 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ashley91489
Date: 2009-04-22 19:39
This will be my first time playing with an accompanist so I'd love any advice you all may have. I'm worried most about getting off with my accompanist. There's one part in my piece where I just have triples in sixteenths and the piano has the melody and it's difficult for me to stay with her. Any advice in general?
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Author: GBK
Date: 2009-04-22 19:55
Have your accompanist make a recording of just her part, so you can listen to it between rehearsals...GBK
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Author: Philcoman
Date: 2009-04-22 20:04
How experienced is your accompanist? Is she much more experienced than you, or at about the same level?
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Author: Philcoman
Date: 2009-04-22 20:22
She should be able to work with you somewhat. She is, after all, there to accompany you! Talk about the trouble spots and see if there are any ways to work through them. And of course, work on them like crazy!
"If you want to do something, you do it, and handle the obstacles as they come." --Benny Goodman
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2009-04-22 20:31
Hopefully (and presumably) your accompanist is used to accompanying --- my last experience playing duets with a pianist was awful -- she hadn't accompanied in years, instead had been playing on her own and teaching piano students, so she had completely lost her sense of time --- everything was rubato, we couldn't go two measures without getting separated. I'm sure your experience will be much better!
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Author: clariniano
Date: 2009-04-22 21:10
Learn your part really well, and count your rests carefully in your practicing of your own part. Study the score to see how your part fits with the others. Also have your private teacher (if yo have one) serve as an ensemble coach, and pay them for their time, I have had some of my teachers help me wih the music I do and I regularly help my students with their music when they are ready to work on it with piano. Often to help the student get a feel for how it should g, I play along with them on the solo part the first two or three times through, so they understand the fit. Of course this is less likely with advanced pieces, but works great with students up to intermediate level.
Meri
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-04-22 22:10
I also find that it helps to have listened to a recording or two of it, then, without the recording on, and away from your instrument, looking at your part and humming it (and the accompaniment, when your part isn't playing) from start to finish.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: MBrad
Date: 2009-04-22 22:40
For the passage with triplet 16ths that you mentioned:
You might find it helpful to write above your line just the pianists' rhythm. I find it helpful occasionally to have these kinds of visual cues to make sure things line up without having to think too hard about it. Try it out!
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2009-04-22 23:23
Use your rehearsal time to work on intonation and matching up with the piano. Make recodings of your rehearsals and go back and listen to yourself for intonation. Practice with a tuner and learn what notes on your particular instrument are off. That way you'll know in advance when you have to compensate.
And did I mention, be very worried about intonation? LOL.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-04-23 02:13
What's more important than your "staying with her" is making sure your rhythm is accurate. If your rhythm is correct and hers is as well, you should be together without trying specifically to "stay with her." Cuing the piano rhythm above your part (already suggested) is useful so that you know if you *are* together or not. Have you worked out why you and the piano are not together in that spot? It's important to know whether you're rushing or dragging or actually mis-reading a rhythm, and then practice the passage on your own with a metronome to get used to playing it steadily. If you get used to the sound of the piano part, you may be able to use it later instead of the metronome to help steady the pulse, but you have to concentrate on your own rhythmic accuracy. I don't have the piece handy, so I'm assuming there is no tempo change - rallentando, accelerando, etc. - that needs to be coordinated.
Good luck,
Karl
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-04-23 12:39
Besides working on the music itself, one of the most important things you can do is make sure that for the performance, the accompanist will have a page-turner -- someone who knows how to play the piano and can look at the score in advance to see where the bad page-turns lie in wait. The pianist has many more page turns than the clarinetist. Unless the piano score is unusually well-laid-out on the pages (Hah! Dream on!), the pianist with no turner will make distractingly frantic grabs to turn pages in quarter note rests, or eighth-note rests, or no rests at all. The pianist who has to fumble for the pages will omit notes, play wrong notes and foul up the rhythm. A page-turner who can't read music and has to depend on the "Turn it now -- Now! NOW!!!" head-nods can make matters even worse. A calm, competent page-turner who stands quietly behind and to the left of the pianist (assuming the treble end of the piano is nearest the audience), dresses to be invisible and cooperates with the pianist's instructions on when to turn can make all the difference.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2009-04-23 16:33
I agree about the page-turner. Very important. Praise her and "suck up" as often as possible during rehearsals. If you don't work well together, get another accompanist.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-04-24 13:25
And the pianist and you need to be mentally prepared for the unforseen. A baby might start screaming in the audience. People might come in late and make noise. A cell phone might ring. In fact, these days, half a dozen cell phones might ring -- and people might even answer them.
>>Of course, make sure the page-turner isn't overzealous. I've seen a pianist violently intercept a page turn before.>>
Yes. As a teenager, turning pages for my uncle the organist in New York City in 1967, I made a ghastly mistake of that kind. He introduced me to some people down in the nave before the recital. He introduced one affable fellow as, "My friend Eddie, from Boston." I didn't think I'd ever met "Eddie" before, but he looked familiar.... Well, I realized after Uncle Bill had already started playing that "Eddie" looked familiar because he was E. Power Biggs.
Thoughts blasted off in my head like fireworks:"[Bleep, bleeping bleep], one of the world's greatest organists is listening to this!" My heart started jackhammering. I turned the page so violently that I flung the score halfway across the organ loft! Fortunately, my uncle knew the music from memory. He was only using the score and the (incompetent!) page-turner as "fire insurance." He kept on playing as if nothing had happened while I scrambled after the pages and put them back where they belonged. When I apologized afterwards, he patted my arm, smiled, rolled his eyes and said, "Ouf..." which was about the biggest reaction anybody ever got out of him over anything.
Also make sure the page-turner knows whether or not you're taking any repeats, especially if taking a repeat means turning pages backwards.
Probably best if the pianist chooses the page-turner -- someone he or she has worked with before -- but do make sure someone shows up. Preferably someone who's sober.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2009-04-24 21:55
Yeah, I've seen people ANSWER their cell phones and carry on conversations...that I could hear!! SO RUDE.
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