 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 1999-11-03 02:46
I kow a few of you have asked in the past about the kinds of things you can expect at a good music scool or conservatory. Here's what my son is presently up to at Cleveland Inst. of Music, freshman year:
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I just got back from a rehearsal. I'm playing second clarinet in the operas: Mozart Marriage of Figaro, Donizetti Luicia De la Lamamoor (sp?), Puccini La Boheme, Verdi Il Trovatore, and Arthur Sullivan The Gondoliers.
About my Eurythemics class. Well, we work on rhythm obviously, and we practice our rhythm using our body. Hands and feet. It's a pretty demanding class in which we do cross rhythms in our hands and feet such as 2 against 3, 3 against 4 and so on. We also do canons in which the instructor plays the piano. While he plays the piano, we have to purposly be 2 measures behind and step the rhythm that he played two measures before. Pretty confusing? We also have to do rhythmic dictation. He playes a 4 measure melody and we write down the rhythm on the board right afterwords. It's a good class to get my body working in the morning since it's my first class of the day on Mondays and Wednesdays.
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In my lessons I'm working on Rose Studies and Jeanjean Studies. I'm also working on memorizing Weber 1, because I might play it for the Spring concerto competition.
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Author: Steve Epstein
Date: 1999-11-03 04:43
Moving hands and feet two against three, etc.: you do this in quite a few international folk dances, which is also a good way to learn rhythms.
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Author: Judy
Date: 1999-11-03 11:36
I love these posts. Every time I suggest that my passion for international folk dancing (including while I was pregnant) is at the root of my childrens' musical abilities -- I get laughed out of the house. It's one of our family jokes.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 1999-11-03 12:00
I had asked my just what that "Eurhythmics " class was - when he went for auditions at CIM he had to audition for Eurhythmics, too, and I had no real idea (just guesses) what it was really about. I like the idea of learning to use the body to help with complex rhythms.
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Author: paul
Date: 1999-11-03 18:31
...but isn't that exactly where the complex rhythms came from in the first place? Think about it. Almost all of the folk dancing and deep cultural dancing that I can think of consists of extremely complex rhythms. So why not teach it as it was developed? This is somewhat like teaching Calculus through the Newtonian method starting with differential equations first and then the Calculus - like it was discovered. Re: Teach dance as a way to learn rhythm - teach from a perspective of where it came from in the first place. That's in contrast to how Calculus is normally presented, through geometric/trigonometric analysis (curve area, etc.), with differential equations coming much later. Re: Teach rhythms first and then learn how to dance to them later. Great for near lock-step things like marching band, but IMHO, terrible for teaching subtle and complex dance/music rhythm.
I have found through personal and anecdotal sources that music is best understood by those who have an innate "feel" for it. The best dancers seem to be the best musicians, etc. It's just a natural "thing" for those folks. As for engineers like me, music is a difficult thing to grasp. It's too fuzzy. Dancing is a chore, not a joy. Music is analyzed and not "felt" very well. A good performance in music must be read meticulously, hard earned and sweated out instead of improvising and "going with the flow".
Now, does the strange looking eurhytmics class make more sense to you as a parent of an aspiring musician?
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 1999-11-03 18:50
Actually, Paul, I had talked a long time with David Brown, head of eurhythmics at CIM, while my son did his clarinet audition and written tests. That's why I kind of knew what it was, but still wasn't quite sure how it was presented.
I did a little more studying this morning:
Eurhythmics is one third of the Dalcroze method - solfedge & improvisation being the other parts. For more informations:
<B><A href=http://www.dalcrozeusa.org/>The Dalcroze Society of America</A>
<A href=http://web.one.net.au/~woodman/what.htm>What is Dalcroze Eurhythmics?</A></B>
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Author: Kevin Bowman
Date: 1999-11-03 20:28
The studio where I teach young students clarinet and saxophone offers various classes for newborns to 6-yr-olds of which the exploration of body movements to music is a major part. There are a few such programs offered in many music schools, two of which are "Musikgarten" and "Kindermusic". Though I've never attended one of these classes, I have heard rave review from parents who have participated with their children. It seems that their children gain not only an increased appreciation for music at a young age but also a heightened sense of rhythm and pitch. Students graduating from such a program and beginning piano lessons (at around age 5 or 6) often experience fewer problems understanding rhythm, according to at least one piano instructor I have spoken with.
Kevin Bowman
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Author: HIROSHI
Date: 1999-11-04 05:20
Thank you Mark. This is very informative.
As to Eurhtmics:
1)If we use feet, I was once told to use a heel not a toe. Bigger bone(muscle), the better. (Is this right?)
2)Also, I was taught once to rythm split. Ex. Set MM=60. First one beat for one stroke,next split it to two,then,three, and then four.
3)This works OK. But howabout 17 or 15 splits just like a French flute musice embelishments. Louis Moyse (the sone of late Marcel Moyse) wrote in one of his exercise book:"Just find an anchor points to play these passages. Never mind details." It works I think.
By the way:
Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti. He can read its story and libretto here.
<A HREF=http://www.aria-database.com/>Aria Database</A>
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 1999-11-04 17:25
Paul--
I am not sure I agree with your statement that music is difficult for engineers to grasp. You might be surprised to learn that a great number of those who frequent this bulletin board are engineers. (We should take a survey.) Those with a mathematical bent, I believe, have an appreciation of aesthetics. Note how much mathematicians enjoy an "elegant proof" or "elegant solution."
That is not to say that all engineers fall in this category. But I won't go too deeply into my ideas on that.
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Author: A. Brown
Date: 1999-11-10 04:46
Hi,
I'll sneak in a similar note from my daughter. I can't post it on the violin board because she would be embarassed by it, but I'll put it here. If nothing else, it shows the wonderful possibilities that a good music school can give. She is at Oberlin Conservatory, although NOT on clarinet. Excuse her presentation (She does have two English AP credits but chooses to disregard convention for some reason known only to herself . . .
A. Brown
Dear mom and dad,
I'm thinking that i would like to take intensive german for winter term.
In orchestra we are currently playing stravinsky jeu des cartes, and hadyn
no. 99, and prokof. violin concerto. There is a CD made of all our
concerts that you can buy through the office--so if you're interested i
could find out how you can get that. I'm going to start working on the
first phillip glass quartet with a very very good group, and the violist
from the st, petersburg offered to give me a lesson--yeahhhh! Hindemith is
going well--i am performing in studio class on wedsday. I have several
options for thanksgiving--one of which is going to the vamos's. I did
horribly on my piano scale test because i played with the wrong
fingurings--but i think i redeemed myself with the improv melody of a
figure bass. i didn't think i did that great but the teacher was raving
about it because he said it made very effective use of suspensions and
ornimentations. The suspensions mainly were there becuase i hit
disonances, panicked and found some way to resolve them under pressure. I
was really scared he was going to tell me that i way playing everything
wrong--becuase it didn't sound like the improv that everybody else did. He
complimented it though, he said it sounded very much like a "baroque
fantasy" I've gotta to run to orchestra now,
love,
L.
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