Klarinet Archive - Posting 000109.txt from 2006/09

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Adams: Gnarly Software
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2006 14:53:45 -0400

Sean Osborn's note contains an item that is one of music's most
perplexing problems. (It's also a problem in lots of disciplines,
but I'll skip that part.)

Sean says, that he thinks the Nielsen is the best concerto, while
someone else said that the Gnarly Buttons was better. I'm staying
out of those specific judgements but turn my attention (and, it
is hoped, yours too) to the question of "best concerto."

Now Sean doesn't mean that there is an International Best Piece
Center with members who meet on Tuesdays and measure the bestness
of each piece so as to allow a public announcement of which piece
is the best one. What he means, and what he has every right to
mean, is that he likes that work so much that it is his favorite.
Nothing wrong with that.

And for the person who said that he thought that Gnarly Buttons
was better, that is almost certainly what he meant, too.

But when those views get passed around, and travel through the
internet, and are spoken again and again, they take on a patina
of universal truth and we begin to forget that the music business
doesn't have a "best." But the minute there is a universally
recognized best piece, that allows the question "What is the
world's best clarinet, best reed, best stand, best swab," ect. ad
nauseam.

So every now and then, it is necessary to take a hammer and smash
the hell out of the idea of "the best" just to make sure that it
does not get out of control, with students saying that they want
to play only the best pieces (which is an oxymoron, because there
can only be one best piece, and I know what it is), on the best
clarinets!

Is there a best accordion?? Would it be measured by the number of
buttons on it, or the maximum physical extention of the bellows?
When I played with Frank Wonerofsky and his Polish polka band,
the accordionist, who had a terrible twitching that he could not
control, announced himself as the "World's Finest Accordion
Player with St. Vitus Dance." No kidding. He had a card by him
that announced it in sparkly stuff. When he and I did the
clarinet polka together, Polish mothers threw their daughters at
me. Several had moustaches. They were the best.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Osborn [mailto:feanor33@-----.net]
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 11:14 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] Adams: Gnarly Software

A few things:

Bill and Dan, thanks for your kind words. There is a piano
reduction, and
you can order it from any music supplier. I still think Nielsen
is our best
concerto, but I'm glad you like the work. If we all agreed, the
world
would be a dull place. Though "Gnarly Buttons" is difficult, the
Nielsen
is more difficult. There is one tiny Nielsen quote in the first
movement,
so faint you might not even notice.

The software is fairly universal, and they send it with the
rented
parts. We got floppy disks, which we loaded into the Kurtzweil,
and I
think you could load them into any synth with a floppy drive.
Most have
them now. We had to re-load them every time we turned it off,
though,
which was a pain, because it took about 20 minutes to set up.
The synth
player forgot to turn her volume up for the cow in the second
movement (it
came out soft unless at full volume and everything else was then
too loud),
so you can barely hear it on the recording - ah, the joy of live
performances - nothing beats them!

Cheers,

Sean
www.osbornmusic.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------
--
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc.
http://www.woodwind.org

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org