Klarinet Archive - Posting 000106.txt from 1999/01

From: Mitch Bassman <mbassman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: clarinet & bassoon duo
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 15:04:54 -0500

At 10:11 PM 1/2/1999 -0500, Mark Charette wrote:
>Mitch Bassman - how's your ocarina playing? You seem to double on just
>about anything :^)

Well, not everything, but I am willing to *try* almost anything. You're
probably being facetious, Mark, but, believe it or not, I do own two
ocarinas: (1) a very nice wooden double ocarina in C and F and (2) a
ceramic ocarina (pitched sort of in C) shaped like an aardvark. The wooden
one has a fairly nice tone. I sounds like a very sweet, very soft recorder.
It's in a sock in my miscellaneous instruments drawer, and I haven't played
it for about ten years. (That's the answer to how good my ocarina playing
is.) The ceramic one is out on display; I pick it up and blow into its tail
occasionally. (Yes, the tail is the mouthpiece.) It doesn't sound very
good. But what can you expect from blowing into the tail of an aardvark?

There is at least one musical show that calls for the ocarina: _Crazy for
You_ in the Reed 2 book:

1. piccolo, flute, Bb clarinet, soprano sax, alto sax
2. piccolo, flute, Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet, alto sax,
ocarina in C [or pennywhistle in G]
3. oboe, English horn, clarinet, tenor sax
4. piccolo, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor sax
5. bassoon, bass clarinet, baritone sax

I thought I was going to get to play that ocarina part twice recently (on
the wooden instrument, not on the aardvark). In the summer of 1997 I
substituted on Reed 2 in one performance of this show. When I heard about
the ocarina part, I was excited. Then I learned that it was a brief solo in
the middle of a dance portion of a number and the dance had been cut. So I
settled for bringing the other five instruments.

Then last spring (1998) I was called to play an entire run of this show on
a Reed 1/2 combination book. I got to play some great soprano sax licks,
but, again the dance portion of the ocarina number was cut. (Sigh.) Maybe
I'll get to bring my ocarina peg to a pit some day. :)

Has anyone on this list ever played that ocarina part in an actual
performance?

Mitch Bassman
Burke, Virginia, USA

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