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.
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.
I had a great time at the 2010 Biennial Conference of the North American Saxophone Alliance. It was held on the campus of the University of Georgia, my alma mater, so I got to see many old friends and colleagues.
A more poignant aspect of this year’s conference was the conspicuous absence of Dr. Kenneth Fischer, my former saxophone teacher and the intended conference host. After Dr. Fischer’s very untimely passing a few months ago, many among the NASA leadership made extra efforts to ensure that the conference went on as planned. Surely not the least among these was Dr. Stephen Fischer, Kenneth Fischer’s son, my old classmate, and a brilliant saxophonist in his own right. I noted that the conference program read:
Hosts
Dr. Kenneth Fischer
Dr. Stephen Fischer
I was in attendance Thursday through Saturday (the conference began on Wednesday). It’s such a big conference that lots of things are going on at once, and there’s no way to get to everything. But here are a few events that I caught that were highlights for me: Read More “NASA 2010 Biennial Conference report”
In a recent blog post I offered a few personal thoughts on wind playing and the COVID-19 crisis, and began listing some articles and resources related to the topic. I have now moved those to a separate and freshly-updated page.
If you are aware of other resources, feel free to bring them to my attention and I will consider including them. I don’t have firm criteria for what to include, but I’m generally leaning toward scientific papers and other primary sources that appear to be written in good faith and with a responsible approach to accuracy.
I am not outright rejecting articles that are funded or otherwise promoted by businesses that might stand to profit from the information presented, but I am noting those potential conflicts of interest. (A well-regarded global company whose products I use recently shared one of the articles I’ve included, with their own headline affixed that I found misleading and reductive.)
My best understanding at this point is that there’s still a lot we don’t know about the safety of playing wind instruments during a highly-contagious outbreak that targets the respiratory system. Please be as smart and safe as you can, so we can all make music together again soon.
Below are a few audio clips from my recent faculty woodwinds recital at Delta State University.
At this point it’s gotten hard for me to imagine doing a full recital on a single instrument. I enjoy getting to play several, and audiences seem to enjoy the variety. And since this was my first faculty recital at my new gig, I wanted each of my students to hear me perform something from the core repertoire of their instrument.
I would like, ultimately, to be able to put together a full recital of woodwind pieces without making any special concessions for the fact that I am playing multiple instruments. In this case I did play it a little on the safe side: I chose a program that was not overwhelmingly technical, and I programmed something short of an hour’s worth of music so that I could take a few extra minutes between pieces.
One note-to-self for next time: I experienced a few onstage symptoms of not being thoroughly warmed up on each instrument (water in oboe toneholes, low note response issues on bassoon). I purposefully avoided playing too much on the day of the recital, but I think I can find a better balance the next time around. Read More “New sound clips: Faculty woodwinds recital, Feb. 15, 2010”
Notable woodwind doubler Buddy Collette, known for his skill and artistry as a jazz saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, and composer, passed away on Sunday. Check out the Los Angeles obituary, or, even better, enjoy his flute and tenor:
Tip of the hat to Eric at jazz-sax.com for bringing this sad news to my attention.
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!
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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!