Saxophone, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and world and electronic woodwinds
I’ve added a number of new woodwind-related blogs to my blogroll (to your right). All are blogs that I read regularly.
If you don’t already use a feed reader, I suggest you check out Google Reader for keeping track of all your favorite blogs in one place.
The new ones as of this update are:
I recently got a copy of the 1984 Tito Puente disc El Rey. I’m sorry to say I wasn’t familiar with the names of any of the other musicians on the album—everyone sounds absolutely incredible—but I was blown away by the flute and tenor playing of Mario Rivera.
A quick Google search later and I can see that the late Mr. Rivera ranks among the heavies of Latin Jazz, and I have been missing out on his playing before now. Pick up a copy of El Rey and check out his virtuosic charanga-style flute playing (on Puente’s Oye Como Va, for example—that’s right, Tito Puente wrote it, not Carlos Santana) and some really tasty tenor sounds, too (check out the Latin cover of Giant Steps).
Or, surf on over to YouTube for some videos from a Bern Jazz Festival appearance. Hear some breathtaking baritone playing, some really nice flute duets (not to mention piccolos, timbales, and scat) with Dave Valentin, and, if that’s not enough, Rivera on vibes and even trumpet(!).
Italian pianist Marco Ciccone has done a new orchestral transcription of the Paul Creston saxophone sonata. I haven’t heard it, but I got email from Mr. Ciccone about it and thought I would pass the word along. The score and parts (you have to provide your own saxophone part) are available here in PDF format, … Read more
There are some terms I sometimes hear woodwind players use that make me think that they don’t know what they’re talking about. I could be wrong. But that’s the impression I get.
I think as woodwind doublers, when talking to players of single instruments, we sometimes give the same impression that obnoxious foreign tourists give—that we have read a few paragraphs out of the guidebook and now consider ourselves experts on the local culture. If you’re a woodwind doubler hoping to function as an honest-to-goodness oboist or clarinetist or whatever, I think it’s worthwhile to speak the language like a native.
I’ve got ethnic woodwinds on the brain lately, and no end in sight since they are the topic of my doctoral dissertation research. If you haven’t added any ethnic instruments to your arsenal yet, here’s what I recommend for a relatively easy to play, low-maintenance, inexpensive, and versatile beginning to your collection.
If you’re interested in ethnic woodwinds, you ought to check out virtuoso flutist Pedro Eustache. I like that on his website he refers to himself as a “multidirectional flute soloist.”
Lately I’ve been doing some clarinet work out of the Jeanjean Vade-Mecum. The title page translates charmingly to:
“Vade-Mecum” of the Clarinet-player
6 SPECIAL STUDIES
to
render the fingers and tongue rapidly supple
But this is what really sold me:
NOTICE
The aim of these 6 standard-studies (combining the essential parts generally contained in several exercise books) is to prepare instrumentalists in a very short space of time (about 1/2 hour) when, due to their occupations, they are not able to devote the time necessary for developed exercises and must nevertheless be ready to execute difficult passages, from the standpoint of lips, tongue and fingers.
The movements to which these Studies oblige the clarinet-player to submit will rapidly overcome those imperfections, the diminution or the passing weakness that might result from either fatigue or irregularity of technical work.
“…not able to devote the time necessary … and must nevertheless be ready to execute difficult passages…” This, in a nutshell, is the quandary of the woodwind doubler.
I highly recommend taking your instruments apart.
Here’s why:
A former teacher, who, I hasten to point out, I respect and admire greatly, once asked me in a lesson to “spin the air.”
I hadn’t the foggiest idea what he meant.
I tried a few things that I thought maybe the teacher had in mind, but none of them was right. I asked for clarification.
He said, “It’s like this,” and he blew a puff of air while twirling his finger around (presumably to indicate spinning).
Surely he didn’t mean literally to cause the air, somehow, to leave my lips in some kind of spiral. I confessed my confusion and asked if he would be kind enough to demonstrate spinning the air versus not spinning the air. He obliged.
I couldn’t detect any difference.