I’m excited about the progress on Divertissement, the new piece for multiple woodwinds by Sy Brandon. He has posted his work on the third movement, the clever Valse for bassoon and piano.
I’ve submitted a comment at his blog regarding some matters of tessitura. Dr. Brandon keeps comments under tight moderation, so my remarks may not be available yet.
A few years back, I started compiling a little list of Broadway-style shows and their woodwind books—the printed parts the woodwind players use in the orchestra pits. It has since grown wildly out of control to over 900 shows and has firmly cemented itself as the most popular thing on this website. Many of my visitors—from top Broadway musicians to community theater weekend warriors—contribute to the list by sending in information from the trenches.
Over the last few months, I’ve hosted two versions of the list, and solicited feedback about the newer version versus the classic edition. Thanks to all of you who took the time to test drive the new version and submit some comments.
The feedback showed an overwhelming preference for the new version, which as of today is replacing the old one. It adds some extra functionality, most notably a search bar, and will also load faster for most users. It includes links to search for soundtrack albums for each show on iTunes and Amazon—I hope that this will be a convenience for some users and not an undue hassle to others; it provides a revenue stream which, while pitifully tiny, nevertheless helps to keep this website going.
Thanks once more for your support of the Woodwind doubling in Broadway musicals list. I hope you will continue to make use of it and of other woodwind stuff here at bretpimentel.com.
To my own amazement, this blog is rapidly approaching its 15-year anniversary later this month, May 24th. (Some of the content is dated at even older than 15 years, because I wrote it before starting the blog and retroactively turned it into blog posts.)
If you like, send me question(s) about whatever you want, about woodwind playing, doubling, blogging, teaching, or whatever. You can remain anonymous if you like. If it makes sense to do so based on the responses, I’ll answer them in one or more blog posts starting on about the 24th. If the response is low or the questions are not particularly of interest to my audience at large, I’ll answer as many as I can privately.
I did this at the 10-year mark as well, and got some good questions.
Thanks for reading!
I always think that the worst blog posts are the ones where people blog about their blogs. So brace yourself. Sorry. I try not to indulge in this kind of thing too often.
Anyway, today is the fifth anniversary of my first, rather inauspicious blog post. (You might notice that I do have posts dated older than that; those are older writings, many from college courses, that I retroactively turned into blog posts.) Five years isn’t that long by most measures, but it seems that, in the sea of abandoned blogs out there, five years and still active isn’t something to take for granted.
I was working on a graduate degree in multiple woodwinds performance at the time this blog was born, and had read and reread everything I could find online about woodwind doubling, plus as many print sources as I could get my hands on. I will admit that the conceit did cross my mind that one day my website might be a primary web destination for woodwind doublers, and I flatter myself that that is now the case. Woodwind doublers form a fairly small club, but still the growth has been gratifying:
What excites me even more than the traffic is the engagement. I’ve been pleased and flattered to hear from many, many of you—everyone from young, aspiring doublers to old friends to colleagues in academia to musicians who are some of my real heroes. Thanks for your emails, blog comments, content contributions, donations, and other shows of support.
A few other things I’m really proud of: Read More “Fifth anniversary”
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!
At this year’s NFA conference, I had the very cool opportunity to be part of a discussion panel about woodwind doubling. The panel was organized by Florida flutist and doubler Tereasa Payne, and moderated by my Delta State colleague Shelley Collins. The panel consisted of me, Tereasa, Hollywood studio great Jim Walker, and David Weiss, who is the ethnic flutes soloist for Broadway’s The Lion King. It was an honor to be included in a group of such stature!
We spoke to a surprisingly large and enthusiastic crowd. At one point Shelley asked for a show of hands by the doublers in the audience, and we were blown away by all the hands that shot up. The audience asked great questions, and many stayed afterward to talk some more. I was delighted to meet several of you personally who read this blog or who have communicated with me by email or on Twitter.
In advance of the panel, Tereasa had prepared some questions for the panelists to think over. I took some notes to organize my thoughts, and I’m providing them here in an edited version. This isn’t a transcript of the live panel, but it should give you an idea of what was talked about, and of my thoughts about some of those topics. Read More “NFA 2011: Woodwind doublers roundtable discussion”
I’m pleased to share some audio from my Delta State University faculty recital a few weeks ago.The big event of the evening was the premiere of Sy Brandon’s Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano, which seemed to be well received. It’s gratifying to be involved in the creation of a piece that fills a gap in the small multiple woodwinds repertoire—something than can be played by a woodwind doubler, without having to bring in a concert band, a truckload of electronics, or obscure instruments. The audience seemed to enjoy the derring-do of the final movement, which involves six instruments.
I’ve studied the Bonneau Caprice en forme de valse in the past and have had students perform it, but this was the first time I played it in public myself. Since I’m trying to balance a half-dozen or more instruments, I tend to shy away from pieces that seem too technical, and, in that respect, this was the riskiest piece on the program. I was mostly pleased with how it turned out.
Read More “New sound clips: Faculty woodwinds recital, Aug. 30, 2011”
