Klarinet Archive - Posting 000535.txt from 2001/10

From: rgarrett@-----.edu
Subj: RE: [kl] "successful faking"
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 06:55:46 -0400

At 02:24 PM 10/16/01 -0500, you wrote:
>But, take for instance, the last page of Borodin's Polovetsian Dances. The
>high G in that passage is MUCH easier if you fake the fingering and play
>it above the thumb C. Noone can tell the difference. My teacher this
>summer, who studied with Russianoff and Niedich to name a few, and has
>degrees from Yale and Juilliard, told me to do things like this as often
>as I can to make the altissomo fingerings easier, as long as I play them
>evenly, smoothly, and control the pitch and volume. It's not intended to
>just smear over a passage, but sometimes using the "real" fingerings are
>more troublesome. Doesn't anyone else here use harmonics, or am I crazy?

Lacy,

Now that you have explained this, I think perhaps the problem in
communicating what you meant could have had something to do with the use of
the word "fake" or "faking it." Using a harmonic fingering (I really,
really like the overblown clarion B for high G for that fingering by the
way) is not faking at all! It is using what some people have often called
"fake" fingerings - harmonic fingerings. But, often, they are fine because
they sound in tune and make the note sound - which is not faking at all.

That's the way I see this conversation having gone - it seems like what you
meant as fake and what others interpreted as fake were two different things.

Best,
Roger Garrett

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