 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: contragirl
Date: 2003-12-07 22:19
I look at all my clarinet college friends that are playing all these cool solos, and I can't help realizing that I have NEVER heard of these pieces! I have a job at the library with the ICA collection hoping I will learn more about clarinet repetoire, but I don't feel that I am gettin aqauinted with them any better.
What I started doing is finding composers I know (and some I don't) and just randomly getting the music. Some ppl are like "I played that when I was in high school." Grrr! I didn't really play ANY solos in HS. :(
I feel like the area where I grew up was not much with rep. education or education of the instrument in general (which is what lead me to this page). A new friend of mine I met this year who plays flute, is from the same area as me, and who also works in the library with me, also feels that the area where we live didn't prepare us well. Was it our education program?
I feel that this has kept me from being a better player, that maybe if I had these challenging works in my rep. in HS, I could have been a lot better. I feel so behind. :(
Has anyone else felt this way?
Thanks,
Contragirl
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Author: William
Date: 2003-12-07 22:30
When I was in high school, I went to music stores and looked for literature, and I made some good choices and a few bad choices--but I bought a lot of
stuff" and learned how to play all of it. I did not wait for my band teacher--or anyone else--to push me to do this. Self motivation is the issue, not the (alleged) deficiency of your teachers.
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-12-07 22:38
Some of us just don't have lives and spent a lot of our youth studying scores/music/recordings of famous works ... that's how I acquired my knowledge - don't stress over it too much.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2003-12-07 23:28
Contragirl, I'm in the same boat. I never went out and learned about pieces. The only one I knew, LITERRALLY the only one, was mozart clarinet concerto. Cause we need to play that one for seating in the band and for area band auditions (which I never went to cause I was a wrestler and it conflicted with my wrestling schedule).
Hey, no worries about it. No need to feel like an outsider. If asked about a certain piece say, "Haven't heard it." Then ask for recommendations on good recordings, give it a listen and decide for yourself whether you like it or not. I think you may be turning something small into a bigger deal than it needs to be.
GL with the job hope things work out with this.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2003-12-08 01:20
There's always somebody better educated than you. And most of them will take any opportunity to tell you so. That says a lot in itself, I would think.
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Author: hans
Date: 2003-12-08 15:12
I once had a professor who often said that for many people their education exceeds the capacity of their intellect to utilize it, or something to that effect. He might have had me in mind....
Hans
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2003-12-08 15:39
Hi CG,
Didn't your HS particpate in your state's solo & ensemble events? That's where many students get acquainted with the literature. When I was teaching HS, we would have as many as 20 solos and 20 ensembles participating each year at contest; sometimes even more.
Also, most private teacher will always have student's working on a solo appropriate with their level of playing, hopefully also a bit higher.
HRL
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Author: Micaela
Date: 2003-12-08 17:15
Listen to the radio a lot. It's the easiest way to become acquainted with cool and unusual music (provided there's a good classical station in Maryland- we don't even have a full-time one here in Philly- grrrrr). It won't all be clarinet music but you'll definitely get to know more stuff. I did meet the Kozeluh Concerto through my home radio station. And don't let people make you feel stupid.
Oh, and if you need a break when practicing, grab something from that excellent library of yours and sight-read it. You'll both get to know something new and work on your sight-reading ability.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2003-12-08 17:23
Unfortunately the only good classical station is in Baltimore (WBJC), with occasional good classical music from a public radio station (WETA) in Washington, DC. The full-time station in DC (WGMS) nowadays plays nothing past Baroque and early classical --- they've become the 'smooth jazz' or 'elevator music' station of the classical world, so forget newer or lesser-known music from them. Living a bit too far from the Baltimore station to get their signal most of the time, I've been finding it very difficult to hear music of the 'non-warhorse' variety the last few years. Contragirl in Hyattsville (?) should be able to get them, however.
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Author: Gretchen
Date: 2003-12-08 17:56
Beethoven.com is a great online radio station that plays a lot of famous rep that you could get familiar with. checkout any online radio stations, or possibly any classical music that maybe you could buy off itunes for .99cents.
How about going to different libraries and seeing what they have?? Usually there's a music section to libraries and some places are bigger than others.
Ask your friends who are more educated in rep than you to borrow their recordings. Make copies of solos that they enjoy and they recommend you buying once you've gotten aquainted with some new rep.
Good luck! there's music everywhere. You just gotta know where to look. This bulliten board is fantastic for recommendations. Look in the archives.
Gretchen
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Author: contragirl
Date: 2003-12-08 20:11
Dave,
Maybe put a huge radio tower in your backyard, then you can get the stations. :-D hehehe!
I'm originally from Waldorf, but I go to school in College Park, so you're close. (Now everyone knows where I live! Try finding me out of a couple thousand ppl. heh heh)
I listen to WGMS mostly, it's what I have been listening to in the car next to DC101 (ROCK ROCK ROCK), but lately, I've been in classical mode. It's funny. I've been gigging with a SDA college (that I am not a part of) around my way and playing with them has helped expand my orchestral rep. The other day WGMS played the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony finale and I was like "I PLAYED THAT!" I was excited.
I guess I do feel like I have been picking up a lot of rep from my friends and from browsing the library's collections, it just feels a little slow. Clarinet studio class and history both help expand my knowledge of pieces. I just remember starting as a music major and never hearing of the Brahms Sonatas, or anything outside of Concertino that Weber wrote... what the heck was this Mozart Concerto? I know more now, obviously.
I just bought 2 CDs on Amazon: one with Finzi pieces, and another with the Horowitz and Poulenc pieces. I'm excited!
It's all coming to me slowly. One day I will be a great knowledgable clarinet person like all you other people!
Thanks,
Contragirl
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Author: Ed
Date: 2003-12-08 20:16
I went to a HS that had a poor music program. I came out knowing nothing. What I did while I was in college and beyond was to go into record stores (as they were known at the time) and when I could afford it, pick up anything related to the clarinet. I also did the same at the college library. I got copies of the music whenever I could, or borrowed them. Little by little, I came to know a the repertoire. It takes time, but it is fun.
Think of it this way, now you are a better player than when you were in HS and more mature, so you will learn these works faster and likely understand them better than when you were younger. Don't be frustrated and good luck.
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Author: contragirl
Date: 2003-12-08 20:32
Oh, and I did do solo and sensemble festivals in HS. Mostly group works, but I couldn't tell you who they were by or what they were called... except I realized one was the Mozart basset horn trio, transposed for 3 clarinets.
Our HS music program was the best in the area, but only cuz our band was good. That didn't teach me much about clarinet music though. :(
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2003-12-08 22:42
CG,
I understand your problem much better now with your last email. The issue is not so much playing the repertoire but in you not knowing the composers, their work, lives, and influences. Achieving this knowledge base is a pretty big order for a HS music program to provide unless their is a music literature course in the curriculum (and knowing how pressed the HS curriculum is to provide the basics, that would be doubtful).
IMHO, many of the ideas that have been offered above are extremely solid. But also as offered by previous posters, many students you will encounter in the higher level of music education will have already sought many of these things out. Why this happened to them and not you? Hard to know the reason.
HRL
Post Edited (2003-12-08 23:34)
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2003-12-09 22:31
Paul,
I think you may be correct; that's a logical reason. To expect someone to routinely come out of the US public schools with that kind of knowledge would be expecting a lot (based on many, many years teaching experience in the system).
HRL
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2003-12-09 22:47
I knew nothing. I still know nothing. In music classes, my response to "next we're going to practice the mozart adagio" is "Is that one of the ones I'm in?" I'm just bad with composers and relating a name to a piece I play. "No, but maybe if you hum me a few bars" is an expression which pertains specifically to me. However I'm not upset about it. I feel as long as I'm able to play a piece that's ok.
More importantly than knowing "who wrote what" and what's the instrumentation on that, I think that you should learn a little bit as to what it's supposed to be. For instance, if it's an excerpt from an opera, what is happening in the opera at the time this part is being played? Is it a love scene? Is it the end of opera (which inevitably means someone is dying ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif) )? If it's not an opera, was it a dance? Is it supposed to be somber? That just helps you to interpret and convey that mood a little more when it comes time to play it.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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