Klarinet Archive - Posting 001377.txt from 1998/07

From: <Maestro645@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] some modern music is just trash to me
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 15:50:44 -0400

I recall one piece I played when I was principal clarinet at the UNI Honor
Band my freshman year. It was entitled "Dinosaurs" (can't remember the
composer), and it was WILD. Percussion banged twenty foot tall pipes to the
floor, and some wind parts were unmetered, where you'd play a passage as fast
as possible, repeating it for a directed amount of time (10 seconds, etc.).
There was also a time where we took out mouthpiece and barrel away from the
rest of the clarinet and blow and cup your hand over the opening, and go back
and forth with your hand, to make a "wah-wah" sound (like an Indian call).
Then we also played the crystals. It was a WILD piece, and at first I thought
it was stupid, and a waste of our artistic ability, but it grew on you, and we
began to appreciate the piece.
Why did I bring this up? Well, in some pieces composers wrote, they were
ridiculed for their work. (Some pieces of Mozart and Stravinsky immediately
come to mind.) Today, it is more appreciated, although some choose to dislike
it, and that is fine.
So today's rap or "SOME modern music" is just getting started, when compared
to how long other pieces have been around. And whether we like it or not, it
probably will be a considerable element in the development of Western music.
Some will like it, others will not, but we can't stop it from happening.
Chris Hoffman

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