A few years back I commissioned a piece, Divertissement by Sy Brandon for multiple woodwinds soloist with piano, with the help of a Co-op Press Commission Assistance Grant. Brian Levels, who was until recently a doctoral student at the University of North Texas, has written a dissertation on the piece, which is now available through the UNT Digital Library. Be sure to check out the dissertation, and, of course, the piece.
I put on a faculty recital in August with a colleague. Here is the program and some videos:
I have released version 0.7 of the Fingering Diagram Builder. Mostly it supports some new instruments. Let me know if you run into bugs or have suggestions or feature requests.
Here’s what’s new:
Note that I do not play or own a Viennese oboe, an Oehler- or Albert-system clarinet, or a French bassoon, nor am I suitably fluent in European languages to 100% understand the related pedagogical literature, so I could really use some assistance on making sure these new diagrams look right and things are named properly. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have suggestions/improvements.
As always, I’m glad to hear from folks who are using the FDB, and to see the cool things you are making (websites, blog posts, books, posters, handouts…). The FDB generates thousands of images every month, which I think is pretty cool.
I have just released version 0.6 of the Fingering Diagram Builder. It’s almost a maintenance release, that mostly just attempts to fix a few problems and add a little polish. Your suggestions and bug reports are, as always, welcome (as are your donations, social media pings, links, etc.). Go play around with it or read on for the details.
Here’s what’s new:
As always, there are more improvements in the works. I usually wait until I have more of a “wow” feature to show off before doing a release, but I wanted to get a fix out there for the Dropbox users. Enjoy!
Here are some of the things that went on here at your favorite woodwind blog during the past year.
If you have read anything interesting or useful here during the past year, I hope you will consider leaving a comment, getting in touch via email or social media, buying a shirt or sending a donation, contacting me about advertising opportunities for your relevant business, and/or pointing your all your woodwind friends toward bretpimentel.com.
Thanks for reading in 2014, and best wishes for the new year!
I won’t make a habit of posting advertisements here, but I wanted to make you all aware of a new way you can support what I do here at bretpimentel.com while also increasing your own cool factor. Behold the woodwind doubler t-shirt:
It’s a nice quality American Apparel tee available in a variety of attractive and fashionable colors, with the logo in either black or white. A modest profit goes toward keeping the lights on here at your favorite woodwind blog and supports development of additional projects (like, for example, the Woodwind Doubling in Musicals list or the Fingering Diagram Builder).
The 5-instrument shirt is especially awesome, but there is also a saxophone-clarinet-flute version for the classic doubler, an oboe-bassoon version for the masochist, and a saxophone quartet version for those who want to “double” but prefer not to learn any new fingerings. I thought the four saxophone reeds looked sort of like cell phone reception “bars,” so there’s also a version with a dumb joke.
There’s probably still time for holiday delivery if you order soon. Order now and be the best-dressed in the orchestra pit.
Here are some videos from a guest recital I did at the University of Tennessee at Martin a few weeks ago. Among other things, I played Ástor Piazzolla’s Tango Etudes, originally for solo flute, in my own arrangement for multiple woodwinds soloist.
I got to attend this year’s International Clarinet Association conference (“ClarinetFest”) on the Louisiana State University campus in Baton Rouge.
The conference started on a sad note, as a car accident claimed the lives of two clarinetists on their way to represent Baylor University, and injured two others. In their memory, many of the conference attendees wore ribbons in Baylor green during the week. Many of the conference events began with a moment of silence.
The conference was, as always, packed with events, sometimes with three or four venues active at the same time, starting Wednesday afternoon and continuing through Sunday afternoon. The first few days were unseasonably cool and pleasant, but the Louisiana heat and humidity came back in time for the weekend.
I went to more recitals than I can remember or do justice to here, with outstanding and varied performances by clarinetists from around the world. Many of the recitals were listed as “lagniappe” programs, featuring several soloists or groups each playing a work or two. (For more details, try the ClarinetFest blog, which has many reports on individual events.)
I also attended a number of lectures and workshops, opting mostly for those related to movement and health (an area I would like to improve in my teaching), but also a few based on the 2014 theme of “The Clarinetist as Entrepreneur.” Another particular highlight was a panel discussion featuring Stanley and Naomi Drucker, Lawrence Sobol, and Larry Combs telling stories from their careers. And I gave a presentation on woodwind doubling in the 21st century (more details in another blog post).
The exhibit halls were filled with the sounds of clarinetists trying out new instruments and accessories. I picked up a few items, at least one of which I hope to review here soon.
I participated in a clarinet choir made up of around 50 clarinet professors, which was a nice chance to meet some colleagues.
Each of the evening concerts was a highlight. Wednesday’s program was clarinet works with a chamber orchestra, Thursday featured jazz clarinetists, Friday was chamber music featuring the clarinet, and Saturday was concerti with a full orchestra.
As expected, ClarinetFest 2014 was an excellent and inspiring experience, but also exhausting. It would be okay with me if in the future some of the evening concerts got trimmed a little for length—3+ hours is a lot of clarinet when it follows a full day of recitals and masterclasses, and the next day starts bright and early.
ClarinetFest 2015 will be held next July in Madrid, Spain.
My doctoral dissertation is now available online through the University of Georgia library:
It was completed in 2009 so some things are already out of date. Also, lately I’m trying to steer away from the term “ethnic” instruments (“world” instruments seems slightly less problematic until I can find a better solution).
Enjoy(?).
ABSTRACT
Woodwind doubling is the practice of playing instruments from more than one woodwind family. In musical theater and film music, woodwind doublers are valuable for their ability to produce the sounds of a varied woodwind section for a fraction of the cost of hiring a specialist musician to play each instrument.
Since the 1990’s, composers and orchestrators in musical theater and film scoring have shown increased interest in instrumental sounds from outside the traditional symphony orchestra. Many have featured folk, ethnic, or period instruments as solo instruments, bringing authentic sounds to scenes set in faraway locations or historical periods, giving an exotic flair to fictional locales, or simply adding new colors to the usual palette of instrumental sounds.
Composers of film and theater scores have used ethnic woodwinds, in particular, in their scoring. To meet the demand for ethnic woodwind sounds, many prominent woodwind doublers on Broadway and in Hollywood have adopted these instruments, in addition to their usual arrays of modern Western instruments.
Eight folk, ethnic, and period woodwinds recently employed in film and theater scoring have been selected for study in this document: bamboo flutes (especially the Indian bansuri and flutes used by some flutists in Irish traditional music), the Chinese dizi, the Armenian duduk, the Native American flute, the panflutes of Romania and South America, the pennywhistle, the recorder, and the Japanese shakuhachi.
For each instrument, a representative example of use in theater or film music has been selected and transcribed from a commercial audio recording. Each transcription is discussed with emphasis on demands placed upon the ethnic woodwind musician. Additional discussion of each instrument includes suggestions for purchasing instruments, fingering charts, description of playing technique, description of instrument-specific performance practices, discussion of various sizes and/or keys of each instrument, discussion of instrument-specific notation practices, annotated bibliographies of available pedagogical materials, lists of representative recordings (including authentic ethnic music and other music), and information on relevant organizations and associations of professional or amateur musicians.
Here is a recap of some of my favorite stuff from the blog from 2013. Because hey, I’m on vacation too.
Thanks for your ongoing support. Best wishes to you and your reeds for 2014.
