Klarinet Archive - Posting 000641.txt from 2000/05
From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: Bass Clarinet, Bass Clef in A Transpositions
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 13:21:34 -0400
On Fri, 12 May 2000 12:03:11 EDT, Jcadie@-----.com said:
> In a message dated 12/05/00 04:27:27,
> roger.shilcock@-----.uk writes:
>
> > Incidentally, Janis, why didn't your friend *ask* which sax(es) to
> > bring? Yours, Roger S.
>
> He did, that's the whole point, you have to be able to transpose
> ultimately.
Here, I suggest, the force of "have to" derives from the following
meaning of the word, "ultimately":
"....if the difference between you and someone else doing the job is so
small, or the fixer is so powerful, that your ability to deal with the
purely technical demands -- note, not the musical demands -- of an
unacceptable situation not of your own making is the one determining
factor in whether or not you get rebooked. And, that not being rebooked
for such a reason worries you that much anyway."
Was he not rebooked, by the way?
Of course, returning to reality for a moment, I don't mean to say
that it's not an advantage to be able to play Bb parts on the A clarinet
and vice versa, though all the tendency at the moment is to follow the
indications of the composer. Nor, stretching the matter, do I mean to
say that it's not an advantage to be able to transpose on any instrument
into any key. That might be useful on saxes, particularly if either you
or the musical director is being creative and experimental.
But by the same token, you'd have to agree it could also be an advantage
on occasion to be able to play in tune with a piano that's a third of a
tone flat (that happened to me once -- I stress the 'once'), or to be
able to busk efficiently in an unknown piece when the librarian has lost
your part.
Or being able to sing it falsetto when the fixer smashes your mouthpiece
by mistake thirty seconds before the big solo.
And they'll tell stories about you for years if you're lucky enough to
find an appropriate situation to match your secret ability in such a
direction. You could die happy, if that's what you want your life to be
about.
You know, I sometimes wonder whether I work in the same profession as
the profession often described here -- with its auditions that throw
people out if they play one bum note, and all the rest of it. Enough of
these 'pro' scare stories, already.
> This major orchestra screwed up when they told him what sax to bring.
> From now on, no doubt, he will bring all of his saxes to a gig like
> that.
No doubt.
To name-drop a little, I remember Stokowski telling the first flute in
our orchestra, recording Scheherazade, that she should have brought her
piccolo to the session, even though it wasn't required for her part.
(He suddenly got the idea he wanted to double something.)
"Always bring piccolo!!!" he said.
You're never going to get round that sort of thing.
But he died a few weeks later.
Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE www.gmn.com/artists/welcome.asp
tel/fax 01865 553339
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