Klarinet Archive - Posting 000579.txt from 1998/04

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: Re: Liturgical Music
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 05:01:51 -0400

SDSCHWAEG <SDSCHWAEG@-----.com> wrote:

>Having just finished a seemingly endless week of services (my "real" job is a
>church gig), I was just wondering if anybody else out there plays clarinet
>liturgically (especially for Roman Catholic services) and, if so, what music
>do you use? I'm always looking for new literature!

Susan,

Although I was originally a clarinet and sax player, I now make more money
as a church organist -- one Roman service and one Episcopal every weekend.
If I had a chance to add a clarinet, or trumpet or whatever (for special
services, probably), I think I would look to adapting the wealth of vocal
music. If a clarinetist is not adept at reading from a C score (up one note
and add two sharps or subtract two flats), a transposition is easy to write.

Beyond that, an effective trick might be to use the descants found in many
modern hymn arrangements for the clarinet. I just recently ran across an
out of sight descant for Adeste Fideles, and thought how great it would
have sounded to have it played on a trumpet.

I use my computer to write transpositions, rearrangements of piano scores
for organ, and so on with an inexpensive DOS program called SongWright.
Sometimes I do a separate score for a singer, and one for an instrument
would be the same sort of minor job. Using the computer doesn't save much
time in scoring, but once you have the music in a file, you can transpose
it to any key in a couple of seconds, and the scores you print out that are
highly readable, which my manuscript arrangements are not.

Here's a suggestion of one routine you could use with the clarinet, an
organ or piano and a choir, cantor or congregation singing: Give the
clarinet the introduction, with the keyboard instrument comping chords.
Have the clarinet play the first verse, or the verse and refrain or
whatever, in unison with the melody. Give it fill-ins between the phrases
when appropriate in the second chorus. Have it play obbligato with the
third chorus, and then play a descant over the fourth.

Instrumental solos are also effective, especially during communion, when
many people - and I'm one - don't really want to sing. My favorite alto and
I did Panis Angelicus this week, using a transposition to D and a
rearrangement I had done. As we rehearsed, I was thinking how cool it would
have sounded to have an instrument, perhaps a clarinet, saxophone or muted
trumped, playing harmony under the first verse, taking an interlude or an
entire verse (open horn for the trumper), and then playing harmony and
fills during the second verse.

I guess what I'm saying comes down to suggesting that you try a
do-it-yourself approach, instead of hoping to find just what you want in a
catalog somewhere. It's always seemed natural to me, being primarily a
swing reedman, to write charts as needed, and also to adlib transpositions,
harmony and fills. I sometimes think about how much playing for a church
service is like playing in a pit band, because whatever else liturgy may
be, it is also theater. And of course, because you have to be constantly
ready and able to improvise when something up on the stage does not go the
way you rehearsed it.

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>