Klarinet Archive - Posting 000551.txt from 1998/10

From: Oliver Seely <oliver@-----.EDU>
Subj: [kl] The future of home practice?
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 19:44:22 -0400

I encountered a Web page by accident the other day with MIDI files of
fully orchestrated serious works, some with as many as 27 instrument
assignments. I can't help but think that the future of home
practice lies with the liberal use of such works.

Three weeks ago the director of the Huntington Beach Concert Band
quietly gave me a copy of "Blue Shades" by Frank Ticheli and
told me that he wanted me to try the "bluezy" solo, but warned me that
it speeds up to q@-----.
Now understand that I play third because, well, that's the way community
bands go. You play where you're needed. So I took it home, looked
at it a while and decided that it was incomprehensible and I'd never
be able to learn it. Then I took a look at the Web page of Manhattan
Beach Music, and THERE I found the performance file (along with
a number of other works they publish). I had to download Quick
Time 3 and I was able at least to hear the whole number. And again
I thought that it was beyond me and I'd never be able to learn it.
But I played along a couple of times and decided that what I needed
was a MIDI file which could be slowed down to about q=100 for
starters. So I sequenced the 1st clarinet part and a wooden block
sound so that I could hear the tempo, and I played that several times
(greatly slowed). At the next rehearsal I borrowed the 1st trumpet,
trombone and bassoon parts and created tracks for them,
then played along maybe four or five times during the next week.
At the next rehearsal I told the director that
I had worked out the first "bluezy" solo but I was only up to about
q@-----. "We're going
to play it tonight." When we got to it, he didn't tell the first chair
that the crazy guy in the third section had the solo. Well, I wasn't
going to abdicate my 3 minutes of fame, so we started out. The
bluezy part wasn't too obvious because it is mezzo piano and the
first probably didn't notice, but there soon followed at the faster tempo
a 16th run and a high C to D bend (glissando?) which I blasted out
for God and all of nature and it became clear to the first chair that
SOMEONE ELSE was playing HIS solo. Anyway, it went on for a whole
page. No one in the band, including the director, really knew the piece
so no one was aware of the fact that I finished a measure behind
(or maybe ahead, I'm not sure myself). When we finished, the first
trumpet came over and said, "Please tell me that you weren't sight
reading." And the director asked ME if I thought the band did all right!
It was a very amusing evening.

The point of all this is that computer generated music holds enormous
promise for rapid development of performance quality in one's playing.
James Galway himself said as much a number of months ago on
the FLUTE list. At the time he was using Vivace to rehearse for an
upcoming flute/harpsichord tour and he uses Vivace because it
is too difficult to keep a harpsichord in tune for the necessary
rehearsals.

Some of you may want to take a look at the other numbers
available in .MOV format at the Manhattan Beach Music Web page.

Oliver

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