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Fifth anniversary
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 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”
Fingering Diagram Builder, version 0.4
Hello, friends. I’m excited to share the latest round of improvements to the Fingering Diagram Builder. Thanks to all for your suggestions and bug reports, for your donations (every little bit helps), and for sharing with me some of the cool things you are making with the fingering diagrams.A few names that need mentioning for recent extra-awesome support and/or ideas are bassoonist Dave Wells (check out his high-quality and handsome bassoon fingering charts), saxophonist/doubler Evan Tate, saxophonist Bart Walters (who blogs over at Music Collective), pianist Jason Gray, and clarinetists Kellie Lignitz and Rachel Yoder (who included the FDB in their column in The Clarinet and on Clarinet Cache). You internet people sure are nice!
Check out version 0.4 of the Fingering Diagram Builder, or read on for a guide to what’s new and improved.
Fingering Diagram Builder, version 0.6
I have just released version 0.6 of the Fingering Diagram Builder. It’s almost a maintenance release, that mostly just attempts to fix a few problems and add a little polish. Your suggestions and bug reports are, as always, welcome (as are your donations, social media pings, links, etc.). Go play around with it or read on for the details.
New hotness Here’s what’s new:
- The user interface got a minor facelift and some usability improvements. For example, if you dare to use the “Keywork details” tab, you may notice that the menu stays a little more manageable size-wise, and if you’re working at a desktop monitor you can tweak things without losing sight of the diagram.
- Several of you wrote in to point out that the Dropbox functionality had become broken. Dropbox changed some things on their end and I got a little behind on making the necessary adjustments on my end. Long story short, the FDB now uses Dropbox’s slick little popup thing if you want to save your fingering diagrams there. You might have to enable popups for the FDB in your browser. Also, if you’re not using Dropbox yet, how do you even survive?
- Valved brass instrument diagrams have been around since version 0.2, but they were little-known because for some reason I lumped them in with the simple-system flutes. I know. They are much easier to find now. You can stop writing in to ask if I know of a website that does diagrams for brass instruments.
- If you are into creating custom styles, you can now include your selected instrument as part of those if you wish.
- The Creative Commons license has been updated to version 4.0. That really just means that some of the legalese underlying it has changed. You’re still totally free to use the diagrams for your not-for-profit projects, or to hit me up and make the necessary arrangements if you want to use the diagrams to make something you’re going to sell. (Here’s a cool example of something made with literally one bazillion FDB diagrams: it’s a book.)
- I did a bunch of other stuff under the hood to improve stability and speed and to lay groundwork for future improvements.
As always, there are more improvements in the works. I usually wait until I have more of a “wow” feature to show off before doing a release, but I wanted to get a fix out there for the Dropbox users. Enjoy!
Multiple woodwinds commission, sixth movement (multiple woodwinds or piccolo)
Photo, vpickering Dr. Sy Brandon has posted his work on the sixth and final movement of the Divertissement for multiple woodwinds soloist and piano.
In some early communication, Dr. Brandon suggested that this movement, the “Galop,” be written for piccolo. I was happy with this idea, and even dusted off my piccolo to start getting my chops in shape. But by the next day he had hit on a new idea that I liked even better: using the sixth movement to bring back each of the five previously-featured instruments in one tour-de-force finale.
While I was pleased to have this piece include a chance to show off my skills at switching instruments on the fly, I did think that this might limit the number of doublers who could perform the piece. I like the idea of a piece custom-tailored to my specific skill set, but, on the other hand, I would like to see the piece become a significant addition to the limited repertoire for woodwind doublers.
The problem, of course, is that a “doubler” might play any combination of instruments, and a piece for five specific instruments does drastically narrow the field of capable performers. My initial hope was that the piece might be adaptable to individual doublers’ abilities, either by selectively omitting movements or by providing alternate instrumentations.
Dr. Brandon, unsurprisingly, was two steps ahead of me. He has announced two different versions of the sixth movement: one version is for piccolo, and the other is for doubler playing flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone—the instruments used individually in the preceding movements—plus a brief surprise appearance by the piccolo at the very end. Read More “Multiple woodwinds commission, sixth movement (multiple woodwinds or piccolo)”
More free reeds from Rico
Rico seems to be continuing their push to get their reeds into players’ cases for an audition. I wrote a couple of years ago about their “Make the Switch” promotion, in which I scored some free Rico Jazz Select tenor reeds.With their current promotion, through the Woodwind and the Brasswind, you order a box of your favorite non-Rico clarinet or alto saxophone reeds, and get a free box of the comparable Rico offering. The deal is good through March 7 or while supplies last, so I suggest putting in your monthly (weekly?) reed order today and scoring a free box.
I’m more than happy to try out some new reeds for free, and won’t hesitate to switch if I find them better than what I’m currently using. (*wink*)
I wasn’t aware that Yusef Lateef was such an active and great composer in a classical way. Great music, great playing, super interesting Programm!