Doctor of Musical Arts
Dr. Bret Pimentel, D. M. A.
The University of Georgia
May 9, 2009
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New faculty position
I’m pleased to announce that I have accepted a new faculty position, teaching clarinet and saxophone at Mississippi State University. It has been a pleasure to work with the clarinet and saxophone studios there on a part-time basis during the past year, and I’m looking forward to hitting the ground running, full-time, in August.
The timing is good, as I’ve just finished my final year at Delta State University due to the closure of its music department (and others) as a cost-saving measure. My heart goes out to those who are still looking for a soft landing.
And if you are looking for a great place to study music, please do reach out! Hail State!
Recital videos, August 2019
Here are videos from my recent faculty recital at Delta State University. I performed the Saint-Saëns oboe, bassoon, and clarinet sonatas, plus the flute Romance and “The Swan” from The Carnival of the Animals as a baritone saxophone transcription.
“The Swan” is originally for cello, so I assumed it might work well as a baritone saxophone transcription. It turns out it really fits quite comfortably in the alto saxophone’s range, but I decided to take it on as a baritone piece anyway as a personal challenge.
Recital videos, August–September 2024
I’m pleased to share videos from my recent recital mini-tour, performed at Delta State University, Mississippi State University, and East Mississippi Community College. The program was five works for five different woodwind instruments, all using live electronics.
My electronic setup was a Shure SM58 microphone (for flute and oboe), a PiezoBarrel clarinet pickup, a Little-Jake bassoon pickup, and a NUX B-6 saxophone microphone, all connected to a Yamaha MG10XU mixer. From there the signal was routed through a Boss GT-1000CORE multieffects unit and a Boss RC-600 looper.
Here’s the program and video playlist:
Fingering Diagram Builder, version 0.51: flute half-holes
Okay, nerds. I got email from a composer acquaintance who pointed out, correctly but also politely, that the Fingering Diagram Builder was lacking a bit in the area of flute half-holing. Here is a minor release to fix that problem. Now you can do some different half-holes on an open-holed flute’s rings. Here is the most obvious kind:
Lengthwise upper half-hole But this may also be useful:
Widthwise proximal half-hole Or, hey, get creative with it:
A variety of half-holes. On the right hand third finger, I’ve overlapped a lengthwise upper half-hole and a widthwise distal half-hole. Works great if you have oddly-shaped fingers. You can even do this if you want to. It’s no skin off my nose.
Gah If you’re going for something relatively simple, a few clicks will do it. For the first example (lengthwise upper), click the “Keywork” tab on the menu, then “Keywork details.” Scroll down quite a bit and set “Open holes” to “always” and “Lengthwise upper half-holes” to “always.” Now you are in business. For the key that you want, click the main key (biggest circle) on the diagram, then the open half of the hole, then the closed half of the hole. Bam.
I’m interested in making the FDB useful for new and interesting kinds of fingering diagrams, so let me hear your requests for future versions. Stay tuned for more new features and improvements that are already in the planning stages.
Congrats Bret! What an accomplishment! Had I stayed with a music as a career I would have received my DMA about 20-25 years ago. Best wishes on the job hunt. And please keep your website going. It’s a great resource.