Klarinet Archive - Posting 000010.txt from 2004/05

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Inconsiderate sheet music publishers
Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 12:55:38 -0400


At the last International Saxophone Symposium, in January (George Mason U.
in Virginia), a number of the soloists resorted to using two or three
stands each, with the cut-apart and photocopied music sheets taped together
and laid out in a line along the stands. The musician would sidle crabwise
down the row of stands to read the part without turning any pages. That's
okay for people who play standing up, in small bands and chamber groups,
but no help for someone sitting in the middle of an orchestra.

Roger Shilcock wrote,
>How about the beginning of the last movement of
>Sibelius 2, in what I take to be the usual printing?
>Not only is there a near-impossible turnover - in both
>parts, if I remember rightly - but you're supposed to
>changed to the A clarinet immediately over the page.

No problem at all, if you're an octopus, or even a quintopus, as in the
1955 science fiction movie, "It Came from Beneath the Sea," where
stop-motion special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen had to cope with a
budget too small to give his giant monster all eight arms -- it had five
arms and help from careful camera angles when it tore down the Golden Gate
Bridge and otherwise wrought havoc. It could've juggled two clarinets,
though. No problema. Hey, that could work: a stop-motion miniature
clarinet player with five arms, clever camera angles, a digital soundtrack
and forced perspective....

Thrill to the horror of -- PSYCHO CLARINETTISTS RUN AMOK! Turning the
pages has driven them mad! Frenzied! Crazed! They're armed to the teeth
with Buffet R-13s and now they're spitting nails! The audience panics, the
blood flows in slippery red torrents, as savage Reed Ravagers rip their
music to shreds and nail pages to their stands, to the floor, to the backs
of the violists' heads! Don't sit in the aisle seats -- or else, when the
Psycho Clarinettists escape from the Director, leap off the stage and go
berserk in the audience, they'll nail their sheet music to YOU!! Come if
you dare -- no one may enter or leave the auditorium after the performance
has begun. Nurses stationed in the lobby.

Well, okay, maybe not.

A useful product for re-paginating awkward scores is paper-mending tissue,
sold at craft supply stores. Unlike Scotch tape, this acid-free archival
tape, usually made of rice, will fold, like paper, a quality that makes it
good for taping sheets of music together. In his book repair and
restoration business, my husband uses several brands. The one I steal from
him is Lineco, Inc. Archival Quality Transparent Mending Tissue (made in
Holyoke, Massachusetts) in the 1/2" width. It's non-yellowing,
pressure-sensitive and reversible (meaning it can be removed without
tearing the paper, if you change your mind about where to put the page
turn). In the Washington, D.C. area, Pearl stores sell it. The tape comes
in different widths, on rolls in cardboard dispensing boxes. And when the
tape's all gone, you can use the box for a Roach Motel, so handy when
you're on the road.

Lelia Loban
E-mail: lelialoban@-----.net
Web site (original music scores as audio or print-out):
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban

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