, don’t hesitate to speak up if you’ve got ideas for future versions, or if you run into issues of any kind. You can get through to me by email or Twitter, or leave a comment below.

One more note. It has come to my attention that some people are using the FDB to create and sell basic fingering charts online. I’m not sure why anyone would pay for them, since good ones are easily found for free. But if you’re using the FDB for commercial gain, it seems to me like good form to make use of my “Send me reed money” PayPal link at the bottom of the page. Just pay whatever the FDB is worth to you—I’m not planning to get rich. But your appreciation, as expressed in U.S. dollars, goes a long way toward spurring on future enhancements and new features. Thanks!

“Gertjan” at the WindWorks Design blog posted some interesting comments about using a wind controller in a local production of Seussical the Musical. Gertjan (I wasn’t able to positively identify him from the WindWorks website, but maybe he will find his way here and let us know who he is) played saxophones in the show as well, and used the wind controller to cover a number of wind and non-wind instrument parts.

Although it gives me a little indigestion to see a wind controller substituting for woodwinds that might otherwise have been played by a doubler, I do think there is application for wind controllers in orchestra pits. Keyboard-driven synthesizers are ubiquitous in recent shows (or are sometimes used to replace other instruments, especially a string section), and, in some cases, a wind synth might be even better suited to certain kinds of synthesizer parts. Gertjan mentions some synthy sounds like “vocal doo,” “scary voices,” and “ghostly shimmering breathy sound,” all of which strike me as likely to be very effective with a wind synthesizer’s breath control. Some others, like “harp” and “tinkle bell” seem like they might be more intuitively assigned to a keyboard.

In the comments section one of my previous articles, I said this:

EWI seems like such an individualized thing—what with all the options for sounds, effects, etc.—that in most typical doubling situations it would take a fairly EWI-savvy orchestrator/musical director to use it effectively, beyond just using it to cover acoustic instrument lines (what a waste!). I think most would have to work directly with the performer to compose for the available sounds (or create new ones).

This certainly seems to have been the approach that Gertjan and his musical director took:

What followed was an intense e-mail conversation between the musical director and myself about the possibilities, what sounds I would normally use, etc. It ended with him visiting me at my house where we talked about it in great detail, with me demonstrating the various options and abilities.

It’s worth taking a look at both of Gertjan’s posts about his experience. Part 1 deals with the collaborative process between wind controller player and musical director, and Part 2 discusses some technical tips and other practicalities of using a wind controller in the pit.

The Canonic Sonatas are duo sonatas, with both musicians playing from the same part. (You can download free sheet music of the Canonic Sonatas from the IMSLP.) The first player begins, and the second player echoes, one measure behind. If you have ever sung “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as a round, then you already understand how this works.

Jeff Kashiwa plays the Allegro movement from the first Canonic Sonata all by himself, playing the first part on the EWI and using a delay effect to create the second (echo) part.  Here’s the video again—it should start playing about a minute and a half in, and the Telemann goes until about 2:40.

After the 2:40 mark, Mr. Kashiwa uses more sophisticated looping techniques, using some kind of external device. But you can perform the Telemann duet without any extra hardware, using only the EWI4000s’s onboard synthesizer.

To set this up, you’ll need to be able to hook your EWI up to a computer through a MIDI interface, and successfully connect to the EWI through the free and downloadable Vyzex EWI4000s patch editor. (That stuff is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but the Vyzex download includes pretty good documentation, and there is additional help available at the Vyzor support forum.)
We are going to edit an existing patch to have a built-in echo, so make sure you’ve got your favorite sounds safely backed up. I’m using the “Matt EVI4000s” patch from the Patchman sound bank.

The settings we are going to adjust are in the “Delay” section. I want my second part to be an exact echo of my first part, and I’ll be setting the delay accordingly, but you can experiment to get the results you want.

Time: This sets the amount of time between a note and its echo, so this will also determine the tempo of the piece. We need to set the delay time to the length in seconds of a single measure—it can be between 0 seconds and 1.27 seconds. We can use this formula to figure it out:
(beats per measure)/(tempo) × 60 = delay time
I want a tempo of about quarter note = 132, and this movement is in 2/4, so my calcuation is:
2/132 × 60 = .91 seconds
The slowest possible tempo for this movement, with a delay time of 1.27 seconds, would be about 94 beats per minute. (Stay in school, kids.) For more flexibility with the tempo, you will need an external device.

Feedback: We want only a single echo here, so set this to 0%. Setting it higher creates more echoes.

Damp: This affects the sound of the echo. To make the two parts sound the same, we set it to 100%.

Level: This affects the volume of the echo. To match the volume of the first part, we set it to 100%.

That’s it—we’re ready to save this edited sound and transfer it to the EWI’s memory (consult the Vyzex manual).

And here is the result, recorded direct from the EWI:

Play

Jeff Kashiwa explains and demonstrates the Akai EWI4000s to an appreciative audience. A little loopstation fun, with some Telemann and then a smooth-jazz tune.

EWI specialist Bernie Kenerson does cool stuff with an EWI hooked up to a vocoder.

Japanese woodwind player Masato Honda.

British saxophonist and EWI player Alistair Parnell provides some nice instructional videos. I found this one particularly useful, but you really should check out the whole series.

“Wergythu,” aka Seth Block, takes it easy on the couch with his EWI and a looper. (This video doesn’t allow embedding, so you’ll have to click through to YouTube to watch.)

And of course we have to finish with Michael Brecker, who, unsurprisingly, does some mind-blowing stuff and makes it look easy. Trust me, you need to watch this one beginning to end.

“Forked” fingerings, in which a lower tonehole is closed while one above it is open, often produce somewhat inferior results—notes that are mismatched in timbre and/or intonation. (Some modern woodwinds use special mechanisms to correct for this, such as the F resonance mechanism on a high-quality oboe.)

An electronic woodwind-style instrument, such as the Akai EWI series, uses a fingering system that is designed to be similar to a traditional woodwind, so that a traditional woodwind player can easily adapt to it. But this is an arbitrary choice. Since the instrument’s tone production system uses electronic circuitry and software, rather than a vibrating air column, the fingering system don’t necessarily have to use the fingers in sequence, and forked fingerings don’t have any inherent problems. The fingerings can be invented completely from scratch, with no acoustical limitations.

EWI fingerings are designed to draw upon the best of both worlds—the familiarity of traditional woodwind fingerings, and the flexibility of a non-acoustical fingering system.

Note that the current-model EWI4000s, using version 2.4 of the operating system, includes several fingering modes. The mode I am considering here is the “EWI” mode, as the “flute,” “oboe,” and “saxophone” modes sacrifice some flexibility for the sake of increased familiarity to traditional woodwind players. You might consider this article to be subtitled, “Why you should be using the ‘EWI’ fingering mode.”

The current manual (“revision D”) shows a mere 17 fingerings in its EWI mode fingering chart (11 chromatic pitches, with B-flat through D having fingerings in two octaves, and B-flat having one additional alternate fingering). But many, many more are possible.

We can consider the individual EWI keys as having individual functions, rather than being inherently interdependent. For example, pressing none of the keys produces a C-sharp:

C-sharp

Adding any key will alter the C-sharp pitch by a given amount:

If I press LH 1, LH 2, and LH 3, the pitch is lowered from C-sharp by a total of 6 semitones, producing the G fingering familiar to saxophonists, oboists, flutists, and clarinetists.

But that is only one possible combination. I could also produce a G with, for example, LH 1, LH 2, and RH 3. Or LH 3, LH pinky 2, RH 1, and RH pinky 2. These fingerings would be extremely unlikely to work on a traditional woodwind, but with the EWI the possibilities are wide open. As long as the total pitch change adds up to -6 (and accounting for any of the listed exceptions), you get a G.

Standard G fingering. (LH 1 + LH 2 + LH 3) = (-2 + -2 + -2) = -6 = G	One alternative G fingering. (LH 1 + LH 2 + RH 3) = (-2 + -2 + -2) = -6 = G	Another alternative G. (LH 3 + LH pinky 2 + RH 1 + RH pinky 2) = (-2 + -1 + -2 + -1) = -6 = G

These examples are illustrative but likely have few real-world applications. For a more practical example, consider trills, which among traditional woodwind players are a subject of endless discussion and books upon books of awkward, complicated fingerings. An ideal trill fingering involves moving only one finger, preferably one that can be moved in a rapid, controlled, non-awkward way.

Take a look at the following musical example (one that oboists will recognize).

This passage would be a nightmare to play using only Akai’s 17 listed fingerings, but is easily manageable if you take a moment to work out some alternatives.

Assuming that you are using the “side” B-flat fingering in the first measure, the most obvious A-flat to B-flat trill is to hold the B-flat fingering and trill will LH 3. However, if you prefer, LH 2 will work equally well, as will RH 3 or RH pinky 3. (LH 1 will not work, because of the LH 2 exception; that would produce an A-flat to B-natural tremolo.)

Awkward A-flat to B-flat trills using Akai’s published fingerings. (Alternate the blue and red keys.)		A much better trill fingering.

The next problematic trill is F to G-flat in the last measure of line 2. I suggest holding the F fingering and trilling with RH pinky 1. (LH pinky 1 is also serviceable, but I find RH easier because RH 3 is free.)

F to G-flat trill

For the G-flat to A-flat trill in the same measure, I would hold the G-flat trill fingering (standard F, plus RH pinky 1) and trill with RH 1. (Again, there are more possibilities. In many cases the standard A-flat fingering trilling RH 1 would make sense.)

G-flat to A-flat trill

Try that whole measure—the fingerings are unfamiliar at first, but they lie very comfortably under the fingers and make for effortless trills.

Here’s what it sounds like:

Play

Take a little time to experiment with your EWI’s fingerings, and see what you come up with!

Believe me when I tell you that this is a seriously cool instrument.

Even after hearing and reading a number of rave reviews of the Akai EWI 4000S, I was pleasantly surprised by its playability, responsiveness, and capacity for expression. In my opinion, this is a real instrument, and a viable option for serious music-making.

A few highlights:

• It has a nice heft to it, and feels in my hands like professional-grade gear.
• The breath sensitivity is easily adjustable, and it only took me a moment to get it set up to really suit my preferences.
• It is packed full of all kinds of sensors: the breath sensor (of course) which even responds well to flutter-tonguing and growling, a bite sensor, and various sensors for the thumbs that can control things like portamento and pitch bend. These are all programmable to some extent, so if you’re clever you can remap them to control different things.
• It has an on-board synthesizer, unlike its primary rival, the Yamaha WX5. That means you don’t have to plug it into a sound module (although you can if you like). It also means it’s relatively cheap: the Yamaha currently has a street price of about $750 and requires an $800 sound module. The Akai goes for about $700, and doesn’t need a sound module.
• The on-board synthesizer is actually a synthesizer, not just a collection of canned sounds. That means you can create your own sounds (using a computer and the free Akai software), or buy professionally-developed sound banks. It does come with a selection of pre-programmed sounds, so you can just play it right out of the box if you prefer.
• It has an 8-octave range, which is sort of mindblowing to me as a woodwind player.
• The proprietary EWI fingering system is quite intuitive for a woodwind player, very saxophone-like. But the fingerings are very flexible, with lots of possibilities for alternate or trill fingerings. (There is a very basic fingering chart in the user’s manual, downloadable from Akai, but it does not tell the whole story. Stay tuned for a future article taking a closer look at EWI fingerings.) The EWI also has additional fingering modes, including “saxophone,” “flute,” “oboe,” and an apparently trumpet-valve-like system, which might ease the transition from another instrument but lack the power of the EWI fingering system.
• It has a nice set of on-board effects and other tricks: reverb, delay, chorus, portamento, the ability to play in octaves or another interval of your choice, and the ability to sustain a note while you play a phrase.
• It can be powered by an AC adapter (not included), but seems to run for a good long time on 4 AA batteries.
• It has a 1/8″ headphone jack, a 1/4″ line out jack, and MIDI in and out jacks.

In short, I am very satisfied with my new toy. There are a few things to be aware of, however, if you’re thinking of getting into wind controllers:

• There isn’t any kind of speaker built in, so it doesn’t make any noise unless you plug in some headphones or an amplifier. For casual playing at home, I’ve also had success plugging a nice pair of computer speakers and subwoofer into the headphone jack.
• The most difficult part of the fingering system is the left-thumb octave rollers. These make the huge pitch range possible, but take some getting used to.
• The included sounds are quite playable, but the custom sound bank from Patchman Music really takes the EWI to another level. You haven’t experienced the true potential of the EWI4000S unless you’ve used the Patchman sounds. (From what I understand, the same is true of the Yamaha wind controller.)
• Also on the subject of sounds: the best application of the EWI4000S’s synthesizer is synthy sounds. If you want to convincingly imitate acoustic instruments, you will need to plug the EWI into some kind of sound module. This wasn’t a negative for me, but it’s worth knowing ahead of time.

Here’s a small taste of what the Akai EWI4000S sounds like, using one of the Patchman sounds. I didn’t add anything to the recording after the fact—all the effects, etc. are coming from the 4000S itself.

Play