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 Stories and Opinions
Author: DIn 
Date:   2006-03-22 01:15

Do any of the professionals out there have a story of where they switched from another woodwind instrument to the clarinet(or the instrument they play professionally the most but didnt origianlly start out on) in there late high school early college years and like it so much that within a couples years you were better on the clarinet then your first instrument?

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: cpark 
Date:   2006-03-22 04:12

It's possible.

I know someone who was a serious saxophone major and switched cold turkey to clarinet at age 19. I'm not sure if he is better now at clarinet than he was at saxophone, hard to compare the two. But he won a job in a major military band on clarinet after playing clarinet for 5 years.

-Chris

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: clarnibass 
Date:   2006-03-22 04:59

Someone in my class in university started trumpet and played for years. When he was about 20 (about a year before he started university) he switched to tuba and now he is a very good tuba player and a very bad trumpet player.
He is sort of a professional since he is maybe the only one who plays both classical music and jazz on tuba and most better classical tuba players are much older with a lot more experience and are in the philharmonic or some symphonic orchestras.

I think after about one year of tuba he became much better tuba player than trumpet since he just stopped playing trumpet completely. With clarinet I believe you can practice a little and still maintain a reasonable level. I don't think this possible with trumpet though.

Hope this helps you in any way.



Post Edited (2006-03-22 05:01)

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: vin 
Date:   2006-03-22 05:10

I know a bassoon player who was on track to become a professional clarinetist, studying with someone in a major orchestra, and "burnt out" at age 23, switched to bassoon (never having played it before) and now plays in several professional orchestras as a bassoonist. If the drive (and talent) are there, anything is possible.

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: stevesklar 
Date:   2006-03-23 21:33

I started on the sax - 1974 and picked up clarinet in 1978. I found that the clarinet helped my sax playing improve. But I never switched 100% clarinet as primary .. it always was the 2nd instrument. Clarinet playing is more demanding in a sense than sax playing IMHO.

I also find that not playing the clarinet enough has more drastic effects than not playing the sax enough.

Not sure what you are asking overall DIn .....

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: Danny Boy 
Date:   2006-03-23 21:43

Michael Collins was heading towards being a pianist until just before winning the woodwind section of BBC Young Musician of the Year...

He told us recently that there is a plan in the pipeline for him to play a Brahms Piano Concerto in the same concert as the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Philharmonia.

Just realised that you asked for woodwind instrument example...ahh well, will post it anyway.

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: diz 
Date:   2006-03-23 23:05

on the contrary, I switched from clarinet to viola ... then played viola professionally, still play the clarinet and own a lovely 2nd hand buffet I purchased when I was in Rochester, NY last December

Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: Iacuras 
Date:   2006-03-23 23:32

A girl in my High School Wind Ensemble played Flute from 4th through 9th grade, and then switched to tuba, played it for four years, and is majoring in Tuba Performance at the University of Nebraska next year.

Steve
"If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."
"If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly."

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: TheGreatMingus 
Date:   2006-03-24 20:00

I starded out on Tuba in the sixth grade. Needless to say, I was not very good. I began clarinet my second year in Highschool, which I was told it was a bad idea since it was too late. For about two long years, it was horrible, but I practiced and worked my butt off, starting out two or three hours a day to up to five, which was alot in highschool. My Junior year, I placed about three chairs higher than the first clarinetist in my wind ensemble, who had been playing since sixth grade, in a state competition!
It wasnt an over night thing, just lots of work. Honestly, it didnt seem like work because I enjoyed every moment of it and wanted to play really well, not so much become better than everyone. THis is really important to understand, that you want to get good at it because you love it and its for your own pleasure, not to soley compete. Currently, I am a clarient music major and just started on violin, something that I've always wanted to play. As long as I work hard and consistently, I anticipate playing the violin as my second instrument.

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: Don Poulsen 
Date:   2006-03-24 21:34

No story, but I suspect that if you attain a high level of competance at one instrument, all you will have to do to become a equally competant musician on another wind instrument is to learn the mechanics of playing and controlling it. This isn't necessarily an easy task and will take work to learn them correctly, but one's ability to read and interpret music, a large part of what makes one a great musician, will carry over.

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 Re: Stories and Opinions
Author: Grant 
Date:   2006-03-24 22:10

I went to grade school and high-school with a student who started on piano and violin but by the time he got to high-school was first chair horn in a very good horn section first chair viola in orcherstra and sang tenor in the choir. His senior year he entered solo and ensemble contest as a viola oloist, piano soloisr, clarinet soloist sang in a quartet an played a horn duet he wrote himself. This was in the 1950's. He receive a superior rating for everything except the clarinet and has played piano and horn professionally.


Peace on Earth and May You always have a reed that PLAYS.

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