 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Rachel
Date: 2005-04-21 02:12
I'm working on these pieces at the moment, and I'm having some issues with phrasing. I'm managing to get each individual phrase to come off convincingly, but I'm not getting enough of a sense of unity between the different phrases- they are sounding like separate ideas rather than things that logically follow on from the last phrase. I would appreciate any suggestions for how I could get this sense of unity.
:)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-04-21 15:26
When I'm working on a piece, I put a choice CD performance in the car and play it over and over as I run my errands. Soon, you'll have the piece "grooved in," and it'll be much easier to recognize the accompaniment, and to know how you should be setting up for the upcoming phrasing challenge.
By the way, the absolute best performance I have of the K622 is by a small-town band with the soloist playing on a bassett clarinet, filling in all those missing low tones in the arpeggios --and bring a sense of fun to the performance.
Bob Phillips
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-04-21 18:12
HARMONIC RHYTHM
The most important thing to do is listen to a recording while following the bass line. Changes in harmony almost always determine phrasing. The harmony is like the skeleton, while the melody is like muscles and skin. The skeleton determines what the rest of the body can do and has to do.
Once you start listening to the harmonic rhythm, most of the music phrasing takes care of itself.
BURY THE HATCHET
A basic phrase device is short, short, long. That is, a short phrase is played twice, which leads the audience to expect it to come back a third time. However, the third time is twice as long. My favorite is the Arthur Fields song from World War I, "Let's Bury the Hatchet." The chorus is "Let's bury the hatchet / Bury the hatchet / Bury the hatchet in the Kaiser's head." The words and the music both give you a surprise the third time through, and I often remind myself to Bury the Hatchet when I see this pattern.
Mozart uses Bury the Hatchet all the time. For example, at your entrance in the first movement of the Clarinet Concerto, the second part of the first theme has two notes repeated (F-D, F-D) followed by the same pattern (C-B) at twice the length and half the speed. Those three phrases are part of a single larger phrase. You build it up in the first half, surprise the audience and resolve things in the second half.
The same thing happens, slightly disguised, at the opening of the third movement, in the second half of the first theme. The descending three-note pattern (C-B-A) is repeated (A-G-F) followed by three more notes (F-E-D), but instead of stopping, it continues on down and then turns around and comes back up.
Being a virtuoso and genius, Mozart does a rerverse Bury the Hatchet with your entrance in the first movement. The first descending third (G-E) is followed by two more descending thirds, twice as fast (A-G, F-E).
There are of course many other ways of binding phrases together. Composers often simply balance two groups. This happens at opening of the slow movement of the Mozart Concerto (except that those two are followed by -- guess what -- a supersize Bury the Hatchet).
When you think of it, the Brahms Sonata # 1 starts out the same way. D-Bb-G, G-Eb-C (with a pickup and an ornament) and then a big jump to a pickup and a phrase twice as long, with the first notes of the patterns also descending, F#-Bb-A. Exactly the same thing happens in the next group, F#-Bb-A, D-G-F, Eb-D-G-Eb-D.
The larger lesson is that groups of phrases hold together by repeating and slightly varying what came before. Finally, the groups of phrases are divided into structural units, such as (in sonata form) exposition (first theme) (second theme), development and recapitulation. Woven across those elements are modulations, strettos and other devices.
To understand how a movement holds together, you need to make a chart of the structure, or at least put marks in your score like "2nd Theme" and "Recap." At least when I start work, I put in little ticks at each harmonic change, and mark each Bury the Hatchet.
Finally, when I perform a piece, I may decide **not** to bring out something I've found, and often the phrase structure is more in my head than in my performance -- in how I understand the music, so that the phrases come out right without my seeming to have to do anything.
Good luck. Music theory really is good for something after all.
Ken Shaw
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-04-22 03:02
Don't treat them like separate ideas.
The music should never stop. Even a phrase-ending whole note should be played in anticipation of what comes next. Keep the energy moving. This is fiendishly difficult to keep up for a long period of time.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
