 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: claclaws
Date: 2005-03-12 01:21
Some while ago I saw the curriculum for clarinet majors and found 'Piano' among the subjects.
Is piano playing a must to become a clarinetist?
For me it's just jumping to the other instrument when gotten bored with one..and I'm no good at playing the piano..so hard to hit many notes at a time..Clarinet is 'easier' from that perspective, isn't it? (Of course that's not totally true..:))
Lucy Lee Jang
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Author: Erdinet
Date: 2005-03-12 01:47
Playing piano is all but a must for all true musicians. Piano is where you can go to figure out the bigger picture things that are going on in a score, visualize what is going on in a piece or a score. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you have to become "good" at it, but you will find that if you can plunk out stuff on a piano you will begin to gain a greater musical understanding of things you might be having trouble with.
The story goes that Dizzy Gillespie told Miles Davis that he would never understand music with out gaining even the most rudimentary piano skills. In that vein, there is not a musician that I know that does not have basic piano skills. From hip hop producers to symphony players to jazz musicians. All the musicians I can think of can sit down at a piano and make themselves understood in a conversation about music.
Again, you don't have to become Glenn Gould. With about 20 to 30 minutes of practice a day you should be able to get some skills to be able to do what ever you would need to do as a clarinet player, on piano.
Hope that this helps.
Adam
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2005-03-12 01:51
All music students have to take basic piano classes and attain a certain level of proficiency. It's really the foundation instrument for all music. During my one year as a clarinet major I spent many an afternoon in the piano lab, pounding away on the cheesy electronic pianos with the professor (an extremely gifted Chopin expert from Poland no doubt cursing his fate for teaching us how to play Bach's Menuet in G) lecturing us through headphones.
So piano classes are a requirement whether you major in clarinet or ukelele. No word on if piano majors have to take clarinet and ukelele classes
________________
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
- Pope John Paul II
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Author: coasten1
Date: 2005-03-12 04:05
Also learning the piano clears up the mystery as to why E# is F and Fb is E as well as B# is C and Cb is B.
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Author: ron b
Date: 2005-03-12 04:53
You make a good point that's often overlooked by wind instrument players, Claclaws. We tend to get exclusively wrapped up in our own parts. Theory classes I encountered many years ago requireded that we work things out on piano. I've seen lots of [electric] keyboards in use these days.
If you do even semi-serious copying (arranging) for your fellow players (I'm thinking duets and small ensembles) you'll do it quicker, easier and more accurately if you have basic to moderate piano skills. I've found that it helps me visualize things easier when called on to improvise on clarinet too.
- r![[cool]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/cool.gif) n b -
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Author: Erdinet
Date: 2005-03-12 09:41
Awww...Clclaws, its really not all that bad. A few Bach Two Part Inventions, a couple of scales, some chorales, that's all it takes.
And remember, as they said in "Animal House," "Try not to think of it as work. Just go out there and have fun." (Or something like that.)
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Author: William
Date: 2005-03-12 14:28
If I had it to do all over again, I would concentrate on the keyboard and play the clarinet as a diversion. Piano does not require an ensemble accompaniment for meanful musical perfromance and presents none of those "blinkity-blank" reed hassels. And, as long as you secure the services of a piano tech a couple times a year, you can play happily even in spit of your galvanized (tin) ear.
Thanks to music school, I can sit down at a piano and play simple accompaniments via improvised or written chord symbols (jazz lead sheets) and being able to do that enhances my clarinet-sax-flute efforts, wheither playing in a symphony orchestra or a six piece combo. Keyboard proficiency is highly recommended. Go for it and be glad--in latter years--that you did.
BTW--remember the old magazine ads "PLAY PIANO AND BE THE LIFE OF THE PARTY"?? Try playing solo clarinet and do that...............nevertheless, its good to be versitile.
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Author: rc_clarinetlady
Date: 2005-03-12 15:51
My university, and probably all of them, required music majors to pass a piano proficiency exam before being allowed to graduate with any of the bachelor's of music degrees. A prepared piece of a certain grade, scales (major, minor in all forms), score reading and sight reading all come to mind as part of that exam.
I also remember being in theory class doing the aural training part of the class and doing the dictation. The professor would give us the written, starting pitch and then we had to write what he played on the piano after that. Usually an eight to sixteen bar phrase. I couldn't figure out why I was always off by a whole step by the end of the piece. Every time. My ear was so used to hearing everything pitched in Bb that that's how I wrote it too. Somewhere in the middle of the piece I'd get off by the whole step and mess up. My clarinet professor is the one that finally figured that one out. I even played the piano for 10 years prior to going to school. Not well though.
Do yourself a huge favor and learn the piano if you're going to major in music. Sing too. It helps with sight singing. Also a part of theory or aural training.
Rebecca
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Author: bawa
Date: 2005-03-12 17:43
We all agree on playing the piano; in fact it is obligatory for ALL wind and string players who decide to take the "official" secondary school music, just jalf an hour class a week, but they do everything from sight reading, scales, etudes, pieces etc. I under stand it is also important later on when they have obligatory harmonics, composition and such like subjects.
As for piano players playing the ukelele, all piano, guitar and accordeon students are obliged to any other string or wind instrument...so they ahve a lot of choice indeed!!!
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Author: Dano
Date: 2005-03-12 20:00
Everyone should learn to play the piano. Not only clarinetists, but every single person that is walking around. Just as we all know how to speak a language. Piano should be taught matter-of-factly like any other subject. I think the piano demonstrates music as a "language" more than any other instrument. It is all laid out right in front of you. If for nothing else, to understand the basics of music.
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Author: psychotic lil clarinet girl (don't as
Date: 2005-03-12 23:11
I play clarinet and piano. Playing piano can help with learning the clarinet, but anyone can learn the clarinet without first learning the piano. Playing the piano is like playing the whole song at one time, instead of just playing one part of the song reading one note at a time. Learning to play piano is a good skill to have, it is how I learned clarinet after all. So, I suppose you should try to learn to play, but it's not a must.
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Author: Aussiegirl
Date: 2005-03-13 00:52
I started clarnet when i was 12, sax at 15 and piano when i was nearly 16, and found that piano was good because it taught me a lot of the basic music stuff that had maybe been overlooked when i was learning wind instrments. It also helps to be able to play basic piano if you are teaching young kids who may not want to be handed over to an unknown accompanyest for their first eisteddfod!
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2005-03-13 00:53
Hi,
The greatest thing about playing the piano is that one begins to get a sense about harmony instead of playing just one note at a time. Also, learning another clef is a major step in transposing which comes in handy later.
As a soloist, it is helpful to be able to look over at the piano accompaniment and get a sense of how the solo part fits.
HRL
Post Edited (2005-03-13 02:01)
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2005-03-13 07:17
Sorry, but I disagree with the posts above - playing piano is neither a "must" nor a "foundation for all music"; utterances like those just show how completely wrapped up in tonality our western overall grasp of music is. The grand piano is with reason the incorporation of tempered tonality, the stronghold of its very conception. Though I reckon that You, Lucy, weren´t thinking about leaving tonality behind when You posted, I just want to mention the possibility, at least, to see that there´s another way through the woods (sic), than to comprehend an instrument in Bb as a derivation of an all encompassing C. From O. Coleman´s harmolodic playing, including all kinds of US nonswing-jazz through non-western musicalities where the conception of equal distances within a given octave and tonal harmonics up to nowadays post-tonal plateaus, there´s an alternative to plinkplonking Chopin, really. It might be an advantage to get a grip with tonality/the piano b e f o r e one deterritorialises it like Cage did or do it like the scene breaking the metal frame out of the wooden box and playing 'inside-out piano' , not to forget the improvisational pianists (n o t: "the pianists who improvise") etc, or administer different tunings and preparations - but it is very difficult for young people to get out of tonality´s suffocating grasp once they´re in it up to their necks. As long as curricula don´t offer a holistic approach instead of painting post-tonality a sort of derivative freakshow all there will be is just another hedgehog-run round the quintenzirkel.
Markus
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Author: Erdinet
Date: 2005-03-13 11:26
Good point Markus and I do not disagree with you. But didn't Cage play piano? May be not as at a concert pianist level, but he played and he messed around with it to be sure. Ornette plays piano, and I believe even would play in concert from time to time back in the day. Miles Davis, ESPECIALLY in his post-Bitches Brew era play lots of piano (or electronic keyboard) on stage. I think the point is that piano has lots of uses to an instrumentalist no matter what kind of music they might play. Does the piano work better for well tempered, tonal western music...well look at what it was developed for. Does it work very well for other types of music? I think we have plenty of examples of that as well. Should we increase music students' intake of modern and contemporary techniques and tonalities? With out a doubt! Will proficiency on the piano help with this, even if that proficiency is with in the usual tonal paradigm? I would tend to think so. No one is saying that playing is a foundataion or a must to make great music. If that were the case we would be degrading the contributions of countless masters of music in both the west and around the world. But, look around the music world and I would daresay it would be difficult to find any respected musician (or at least a musician that you respect) that does not have some sort of piano proficiency.
I think that tonality is a great way to teach children music since it offers a great system of organisation. If Ornette would publish his treatise on Harmelodics already or Cecil Taylor would publish his theories on piano pedagogy and harmoy perhaps someone could use them as a source to create a method to teach music to children. Same goes with any one of a number of contemprary composers, but that is not what they are in the game for any way. Tonality will continue to dominate since its above all a system of organisation. And when it comes to something as ethereal as music the mind craves some sort of organization. (That is why pop music is so formulaic, it gives the average listener exactly what they need to hear to like it.) I disagree when you say that it is difficult for a young person to get out of tonality's "suffocating grasp" though. It is my experience that people in general don't want to think about something as mundane as music (!!!!) If it does not fit into a certain cookie cutter mold they cannot consume it. Atonal, "odd" tempered, prepared piano, and so on are way out of that mold so people have to give it a chance. I did and I like it. Many other people on the other hand think I am insane for even playing it for them.
The point I think I am trying to make (already) is that as Wayne Shorter said, "You have to know the rules so you can break them." Piano helps with the rules so you can go out there and break them.
Now, I am going to sit down and listen to some Scelsi.
Adam
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Author: rc_clarinetlady
Date: 2005-03-13 15:43
You are right in that you must first learn the rules before you break them. I have three children, all fine musicians, who have all had some piano. It was my requirement before they entered band. One of them has become quite skilled and is playing a recital today. He's playing Beethoven's third mvt. to the Moonlight Sonata. He LOVES Beethoven, Mozart and Greig. I don't think he "Plinkplonks" at all. He flys on those keys and makes the hair on the back of my neck rise.
Markus, you make it sound as if musicians that like tonality or teach it are missing something. I agree that the contemporary composers need to be played/sung and studied but some people just don't like it and to me , that's OK.
My mind and ear loves the brilliance of Mozart. It's just what I love. I certainly don't think I'm missing anything by not listening to atonal music because for four years in college my band professor had us playing nearly all contemporary composers. It's what he liked. I had enough of it. It was the late 70's and some very good but, to me, very strange stuff was written. Right off the hand too. Not even published yet and we were playing it. I hated it. I think you either like it or not. You can't force that on people but it should be introduced and taught just as all the classics should be.
Rebecca
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2005-03-14 08:32
Adam - if all individuals would comprehend and use the piano as You do, I´be at ease completely. Yes of course, Cage played the piano (and deterritorialized it so beautifully, out of need for not having a percussion orchestra around at the time he 'invented' the prepared piano), as did the great O.Coleman - I daresay all composers of New Music and avantgared music do so, and rightly so, because it gives you a complete orchestra, on 88 keys, that makes it a very versatile instrument/tool. But those aforesaid individuals transgress its history, they listened to, understood and went on beyond the Bach machinery or Salzburgian whipped cream. Music is never about what is loved or hated by the people or the scenes they hover around to digest some cultural good, music itself is for itself solely (it´s the psyche of us performers that isn´t, of course it´s nice to hear applause, but applause is no criterium for art). If young people have, e.g., Telemann in class, and after that a piece by my beloved Scelsi, if doremifa is confronted with the floating multiphonics of "Kya", I´m not scared by music´s future. What I wanted to express is my concern that a tool (and nothing else are musical instruments) is judged as the focus point of musicality.
You mention C. Taylor - oh my, if his art would be regarded as what it means to play piano, pure bliss! Included, of course, shaman dances on socks around the instrument (I do not mean that ironically at all, I have the utmost respect for Taylor´s spirituality). But what do young people get to listen to, if one´s so lucky that they choose a musical path? It´s not Taylor, or Stockhausen (his piano music is a giant), but soemthing "nice". It´s much easier to spread out the diversity and various chasms and raging wars that characterize music internally nowadays before children´s and younger peoples ears than it is before plugged up mature Wagnerians - so much the worse if the question "should I double on piano or rather electric guitar?" is answered in favour of the former. Piano lessons have to include hitting the keyboard with the ellbow (as it does in Aaron´s concertos, stunning pieces), otherwise it´s just a standstill glorified.
More abstractedly put, tonality isn´t a rule anymore, not even one to break. Music is past and beyond that. It´s just one of several musical system to organise aural Ereignis. Music as such is organisation, this is exactly what differneciates it from noise, included the organized use of noise which turns it into music. The younger people are the easier it is to show the overpowering richness and depth music is made of, in equal rights, and not to conceive everything from a tonal jailhouse. A clarinet isn´t a subset to the piano as both the entrance guard as well as the reigning queen of music, a clarinet is something categorically different (it is, historically speaking, structured according to the welltempered chromatic scale, but, as any suffering conductor/composer to stage a concert with winds involved knows, it is instabile incarnated, and that is an advantage, an inherent moment of greatest force to propell this instrument to plateaus where the static of a piano cannot go), flexibility per se, fluid continuum (no instrument made of tuned threads can get a foothold there). I´m a firm believer in instrumental technique, in practising and encompassing all things possible on/with/by that instrument of ours, and playing pieces where I can stomp my feet to doesn´t do the trick, even if one "flys" over them. I listened to children just barely able to speak coherently, after a concert of New Music, and they hummed and bubbled what they´d listened to, in perfection, they liked the sheer joy of that gurgling, whistling and soaring sounds they just had faced, it wasn´t difficult for them at all - and now imagine what their listening-capability would be like if they were taught like the majority/mainstream, you could be lucky if they survived pop.
Yes, it´s time for some Scelsi, absolutely!
Markus
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