 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2011-08-15 00:46
So you wanna try and play along with a recording to really learn the song, right? Problem is, the recording has so many little tempo changes, fermatas, etc. that you can't follow along and you get behind or ahead.
No matter what recording you try, they do extra stuff that isn't written. I swear I think a lot of these players are trying to be too artsy about it and they're not playing what's on the page! For example, on the first movement I often hear triplets almost played more like an eight & two sixteenths. Why do they do that?
And the end of the 3rd movement? LOL. Forget it. There's no way to stay exactly with 'em without getting way off every time. It's like, hokay. I can do the technique, right? Those annoying sixteenth notes that are off by a half beat? I can do that with the metronome. But slap on the headphones and try it with the recording and forget it. It's a train wreck.
So what do we do? Am I missing something, or is it just unfeasible to play certain songs along with a recording?
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Author: Barry Vincent
Date: 2011-08-15 02:12
You can apparently get "Minus One" recordings of the two Sonatas.
Then, as long as you keep with the orchestral backing you can do your own thing with it.
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Author: Joseph Brenner, Jr.
Date: 2011-08-15 02:30
Pity poor Anton Stadler and Richard Muhlfeld; they didn't have the benefit of even poor recordings!
Your score may differ from what these artists use. Remember, too, that music is an art form and tempo markings are guides. You wouldn't be able to stand listening to a concert or a recital if all of the music were in strict conformity to metronome markings. Use a recording as a rough guide to interpretation, not as an absolute, immutable, paradigml. If you feel reasonably comfortable playing the Brahms, why not try to play it with a pianist? And I hope that you have a teacher whom you can ask about technique and interpretation.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2011-08-15 15:07
I think that the Brahms sonatas are a horrible thing to try to play with a practiced, intertwined recording. They are, in the truest sense DUOS. Some discourage young clarinetists from attempting them because they are piano sonatas with clarinet accompaniment.
The best performances of these pieces ARE full of little rushes and retards as the players work together. Of note: the recording by Stolzman and Serkin. TOSS the metronome. (made more difficult to follow: Stoltzman's wide vibrato that often makes it seem as though he's late).
...and the last page of the 2nd Brahms --a great place to show off --and get those groupings of 4 1/16ths that start on the upbeat...
Another recording I have IS a play-along of some Puccini arias for piano and clarinet. SO rubato. I can play along with the duo, because the music is slow, and it is not hard to tell what the players are doing. BUT --I can not play along with only the piano because there's no "eye-contact" that lets me know what he's doing.
YES, I think that there are times when you need more than just your ears to "play along."
IN the ensemble, you get all sorts of non-aural cues about tempo changes.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-08-15 15:29
Johnny -
You can't play the music without a score. Even though there are lots of page turns, you should print out the free score at http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/5/50/IMSLP110286-PMLP81214-Brahms_Op.120_No.2_score.pdf.
Tape the pages together and lay them across two or maybe three music stands. Then get to know the solo part. Then stop reading the solo part, and let your fingers play it while you read the piano part, beginning with the bass line.
Every clarinet solo piece is a collaboration between the clarinet and the piano. The Brahms Sonatas in particular make the piano and the clarinet nearly equal partners. You can't even begin to know or understand them without studying both parts.
For a wonderful, non-eccentric recording, get the one with Harold Wright and Peter Serkin, http://www.amazon.com/Brahms-Sonatas-Schumann-Fantasy-Pieces/dp/B00000G22R/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1313421855&sr=8-6.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-08-15 15:40
Actually, I think it's a very good exercise to play along with a recording -- especially if you find it difficult to do. (You can have several goes at any one bit, after all.) It develops your ability to listen to yourself as a part of a whole, and to correct discrepancies between your own and other sounds.
That aspect of playing is significantly missing from individual practice.
Tony
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2011-08-15 16:43
It's not called a "song", it's a sonata or concerto or another name but it's not a "song". With that said, what you're hearing is called interpretation. Different players interpret the music differently, some very conservative and some "off the wall". That's what makes music interesting, besides the quality of the music of course. Sometimes you like it and sometimes you don't. If everyone played a pieces like a Brahms Sonata the same we would only need to listen to one recording because the others would all be the same, less tone quality and intonation of course. ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2011-08-15 23:52
Hokay. Good advice here. I also thought it was a duet and not a "clarinet solo." When practicing, it just sounds like I'm playing nothing. It's like I'm standing there thinking what the heck are these pointless notes and phrases? Then you listen to a recording and sounds alright!
But I think the piano part is a lot harder, although I don't really know anything about piano.
Now I think I'm getting to that usual mediocre point where you level off and no matter much you play/work on it, it doesn't get any better. If only I could figure what the great players do to get past that same old mediocre point and take it to the next level and actually sound really good. If I work on something for 300 hours, I want the same results the pros get when they work on that same thing for 300 hours !!!
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2011-08-16 00:03
Hi Johnny,
It seems fair to assume from your statements that you currently look at a piece like this as YOUR part and the piano part -- separate things that are played at the same time.
Pros don't conceive of it this way, and that's a part of your difficulty. It is one piece, and the two parts are inseparable. When I prepare a piece such as this I can hear the piano playing with me the entire time -- and if I can't I better get the piano part out and start figuring out what they're contributing.
Now I can't play the piano to save my life -- but I can read music and listen to recordings.
As you listen to the piece next time start listening to the piano MORE than the clarinetist -- and start discovering how the two parts operate synergistically.
Good luck!
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2011-08-16 05:30
Brahms was, of course, a master pianist; and when he composed for his instrument, he pulled no punches. The piano parts of his last pieces are very difficult.
His clarinetist/inspiration was also a very accomplished player --so that part is, also, not at all simple.
In my experience, it is far easier to find a clarinetist who claims to be capable of "playing" the Brahms Op. 120 than it is to find a pianist willing to take the piece out in public.
Bob Phillips
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-08-16 07:39
In any case, these Brahms recordings do not indicate performers who are "trying to be too artsy about it" and "not playing what's on the page." If you want to play along with them, you need to develop the flexibility to stay with the nuanced tempo and rhythmic adjustments - they're part of the music.
Karl
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Author: DNBoone
Date: 2011-08-16 13:07
You could always get a program like SmartMusic. It is an accompanies program that uses a mic to hear where you are the the piano part will follow you. This assumes of course that you know how you want the piece to go. You can also make it to where it won't follow you but that it will play exactly what is on the piano part. Change in tempo is possible too so you can play along slow or up to tempo on anything. I thought $26 was cheap to have all the popular clarinet piano parts available to practice with so I don't have to work on staying together and learning the piano part by ear when I finally get a pianist to meet with me.
Since I see everyone else say this....I am not affiliated, sponsored by, or otherwise by smartmusic. Just find it useful.
Post Edited (2011-08-16 13:08)
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Author: Hurstfarm
Date: 2011-08-16 18:18
Take a look at the good quality, downloadable mp3 piano accompaniment tracks (including the Brahms) at http://www.piano-accompaniments.com/acatalog/clarinet-repertoire.html
I have used personally, and with students. Choice of tempo of course lies with the pianist, but these are solid, professional performances that are an excellent preparation for playing with a real person! There are slower versions of difficult movements for practice purposes.
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Author: salzo
Date: 2011-08-16 18:58
I have yet to hear a recording of a clarinetist playing either of the Brahms sonatas well. Get a recording of Walter Trampler playing it on viola.
Clarinetist spend too much time trying to be artsy and sentimental, instead of studying the music on the page.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2011-08-19 14:54
OMG, salzo.
NONONONONONIONO
No viola playing of the Brahms Sonatas! Sacrilege!
But, there's something even worse: a youTube video of a young woman attempting to play it on the French horn.
SHUDDER.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2011-08-19 18:43
>>No viola playing of the Brahms Sonatas! Sacrilege!
>>
I strongly prefer hearing these sonatas on clarinet, but because Brahms arranged them himself for a choice of either viola or clarinet, I don't think the viola arrangement qualifies as sacrilege.
>Brahms was, of course, a master pianist; and when he composed for his instrument, he pulled no punches. The piano parts of his last pieces are very difficult.>
Yes. Brahms wrote these piano parts for himself and toured with the clarinet player for whom he wrote these sonatas. As an amateur, I've played both the clarinet parts and the piano parts (in private, to annoy Shadow Cat, r.i.p., and amuse Jane Feline, the only cat I've ever met who loves the sound of a clarinet). I play piano better than I play clarinet. The piano part seems vastly more difficult than the clarinet part. Other Brahms chamber music also has murdrous piano parts. In fact, my violin-playing husband's highest praise, for a pianist in his chamber music group that plays piano trios through quintets, was, "She can sight read Brahms!"
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: sonicbang
Date: 2011-08-19 19:11
There are even worse things: I have heard a recording where the clarinet was substituted with a voiola (AAAAAAAAA!!!!) in the h-minor quintet. Was terrible.
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The Clarinet Pages
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