Check it out: Dutch classical saxophone virtuoso Arno Bornkamp has made five of his albums available for free download from his website. There’s a real wealth of repertoire here, and beautifully played. Did I mention free?
Woodwinds: Saxophone
Still more woodwind blogs you should be reading
In what is turning out to be an approximately biannual roundup, I present the third installment of woodwind-related blogs that I’m enjoying, and you will too. If you’re late to the party, check out episodes 1 and 2. (In each case I picked at least one excellent blog that shortly thereafter stopped publishing new content, so take a look at today’s picks and see if you can guess which is getting the “Bret Pimentel, woodwinds” curse. Bwahahahaha.)
Tammy Evans Yonce
Tammy is a former classmate of mine (go ‘Dawgs), and a flutist and educator to keep an eye on. Her blog, just a few months old, is outstandingly good: important topics, carefully thought out, and clearly and elegantly written. Tammy writes about flute performance and pedagogy, with a special interest in making practice time really effective. A must-read.
Also check out Tammy on Twitter, and at her other new blog, the collaborative Music Collective.
The Doublers Collective: progressive jazz saxophone quintet
The Doublers Collective is a new quintet of accomplished jazz saxophonists with strong doubling abilities, based in Phoenix, Arizona. The group is the brainchild of Monica Shriver, who I had the pleasure of meeting at the NASA conference last year. Check them out in this video: For more about the Doublers Collective: visit their website follow … Read more
New sound clips: Faculty woodwinds recital, Aug. 30, 2011
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.
Required recordings, fall 2011
The fall semester has begun, so it’s time for my students to buy their required recordings for the semester. This semester I wanted to address a few glaring gaps in the library my students have built so far:
- The oboists don’t have anything Baroque yet.
- The clarinetists don’t have anything by Weber yet.
- The bassoonists don’t have the Mozart concerto yet.
- The saxophonists don’t have the Glazunov concerto yet.
I think I found some great recordings to fill those voids. As a diversity bonus, three of the four are talented women, and one of those is a native Israeli.
Here are the selections:
Ray Still: A Chicago Legend: Baroque Oboe Sonatas
Repertoire: Bach Sonata in G minor, Handel Sonatas nos. 1 and 2, Telemann Partitas 2, 5, and 6, Vivaldi Sonata no. 6
Faculty woodwinds recital, Aug. 30, 2011
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
Program
Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano
Sy Brandon (b. 1945)
World premiere
- Intrada
- Nocturne
- Valse
- Marche
- Romanza
- Galop
Caprice en forme de valse for alto saxophone
Paul Bonneau (1918 – 1995)
Sonata for oboe and piano
Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)
- Elégie
- Scherzo
- Déploration
Sonata for clarinet and piano
Francis Poulenc
- Allegro tristamente
- Romanza
- Allegro con fuoco
Ode to a Toad
Ray Pizzi (b. 1943)
Do it yourself: replace saxophone palm key pads
If you’re interested in learning to do some pad replacements on your instrument(s), saxophone left-hand palm keys are a good place to start. Here’s why:
- The palm keys don’t have any dependencies—they don’t move any other keys and aren’t moved by any other keys. So replacing a palm key pad won’t set off a chain reaction of adjustments you have to make to the instrument’s mechanism.
- The palm keys are sprung to sit closed when you’re not pressing them, which means that the spring will help you get the pad seated, instead of getting in your way. It will also press the pad firmly against the tonehole, overcoming small imperfections in your padding technique. With keys that sit open on their own, the padding has to be extra skilled so you can use a feather-light touch when you play.
- The palm keys are long, so you’re less likely to burn your fingers.
- When you’re playing, the palm key pads take the brunt of the condensation from your breath, so they need relatively frequent replacement anyway. I bet yours could stand replacing.
I’ll walk you through this. I perhaps should confess that I am not NAPBIRT certified or anything fancy like that. You undertake this at your own risk, etc.
First, remove the key by unscrewing the pivot rod and pulling it out.
Review: Rico reed cases
I’ve been trying out the Rico single and double reed cases. These are plastic cases that can optionally accommodate Rico’s “Reed Vitalizer” packets, which, according to Rico, help keep your reeds at your desired humidity level. The single reed case holds eight reeds, baritone saxophone or smaller, and the double reed case holds five double reeds, oboe or bassoon. (I found contrabass clarinet reeds to be just a little too large for the single reed case. The double reed case holds English horn reeds just fine, but doesn’t work for oboe d’amore or contrabassoon.)
Detailed review follows, but here is the quick summary:
| Price | reasonable initial investment; pricier if you regularly buy additional Vitalizer packs |
|---|---|
| Looks | handsome |
| Humidity | undecided |
| Design | flawed |
Price
Current street price on both the single reed case and the double reed case seems to be about $20. This includes one Reed Vitalizer pack. If you choose to use the Reed Vitalizer packs on an ongoing basis, they go for about $5 apiece, and Rico says you will need a new one every 45-60 days (so, up to around $40/year, not counting tax or shipping).
Historical woodwind recordings on the National Jukebox
- Photo, alexruthmann
The United States Library of Congress’s National Jukebox project makes American recordings from the days before microphones available for streaming online. This is a fantastic resource for recordings—classical, jazz, and more—from the turn of the 20th century until the mid-1920’s.
These recordings are not in the public domain, like you might think; Sony, the owner of the recordings, has given the Library of Congress special permission to stream them.
Naturally, I’ve been searching the National Jukebox for woodwind players, and here are a few of my favorite discoveries. Some of the gems include oddities like the Heckelphone and bass saxophone, and there are a few woodwind doublers in there, too. Take note of how woodwind playing, like recording technology, has changed over the past century!
To kick things off, here’s a nice tour of the woodwind section of the Victor Orchestra in 1912:
A few more woodwind blogs you should be reading
A few months ago I posted some of my recommendations for good woodwind-related blogs, and shared a couple of tips on getting the most out of your blog reading. I’ve got a few more favorite blogs I’d like to share today, and another blog-reading tip, too.
This time I came up with a blog each for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone, plus a bonus one. Here they are in no particular order:
Barrick Stees (Barry Blogs)
Barrick Stees is the assistant principal bassoonist in the Cleveland Orchestra, and a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Akron. His blog is fairly new (started earlier this year) but is already full of good stuff. Professor Stees shares some insights on playing excerpts at a level suitable to one of the great American orchestras:
He also keeps a travelogue of his tours with the orchestra, and comments on other items of interest to professional or developing musicians, such as: