Klarinet Archive - Posting 000717.txt from 2002/04

From: "Paolo Leva" <paolo.leva@-----.se>
Subj: Re: [kl] memorizing: suggestions?
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 05:41:39 -0400

Thanks Tony, I retrieved the thread and read it, lots of food for thoughts!

Among the interesting ideas I see the one of learning the keys. I usually
did that when learning Jazz music, I always played the chords on the
clarinet few times till I knew the harmony of the piece by memory, this
probably helped remembering the melody as well (which was never a problem
for Jazz tunes). I never thought about doing it for classical music.

But how do you do that? The sections are much larger and usually more
complicated than in jazz. A key or a main function (tonic-subdominant...)
may last for 8-16-32 bars. Or you do an harmonic analysis of the piece on a
very detailed level? You concentrate only on cadenzas?
Once you identified the main sections, their key and their main theme, do
you play them one after the other jumping over the rest of the music?

Let's take Weber 1st concert, 1st movement (without cadenza):
m.48, g (main theme)
m.64, g
m.86, Eb (second theme?)
m.110, Bb
m.130, Bb
m.170, d
m.192, C
m.198, a
m.206, C7 (F) -> m. 210 f#dim -> m.216 c#dim -> m.223 G
m.231, g -> m.242, D7
m.258, g

would this be a sensible way of breaking it down? Learning those 11 pieces
by themselves and then binding them together? I'll give it a try.

And how do you work with music where the sections flow into each other
without discontinuity, as usually happens with pieces for clarinet solo.

-paolo

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Pay" <Tony@-----.uk>
Subject: Re: [kl] memorizing: suggestions?

> On Thu, 25 Apr 2002 09:45:53 +0200, paolo.leva@-----.se said:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am quite frustrated by the difficulties in learning by memory my
> > clarinet music. It is very easy for me to learn by heart my piano
> > music, I do not even need to try, if I study a piece for some time
> > than I suddenly *know it*. But with the clarinet this does not happen.
> >
> > I believe that the differences are in the fact that in the piano
> > playing I can use my viusal memory and I find it much easier to
> > identify clusters (chords, patterns..) even in the melody.
> >
> > Do you have any suggestion how to *intelligently* develop my memory in
> > my clarinet playing?
>
> Quite extensive thread about that recently. If you go to:
>
>
http://www.woodwind.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?restrict=;exclude=;config=Logs;meth
od=and;format=builtin-long;sort=time;words=memorization;page=3
>
> ...and then follow it back through page 2, you'll get most of it. It
> turns into a discussion about memorizing on piano after a bit.
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> ... It's worse than that, it's physics, Jim!
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

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