Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-07-11 20:53
I'd still advocate broadening your horizons. Everyone and their dog learns the Baermann, the common excerpts, the Rose, the Mozart, Poulenc, Copland. And yes, there is merit to that. But that's only a very tiny slice of what you can do with the clarinet, a slice that all too many people never even consider venturing out of.
Just saying, keep your options very, very open. Balance the "standard" stuff with a more eclectic mix... some little-known etudes, contemporary literature, structured and free improvisation, and, dare I suggest, maybe even some music from OUTSIDE the classical sphere.
Begin rant...
As an isolated excerpt, the Mendelssohn Scherzo can die in a fire, as far as I'm concerned. If I never walk past another practice room and hear someone woodshedding the crap out of that again, it'll be too soon. Not a bad piece of music in itself, but I shudder to think of how many hours have been put into the first couple dozen bars of it over the years by clarinetists who never actually performed it, nor ever looked at it as anything more than a box to tick on their "excerpts learned" list (and something to play with a smug bouncy-eyebrowed grin to show off to passersby), and wonder how much awesome music could have been made in that time.
If you decide you must work on that vile tune, at least have the decency to try to do something musical with it rather than treating it as some wretched tongue-a-thon at the expense of everyone else's sanity.
End rant.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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