Klarinet Archive - Posting 000099.txt from 2002/04

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] A few newbie questions
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 21:53:31 -0500

Welcome. It sounds as though you have two very musical children.

To-the-point answers to your two questions:

References to a "pair of clarinets" have to do with a clarinet pitched in B
flat and one pitched in A. Most serious *orchestral* clarinetists own at
least these two, which are the two clarinets most commonly called for by
composers from Mozart to the present. You may see conversation here about C
clarinets as well. These are becoming more common among orchestral players
as well. They are called for by composers throughout the 18th and 19th
centuries, but for a time (through the greater part of the 20th century)
players transposed C clarinet parts onto other instruments, usually the B
flat, to avoid owning, maintaining and carrying three instruments. So if
your daughter becomes serious at the college level, her set of instruments
may well include three, not two. BTW, band music is invariably scored for
clarinets in B flat, and jazz players who play clarinet play B flats as
well.

Musicians should be able to transpose as a consequence of their musical
skill and understanding. That your kids can both do this easily is probably
a strong indicator of their talent level. That they are getting the
opportunity to practice doing it in an "authentic" (to borrow a currently
popular piece of educational jargon) as well as friendly and supportive
musical setting is wonderful for them and will allow their natural abilities
to develop. Many otherwise talented musicians don't have this opportunity as
young players and find transposition more daunting when they try to learn to
do it as adults, especially if they need to learn in order to play some
difficult C clarinet part in a Rossini overture.

Again, welcome to Klarinet.

Karl Krelove

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Terry B [mailto:tbroyles99@-----.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 9:08 PM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] A few newbie questions
>
>
> Greetings to the list!
>
> I should first introduce myself; I am not a musician by any definition
> of the word. I am the father of two very talented teenagers whom are. My
> son is 15, a trumpet player, in 10th grade, plays in his high school
> jazz band, (at 6:30am!) and the wind ensemble. He is also in one of the
> Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras.
> My daughter just turned 13, in 7th grade, has played piano for about 4
> years and started clarinet for a while in 6th grade. She started to take
> clarinet serious and receive private lessons at the beginning of this
> school year. There was a bit of confusion for the first semester, as at
> the insistence of her band teacher, she showed up at home with a French
> horn. Seems her 7th grade band had 11 clarinets, and no horns. As my
> daughter was about 9th chair, but has a great music background, her
> teacher thought she would make a great French horn player. She spent the
> first semester playing French horn in a beginning band class and
> clarinet in 7th grade band. At home, she would practice her horn,
> clarinet, and piano, every day, 7 days a week. At the end of the
> semester she announced she was done with the horn. She was up to 4th
> chair clarinet in her band class, and besides, the horn was dorky and
> had boring music parts, (her words) :) She now plays piano in her jazz
> band class and is ready to bump off 3rd chair clarinet on their next
> chair test. I subscribed to this list to try to learn more about
> clarinets for my daughter.
>
> If anyone has made it this far thru my ramblings, I have come up with a
> couple of questions since reading the posts the last week or so.
>
> I have seen several mentions have people having "a set of Buffets" or "a
> pair of Selmers" Do serious clarinet players need to have more than one?
> I asking this partly to prepare myself for when the time comes and she
> says she needs a "pair" of Buffet R13's for college. I've seen the
> prices of "serious" clarinets and it makes the price of my son's Bach
> Stradivarius trumpet look like chicken feed. Are these "pairs" the same
> or different keys?
>
> My next question has to do with the recent thread on transposing. I must
> be missing something here, as both of my kids transpose "on the fly".
> While most parents like to think their kids are the brightest in the
> world, I am under no such illusion. :) They both play in church, using a
> piano hymnal, and transpose as they play. They also play at home, my
> daughter on the piano and my son on trumpet, and he will just read her
> piano music, transpose, and play along. I may be misunderstanding the
> thread, as it seems many musicians cannot or don't transpose?
>
> I'm sure I will come up with more questions later, but this message has
> ended up way too long.
>
> Thanks to all for some very informative posts.
>
> Terry B
> The very proud father of Michael & Christina
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>

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