Klarinet Archive - Posting 000092.txt from 2006/05

From: "Moshe Berlin" <moshe_berlin@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Klezmer Clarinet Solo with Winds ensembles (Full BAnd)
Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 12:18:28 -0400

To make it clear, I am not against playing written music and using
notes. Also, I can stand that you cannot perform with a big band without
using a well written score. There is a lot of written klezmer tunes, and
every one can play them and get into it without a need to be frustrated. The
fact is that the booknotes of klezmer music were written down from the
recordings (after performing) and not in the usual way, where the recordings
get out as a result of the written composition (which may raise the question
whether Tarras, Belf, Brandwein etc. played their pieces by heart).
I only wanted to point out that the real field where the klezmer act, is
in a gig where he can face his audience and play in a kind of feedback
between him (the band) and his attendees.
One of my CDs is an example how (or, how not) to perform a concert with
a 5 musicians who like to play together, without any written note or
arrangement, but with agreement about the mood of the performance, and
having just the name of the piece to be played.

Moshe Berlin

----- Original Message -----
From: <Tski1128@-----.com>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: [kl] Klezmer Clarinet Solo with Winds ensembles (Full BAnd)

| In a message dated 5/11/2006 4:50:40 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
| moshe_berlin@-----.net writes:
| I don't believe on playing klezmer with notes, or with written
arrangements.
| Real klezmer playing is by reading the faces of the audience and the
| players instead of reading what the notes tells.
| The notes themselves should represent only the sketch of the piece, and
the
| rest must be played by (and with) heart.
|
| Moshe (Moussa) Berlin
|
| I don't believe in reading the audience's faces while playing! Watching
them
| sure, but they aren't going to give me any information that's going to
make
| a iota of difference in my interpretation. I am totally down with the
concept
| that solos are performed better when the soloist is performing from
memory,
| we would most likely find that this would not be the case with a 60 piece
| band or orchestra. If I'm working with my rhythm section, We'll sit down
and
| play for hours the tunes we know from memory. If I'm performing
Buccolique, I
| want the chart and I damn sure want the pianist to have one!
|
| There are often postings, concerning Klezmer music, that try to convince
| people that klezmer music is in someway different then any other type of
music.
| There are some stylistic differences surely, but the same elements make a
| performance sublime, or suck. You have to know the music, have the
appropriate
| tone color, have the requisite technique and have an opinion to state! If
the
| it's what YOU think the composer was really trying to say, take a stand
and
| play it like that. If you think you have an idea on how Naftule
Brandwein,
| would have played a frielach after his forth scotch, live on the edge
take a
| stand and give me your opinion. What I hate is boring, non point of view
| performances by clarinetists that think clarinets should sound like korg
tuners!
|
| But that's just my opinion
|
| Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with
| Lox&Vodka, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most
recently
| by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in
| Clarinet performance
|
|
|
|
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