 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: clarinetcase
Date: 2010-10-17 19:58
Hi. What information is available to learn about clarinet articulation that was used to imitate the effects of various bowing techniques used by violins? From people I've talked to I understand this was a practice used for symphonic works arranged for bands.
Thanks!
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-10-17 20:29
I think you just use your ears and don't worry about instructions. Listen to string players do the various bow strokes and find a way to imitate them on clarinet. For pizzicato, for example, you play an sfz followed by a subito piano and let it fade out quickly.
I'm called fairly often by string players to play 2nd violin or viola parts in string quartet reading session because I listened and learned to reproduce string articulations on clarinet. It's never prefect, but you can get close.
Also, you learn to do things that you haven't done before, not to mention playing the great string quartet literature.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-10-18 14:01
Ken, interesting -- Serge Rachmaninoff, in his autobiography, "My Life in Music," describes playing clarinet to fill out a string quartet that met at a friend's house.
The clarinet can also fill in better than any other wind instrument for a thin string section in an orchestra. The tone blends in surprisingly well. When I was in high school, we had a weak viola section: too few players, only one of whom had taken private lessons. They tended to get lost, stop playing, lose track of the key signature, etc.. I played first clarinet. The orchestra teacher would give me a viola part and ask me to transpose along, inconspicuously, whenever I didn't have anything else to do -- which was a lot of the time, of course, since the clarinet parts tended to feature many of those exciting interpretive challenges such as 57 bars of rest! In our orchestra, the woodwinds sat buried directly behind the violas, who sat directly in front of the conductor. The clarinet could keep the stand high and play a little bit quieter than the real violas and the audience would never notice.
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: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-10-18 22:43
A reminder for those who may have forgotten. Play parts in alto clef on the Bb clarinet by reading bass clef.
Ken Shaw
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Author: clarinetcase
Date: 2010-10-18 23:31
Maybe I should have been more specific. What I'm curious about is how a clarinet section would approach an orchestral transcription to emulate the bowing a violin section would use. I was told that in the 20s and 30s there were standard articulations used by clarinetists in performing such works that are seldom if ever discussed today when performing orchestra works arranged for concert band.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2010-10-19 10:26
Can you give a more specific example of the kind of thing you've already been told about?
Karl
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2010-10-19 22:35
One basic issue is just speed of articulation. Unless you have a clarinet section filled with double tongue experts. fast 16th and 32nds will have to be slurred in some way....probably 2 and 2. I have no idea what to do with pizzicato but it would be a challenge to come close to imitating it on clarinet.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2010-10-25 15:01
The Sept 2010 issue of The Clarinet has an outstanding article by Michael Webster on articulation.
vJoe
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-10-25 15:25
It's an interesting question but you have to know that in most orchestra's they're constantly changing bowings. It drives some players crazy. Many conductors change them, concert masters change them, it's never ending. A far a copying Pizzicato I would think playing short notes but with a little bit of a ping, not ultra staccato. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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