 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2014-03-10 00:31
Just messing around on the Web, so I can't be sure the list I saw was accurate, but I doubt it's likely to be too far off.
Between ca. 1800 and ca. 2001, the number of honors and titles given by Britain to musicians:
- Composers: 46
- Conductors: 34
- Vocalists: 27
- Instrumentalists: 26
Of the instrumentalists, all but two (Thea King and James Galway) went to keyboard players.
This pretty much supports my observations over the decades that vocalists, violinists, and keyboard people are considered the "real" musicians.
What might be a good term to cover the rest of us? "Note plumbers" comes to mind.
B.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2014-03-09 21:06
Perhaps the reason behind this seeming discrepancy is that few performers outside of keyboard and violin (and just maybe cello) have much chance to make a real career as soloists and spend most of their lives embedded in orchestras or doing the music club circuit - not a lot of chance to shine and catch the officials attention there.
sadly also only keyboard/violin/cello have that much repertoire to actually shine in.
As to terminology then "Plebs" has a certain currency in the UK!
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Author: wanabe
Date: 2014-03-09 22:34
Both Sir James Galway and Dame Thea King played melodic instruments. That is to say that they could only play a single note at a time. Any keyboard instrument has the advantage of being a harmonic instrument with the ability to play multiple notes all at once. This gives the keyboard musician the ability to "solo" much more easily than a lone flute or clarinet. So kudos to both Dame Thea and Sir James for leading the way in pied piper fashion to the head of the crowd and for giving Ireland something else to be proud of besides Guiness and Leprechauns.
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2014-03-10 04:31
Sir Smale (you've been knighted by a Yankee),
Not sure about the repertoire problem. For some instruments, maybe, but not for clarinet, flute, oboe, and so forth.) I'm pretty confident that all of the "standard" melody instruments certainly have enough repertoire to sustain a career. Could be, though.
But the reasons that you mention as possible causes for the lack of honors are at the base of it all: For whatever reasons, "the rest of us" aren't considered "real musicians" in European cultures.
This has gotten me thinking. I'm going to see if I can find similar tallies for awards for instrumentalists from other non-European countries. We'll see if they're so lop-sided. I suspect not.
Stay tuned.
B.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2014-03-10 16:36
wanabe wrote,
>>Any keyboard instrument has the advantage of being a harmonic instrument with the ability to play multiple notes all at once. This gives the keyboard musician the ability to "solo" much more easily than a lone flute or clarinet. >>
I think that's a good point. Somehow, though, the string players have managed to attract nearly all of the most important composers over the decades. My husband and I have had to farm out file boxes of violin music and piano music from our practice spaces to storage boxes in the attic of our workshop. My clarinet, recorder and saxophone music all fits easily into my cramped home office. I rotate the piano music in and out of the house a lot, but play the same wind pieces over and over and over and over. The shortage of truly exceptional solo repertory for wind instruments compared to strings probably contributes to the discrepancy in awards.
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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