Which instrument to “start” on

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Every so often I am told by a band director or parent that a child wishes to play a certain woodwind instrument, and then I am asked which instrument the student should “start” on, instead of the one they have apparently already chosen.

I don’t see a good reason, at least within the woodwind group, for a beginner to start on a different instrument family than the one they ultimately wish to play. There may be wisdom in some cases in requiring a beginner to start with a “main” family member: a student who really wants to play the piccolo, for example, will find their opportunities limited if they do not have a strong foundation in the flute—they will be of less usefulness to a school band program, and, should they continue to more advanced studies, may find the piccolo’s repertoire and pedagogical resources comparatively limited. I also think the piccolo is inherently a bit more difficult to play, although that in itself is not sufficient reason to deter a strongly-motivated student; however, for some students a more difficult instrument might be frustrating enough to bring their musical pursuits to a premature end. I likewise generally recommend that oboists start with the oboe rather than the English horn, clarinetists start on the B-flat instrument rather than a “harmony” clarinet, bassoonists leave the contrabassoon until later, and saxophonists start on the alto, or maybe the tenor.

Photo, Herald Post
Photo, Herald Post

But I also sometimes run into an attitude that, for example, an aspiring saxophonist really should start on the clarinet. This, I believe, comes from an outdated school of thought that considers the saxophone a “color” instrument in the clarinet family, and concludes that you should start with the “main” instrument, the clarinet, in the same way that you would start with the flute and later add the piccolo. (It may even stem from a more outdated idea that the saxophone is vulgar or a novelty, while the clarinet is respectable.) But surely the saxophone has by now earned full membership in the wind band and has a sufficiently rich solo and chamber repertoire that it need not be seen merely as the clarinet’s half-sibling.

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Update: Woodwind Doubling in Musicals

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I’m pleased to announce the release of a very much new-and-improved version of what used to be my “Woodwind doubling in Broadway musicals” page. Now it’s just “Woodwind Doubling in Musicals,” since I long ago abandoned any idea of limiting it to shows produced on Broadway. Here is what’s new, besides the title: Each show … Read more

How I use my undergraduate core music curriculum every day

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My university students are sometimes unconvinced of the value of their core music curriculum. Like most music programs, the core at my school includes music theory, applied theory (aural skills like sight-singing and dictation, and piano/keyboard skills), and music history. Most of my students will be educators, like I am (most of them will teach … Read more

Problems of wind controller sounds for classical performance

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I’ve been working on a little Baroque repertoire on the EWI in preparation for an upcoming recital. It’s not especially common to play recital-type music on wind controllers—they are far more often used in jazz and popular styles—but I think the instrument has great potential for “classical” performance. (I mean “classical” here, and throughout this post, in the record store sense, not in the more specific musicological sense.)

My EWI is customized with the really excellent Patchman soundbank which seems to be more or less de rigeur for EWI players. It has 100 different sounds designed especially for wind controllers. But it has been difficult to find sounds that work well for me for the music that I’m trying to play.

Before I continue, I should pause to point out that I’m not at all criticizing the Patchman bank, which I’ve unabashedly recommended to everyone I know. These sounds are fantastic. And really, some of the ones that seem worst-suited to this particular application are some of my favorite ones that I’ve used in other situations.

There are also plenty of additional sources for sounds. I personally like the convenience of on-board sounds, rather than plugging into external modules or a laptop, though those are certainly viable options. I also am personally uninterested in playing sampled or acoustically-modeled sounds that attempt to mimic the sounds of “real” acoustic instruments; I want to play a synthesizer as a synthesizer, not as a substitute for something else.

So I’m looking for good synthy sounds that align with the aesthetics of classical performance. But many of the sounds that work really well for other styles of music have features that don’t fit classical music ideals of wind playing. For example, some of the sounds:

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Favorite blog posts, June 2013

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Some of the best woodwind-related stuff I’ve read this month:  Clarinet professor Adam Ballif shares some thoughts on going paperless as a musician, and takes an easily-digestible look at voicing and the clarinet. Flutist Catherine LeGrand gets super-methodical about interval practice and note shapes. Oboist Patty Mitchell attends the IDRS conference and provides a sneak peek into pedagogical sessions … Read more

Bassoon F-sharp fingerings

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I recently set out to try to make sense of the handful of bassoon high F-sharp fingerings that I was aware of. As it turns out, I had no idea what I was getting into. I looked at a number of online and offline sources, and ended up with about 60 fingerings (yes, you read … Read more

Learning fingerings as shapes

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I observe that many woodwind players, when learning a new fingering—whether a beginner learning a standard fingering or an advanced student learning a new alternate fingering—tend to think of them as sequences: “This finger plus this finger and this finger and this key over here.” Sometimes my students even want to recite the fingering aloud … Read more

Playing full-spectrum music

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I’m far from being a photography expert, but I do have one trick. (This is a music-related post, I promise.)

In general, good photos take advantage of the eye’s full light-to-dark range. In other words, the very darkest part of the photo should be very black, and the very lightest part should be very white.

Here’s a photo that doesn’t meet those criteria—the darkest and lightest parts of the photo are both sort of medium-grayish.

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But a quick “auto-level” procedure in photo-editing software (like the free Gimp) corrects this by adjusting each pixel of the photo, basically making the dark ones darker and the light ones lighter:

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Favorite blog posts, May 2013

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Here are some high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from May, in no particular order. Mark Catoe and Tim Gordon discuss music education, careers, and, of course, woodwind doubling: Interview with Tim Gordon Flutist Meerenai Shim opens up about success, failure, pursuing your dream, and dealing with the practicalities: To Each Her Own Jennet Ingle is always one of … Read more

Fifth anniversary

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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:

Five years of site traffic
Five years of site traffic

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:

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