A little over a year ago I made the Random Note Picker, a small web app for generating groups of random pitches. I mostly use it to quiz students on their scales. It otherwise hasn’t gotten much use, but if anyone is interested there is now a slightly improved version. Check it out.
Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III, who heroically piloted US Airways Flight 1549 to a safe emergency landing in the Hudson river, was first-chair flutist in his high school marching band, according to the New York Times. Read More “Flutist spotlight: Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III”
Bret Pimentel, woodwinds
Kumiko Shimizu, piano
Faculty Recital
Delta State University Department of Music
Recital Hall, Bologna Performing Arts Center
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
7:30 PM
Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano
Sy Brandon (b. 1945)
World premiere
Caprice en forme de valse for alto saxophone
Paul Bonneau (1918 – 1995)
Sonata for oboe and piano
Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)
Sonata for clarinet and piano
Francis Poulenc
Ode to a Toad
Ray Pizzi (b. 1943)
Read More “Faculty woodwinds recital, Aug. 30, 2011”
Half-holes on the Fingering Diagram Builder aren’t a new feature, but I get lots of questions about how to do them, so here are some instructions I can refer people to.
If you’re making diagrams for flute, (French) clarinet, (German) bassoon, or recorder, and you don’t need anything especially complicated, you can open the “Keywork details” menu and click the option to turn “Half-holes” to “Upper,” “Lower,” or “Off.” For flute the options are a little different, to allow for half-holing in four directions.
Once your desired half-holes are enabled, you can hover your mouse over the keys (or look for the grey outlines on a touchscreen device) to see them. Click/tap on the desired half of the hole to “close” it, or again to re-open it. The “open” ones will not appear in your downloaded image.
| clarinet | bassoon | recorder | |
| upper |  |
 |
 |
| lower |  |
 |
 |
| flute | |
| Lengthwise upper |  |
| Lengthwise lower |  |
| Widthwise proximal |  |
| Widthwise distal |  |
If you need to turn on only certain half-holes, or mix upper with lower, etc., you will have to roll up your sleeves a bit more. Open the “Keywork details” menu and look for the top-level “Half-holes” heading. Organized beneath this you will see all the available half-holes, organized into groups like “Lower half holes.” I suggest adjusting the settings as follows:
That will make the desired half-holes visible when you “close” them, and invisible otherwise.
In the following example, I have set the clarinet’s left hand first finger upper hole and the left hand third finger lower hole as described.
If you anticipate using a certain half-hole configuration frequently, you can save it for future use. Set the half-holes (and other keywork) up how you want it, open the “Keywork details” menu, and look near the bottom of it for the “Custom key sets” submenu. Open that, type a name for your current set of keys, and click/tap “Add.”
Enjoy!
Here’s a new minor release of the Fingering Diagram Builder with a few improvements:
Enjoy!
Back for more, I see? Thanks to all who are still reading results from the Great Woodwind Doubler Census of 2011. At this point we are getting into some more of the questions with free-form answers, and I think your responses are really interesting.
I categorized the answers as best I could, with many of your responses falling into multiple categories. Here are some of the most common issues raised:
By far, the most common issue reported was finding the time to practice multiple instruments—I’ll reveal that this was my own answer, as well.
Flute-specific problems were also frequently mentioned, with oboe, clarinet, and bassoon appearing lower on the list (the saxophone got only a mention or two). I do think that the flute as a double has some particular challenges, but, as we know, it’s also one of the most common doubles. It would be interesting to assemble a group of doublers who play all five major woodwinds at a somewhat equal level, and take a poll to see which instrument they think is the biggest challenge.
Read More “Woodwind Doubler Census results, part 5: challenges”
Dr. Bret Pimentel, D. M. A.
The University of Georgia
May 9, 2009
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This is pretty good! I made a google spreadsheet to do this, but it is pretty cumbersome. I’m trying to learn to read music and memorize the notes on a fretboard, and this will be most helpful!