Klarinet Archive - Posting 000397.txt from 2001/04

From: Richard Bush <rbushidioglot@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Oklahoma/F# trill fingering
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 10:13:48 -0400

Sooner or later almost everyone gets a chance to play "Oklahoma." While
the show is playable on a Bb clarinet, many of the songs are in lots and
lots of sharps. This could be a problem for young clarinet players who
haven't yet learned to get around in those keys at the bottom of the
circle of fifths.

I got two impressions from playing the show. 1) I found a lot of the
music very challenging, simply because so much of it was umpa, after
beat type stuff. Scoring back in those days was not very imaginative.
Making good music of such boring parts, making it musical with good
phrasing became a major objective for me. I got it to work, but playing
this ol' war horse sure wasn't fun like playing a Sye (sp?) Coleman
score (Will Roger's Follies or City of Angles). 2) I too got the
distinct impression that the original score may well have been written
for both A and Bb clarinet. (Can anyone confirm or deny this?) Had I had
an A clarinet, I sure would have used it on a lot of the six and seven
sharp stuff, not because I couldn't manage it on the Bb, but because it
would have made life much simpler. It would have solved that F#/G#
trill, too.

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