 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Katrina
Date: 2010-12-30 01:41
I believe there have been posts here before about clarinet related dreams, but I'm too lazy to hunt for them.
I had a doozy last night! I dreamt that someone from this BBoard (not sure who, probably David Spiegelthal) had sent me several low clarinets to try, and not for purchase--just as a "here ya go" kinda trial with no money exchanging hands. There was a contra-alto, a low-C bass, and the weirdest paperclip contrabass! The contrabass had a weird bell which had a device coming out of it. The device looked like a microphone or a speaker and made the instrument really loud!
The bad part of the dream was that I had completely forgotten to return the instruments! I'm still looking for these extra clarinets!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: weberfan
Date: 2010-12-30 01:51
Well, I wasn't there, but I think it actually did happen. keep looking!!!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: PrincessJ
Date: 2010-12-30 18:34
I have loads of 'em. ETA - shortened long, droning novel.
I had this amazing dream once that I had found an old, nearly rotting clarinet in a basement, it suddenly started glowing, and chased me up the stairs, out the kitchen window, and through the back yard, up a set of stairs. Knowing the only way to get the spook out was to play it and play it well, I let out a long, flowing improvisation as the spook appeared in the park below.
Despite it's terrible condition, it had a beautiful tone. I played the improvisation in G-minor, I didn't expect it to sound so nice.
-Jenn
Circa 1940s Zebra Pan Am
1972 Noblet Paris 27
Leblanc Bliss 210
1928 Selmer Full Boehm in A
Amateur tech, amateur clarinetist, looking to learn!
Post Edited (2010-12-30 19:16)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2010-12-30 19:05
Well, Katrina, you've had my instruments for quite a long time, don't you think you should return them? Especially the contrabass, I really need that laser death-ray attachment, the military's been asking about it.....
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: sonicbang
Date: 2010-12-30 22:10
I had a dream last week. It was nothing special I just practised the cadenza from the Bozza concerto's III. movement. The interesting part of it that I was able to play the day after perfectly. (Of course I practised it, but I spent only 2 days with that movement)
I tried to keep practising while sleeping, because it would be so simple to practise while sleeping and just playing when awake.
But it did work only once
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony M
Date: 2010-12-31 12:34
Dreams are weird stuff. Normally things happen in dreams and then we look for them in life but sometimes it happens in reverse. Many years ago I was learning to play the chromatic harmonica ( a much underrated instrument - 4 octaves in front of your mouth) and I had had a particularly trying day at work. I was driving home and stopped on a side road below a bridge and just sat there and played a G major scale. It was heavenly. It began to ring. And for a while I could dream the scale and the clarity and the bell-like timbre of the scale. Dreams, they'll get you every time.
Have a good year, one and all. It's 11.30 pm here in Australia. It'll be 2011 soon and we're all going to practice and listen to our practice and incrementally get better and bring joy to our respective worlds. Of course we are. I'm going to give up smoking too. Have a good 2011.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: PrincessJ
Date: 2010-12-31 14:16
Amen, Tony.
I had another dream last night about a weird, skinny rosewood clarinet that had the voice of a thousand angels. I found it connected to the back of a book.
Last night before I went to sleep, I was practicing a solo which consists entirely of high-speed arpeggios, and in that dream, on that little instrument, I was able to play it cleanly and up to speed.
I've heard a lot of success stories in regards to practicing in dreams, some folks have even taken up lucid dreaming to practice sports from what I've read, being an avid dream scientist, it makes quite a bit of sense.
I've had much success with it myself, I've composed music from things I've woken up with stuck in my head, as a matter of fact most of my pieces are dream-inspired.
When it comes to the clarinet, my dreams are actually what inspired me to take up playing the instrument, the one posted earlier in this thread especially, which I had quite some time ago. Most of my dreams are stories and adventures, and it's difficult to resist writing them down. Many people keep a dream journal for psychological reasons, however I keep one purely for entertainment. I'm not one to believe in dream definition, as a cigar can mean one thing to one person, but to the other, it is simply a cigar.
That being said, if I play an instrument or practice a piece shortly before bed, I inevitably dream of that piece, and wake up the next morning, having heard myself play the piece perfectly all night, with motivation to continue improving upon said piece.
Happy 2011!
-Jenn
Circa 1940s Zebra Pan Am
1972 Noblet Paris 27
Leblanc Bliss 210
1928 Selmer Full Boehm in A
Amateur tech, amateur clarinetist, looking to learn!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Low_Reed
Date: 2010-12-31 17:49
Katrina, it sounds like your subliminal self is yearning for the depths, looking for a bigger bole of licorice. It turns out that you dreamed of two of my three horns -- a contra-alto with a Spiegelthal Swan neck, and a Leblanc paperclip contrabass. Actually, my third horn, a low Eb bass, has been in Dave's capable hands, as well.
If you'd like to talk shop, consider coming to the SPCM clarinet choir next month -- see my "Clarinet Choir in the Twin Cities" thread.
**Music is the river of the world!**
-- inspired by Tom Waits and a world full of music makers
Post Edited (2010-12-31 18:23)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony F
Date: 2011-01-03 12:03
I had a dream which woke me up sweating a few night ago. I was about to play a piece with the band to which I belong. As I drew breath to play I realised that my front teeth were just rotten stumps and I couldn't get a note. I woke at that point, and the first thing I did was to check that my teeth actually were where they were supposed to be. I'd been feeling guilty about being late for a dentist appointment for a checkup, and I suspect that was the trigger.
Tony F.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2011-01-03 12:29
At least half the music I've written started with a lucid dream. The trick then is to hustle to the computer the minute I really wake up and write down the notes before I forget them, which can happen astoundingly fast. Those music-writing dreams seem to happen in clusters. I'll have a bunch of them in a sort of creative seizure for a few weeks and then nothing at all for months on end. Same thing happens with writing fiction -- I'm in one of those fiction cycles now and it's damned inconvenient, because I have a long article to finish on assignment.
The fiction I'm working on right now started with one of those dreams about a clarinet. In the dream, I prowled the Renningers Extravaganza flea market (real, three times a year, in Kutztown, Pennsylvania) and found an antique clarinet made by a renowned (fictional) maker. The clarinet was stuffed completely full of loose, smudge-mixture incense that smelled weird, to the point of makijg me light-headed. (Real life component here, too: I collect antique incense burners and I'd recently read in the newspaper that head shops sell, with a wink and a nudge, a soon-to-be-illegal synthetic marijuana as "incense.") One bottom corner of the case was bashed in. Steel-wool fragments in what little was left of the leather on that corner showed where someone had tried unsuccessfully to scrub off an old, dry, dark brown stain....
And then I woke up. I thought I could finish the short story in a few days, but it ran amok until I held it down and slit it into chapters.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: PrincessJ
Date: 2011-01-03 13:44
I am on the same page as you (no pun intended).
I actually have a fully functional digital piano right next to my bed, I put it there for a reason you know.
I also have a note pad on my night stand to write any notes down or any interesting ideas at 2:30 AM if anything wakes me up, and I prefer to continue sleeping.
I've come up with some amazing adventures, and not to mention learned a lot of things in my dreams over the years, I remember when I was first starting to learn Clarinet, I found myself in a small concert hall of sorts with elegant red curtains and sophisticated moldings, folding chairs, and high windows, with a small group of nicely dressed men with french accents. The leaders of the group were holding clarinets, one said to be in the key of A, I had my Bb in hand.
As I tightened my ligature after inserting a 3.5 reed (I was on 2.5s at the time), the darker haired dude told me I had it too far forward, so I unscrewed it and moved it closer to the tip, which gave me much better results. He said the way I had the ligature previously was preventing the reed from vibrating the way it was supposed to. (May be something to that)
I woke up that day (mind you, this was a long time ago) and repeated what that little dude showed me, and it worked (I was using a bonade inverted if that erases any question marks that may be floating above your head).
The lighter haired guy told me to practice arpeggios more than what I was, and I did. My practice routine, even to this day, still includes more arpeggios than I ever used to before that dream, and I'm doing great (not to toot my own horn or anything).
It was quite an insightful dream. I don't know where that came from, perhaps it was my subconscious blaming my lazy ligature position for my lackluster tone at the time. I'd assume there's something to that. A too-wiggly reed that slides out of place can't be good.
-Jenn
Circa 1940s Zebra Pan Am
1972 Noblet Paris 27
Leblanc Bliss 210
1928 Selmer Full Boehm in A
Amateur tech, amateur clarinetist, looking to learn!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: BartHx
Date: 2011-01-03 15:32
Changing the subject, but following off the end of the previous post, I have an exercise I do that works for me in keeping my embouchure balanced. I replace the ligature with a shoelace that is wrapped just tight enough to hold the butt of the read flat against the mouthpiece. If I can then play the instrument without sliding the reed around, I know I am not applying any unbalanced forces to the reed in odd directions (it's hard enough to find or create a well balanced reed without adding unnecessary, unbalanced forces). I know it's weird and not for everyone, but it helps and works for me.
The idea came from a workshop I attended where the "correct" embouchure for a trumpet was demonstrated when the instrument was played hands free while suspended from the ceiling on strings.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2011-01-03 17:05
I had a dream where I actually _sent_ such items to other people.
No, it wasn't a nightmare, quite in the contrary, it had a very liberating feel.
--
Ben
Post Edited (2011-01-03 19:05)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
