Klarinet Archive - Posting 000069.txt from 2000/05

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Non-standard fingerings, trills, voicing
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 06:15:04 -0400

Stravinsky originally scored this "Petrushka" passage for cornet. IMHO, he
should have let it be......
Roger S.

On Sun, 30 Apr 2000, Tony Pay wrote:

> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 08:51:25 +0100
> From: Tony Pay <Tony@-----.uk>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] Non-standard fingerings, trills, voicing
>
> On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 23:25:45 -0700, jonsmith@-----.net said:
>
> > On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 22:20:33 EDT, OrionDJ12@-----.com said:
> >
> > > In one of my peices of music, I have a very hard "A" to "B" trill.
> > > Is there an easier way to trill besides going from one finger to all
> > > down?
> >
> > What about using the right hand side keys in addition to the A? It's
> > the very top one I think, maybe the top two. Not a perfect sound, but
> > it's the only way to trill.
>
> I had in fact suggested previously:
>
> > Play the B as usual, but then *add* the throat A key with the one
> > finger you mention. (This finger is then covering the top LH hole and
> > opening the A key simultaneously, which you never do normally, but
> > isn't too hard to arrange.) The B is almost unaffected by the A key
> > being opened.
> >
> > Now trill with your *right-hand* first finger.
>
> This is quite an 'extreme' example, but shows that even the modern
> clarinet is more unpredictable than your, "it's the only way to trill"
> implies.
>
> On period instruments, where each individual clarinet has its own
> quirks, you have to be creative about trill fingerings -- even creative
> about fingerings in general -- in order to get the results, particularly
> in fast passagework. And even on modern instruments, you can sometimes
> find an easier solution to a technical problem than the standard one.
> Abe Galper just posted such a solution to the 'Gipsy Baron' problem
> passage, for example.
>
> Another thing. I haven't tried Abe's solution yet, but if I had to play
> the Gipsy Baron, I'd certainly spend quite a lot of time working not
> only on his suggestion, but on any others I might be able to come up
> with myself.
>
> Why? Because, *even if in the end I were to decide to play it using the
> standard fingering*, I know that such experimentation 'fixes' the
> structure of a passage itself in my mind in a way that is independent of
> any one particular fingering. And that sort of representation of the
> structure of the passage is certainly an aid to, and may be essential
> for, security and consistency.
>
> A trumpet player friend of mine once developed a 'thing' about the solo
> in Petrushka, so that he started to worry much more than usual every
> time he had to play it, and it got worse. (It's the one that goes,
> diddle-dee, diddle-dah, diddle-dai, diddle-dah, diddle
> diddle-iddle-iddle-iddle iddle-iddle-dah, etc etc, if you follow me:-)
>
> What he did over a period of a couple of weeks to get out of it was: he
> wrote it out in different keys, he played it in different keys on the
> trumpet, he played it on the piano, he sang it, he practised it on the
> recorder...
>
> In the 'different fingerings' case that I was talking about, perhaps
> also while practising them we learn more efficiently the subtle
> movements of the tongue that are so important in passagework -- what I
> called 'voicing' before, Audrey. Non-standard fingerings sometimes
> require more precision in this than standard ones, so when we play at
> speed with the standard fingering a 'difficult' note may be helped to
> resonate better by the more accurate tongue placement we learned in the
> 'non-standard' practice. (We might have been too stuck in the fingering
> difficulty in the 'standard' practice to allow that to happen.)
>
> Just to round off -- do we all know 'Stadler's fingering' for clarion
> Bb? Quite a godsend on the old instrument, but works on the modern one,
> and very useful for the Berio sequenza:
>
> ....finger long C# just above the break, and lift the LH third finger.
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE www.gmn.com/artists/welcome.asp
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> .... A single fact can spoil a good argument.
> .
>
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