Klarinet Archive - Posting 000699.txt from 1996/04

From: "Daniel A. Paprocki" <dap@-----.US>
Subj: high school contest lists in stone
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 14:38:35 -0400

Bruce,
You make some good points. In my opinion, a wind instrument seems
to be harder to master than a piano (I've had some piano) or a string (I
havn't had any string inst). I'll generalize and lump brass and woodwinds
together. A wind player has to deal with embouchure, wind support,
tonguing, reeds, and mouthpiece selection. This is on top of fingers,
rhythm, tuning, etc. With a wind instrument there are so many things that
could go wrong that until a student has a good foundation in the mechanics
of sound generation (embouchure, wind support, tonguing, reeds, and
mouthpiece selection), they have a more dificult time playing the music
than say a pianist or string player (don't flame me too bad all you
violinist out there!)
My point is that the high school contest lists should be more
carefully selected with this in mind. How are contest list determined?
Does anyone have an insight into this? Or are they handed down, generation
to generation? - Maybe they came down from the mountain on stone tablets
Thou shalt play the Message, Thou shalt play the Mozart Concerto
(Cundy-Bettoney ed , and cut meas. 310-365 please) Thou shalt not play the
Carl Fisher ed. of the Weber Concerto 1 only the Lineau ed. Back to my
point. Is there any thought in the contest lists or even what is a good
edition of a piece or not?
Let's hear some comments on this and also the level of development
of high school wind players compared to string and piano (yes and
percussion) players.

Dan

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Daniel A. Paprocki
dap@-----.us

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