 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-12 16:56
Hi,
I'm learning how to sight read timing at the moment by playing through "learn as you play clarinet" by Peter Wastell.
The book recommends that I think of words like "doc-tor" when I read paired quavers and "Ten-ta-tive" when I play triplet quavers.
I have tried it and it is working brilliantly for me. I'm delighted, because I really never knew how to sight-read timing before.
I'm an adult learner (aged 46) and in the past I always learned how the timing of a piece went by listening to a recording before playing it.
I just wondered if I could ask what other words you all use when you read specific combinations of note lengths, as this is an area where I have noticed that the books are really short on guidance.
Alternatively if you know of books that teach this well and in more depth, I'd be really glad to know which ones.
I think that all the less experience people coming to the forum would be so grateful to know more about this, and I know I would.
Thanks!
Jennifer
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-01-12 21:55
For me, I think of rhythm purely as the length of time of the sound I’m producing. For example, if each successive note is a quarter note at 60 beats per minute, then I play each note equally a full 1.00 seconds long. Then eighth notes are half that etc. etc. Sounds basic but there are lots of players that over think, and move various unrelated body parts, still not playing STEADY.
That said I had a friend who was asst. principal of several orchestras say that you should play a two sixteenth note pick up into a written eight as if saying the words “Taco Bell.” That has haunted me for years because it implies equal weight and length to all three notes. I believe (perhaps incorrectly) that this is not always the case.
……………..Paul Aviles
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2022-01-13 03:23
I have always had trouble with reading rhythms. Part is undoubtedly neurological. However, over time I learned to read rhythms in groups of notes, like "doc-tor".
A LOT of reading music is art, not science. Look for patterns. Just pay attention each time you figure something new out, and look for it again. I think a lot of it is figuring patterns out in one piece, then remembering how it sounded, how it was was phrased, or how it felt. Quarters are always quarters, but they don't always communicate the same things musically, and you don't always play them the same.
The way they teach you to count "One-ee-and-a, Two-ee-and-a, ..." is actually misleading. It teaches you to associate the notes in that beat with that beat. It's a good basic "how to figure it out when you are confused" technique, but ignores phrasing. You can understand the rhythm in isolation without understanding it musically. In that case you know what it is, but not how "it goes" (or makes melodic sense). You still can't play it right. To understand it musically you have to understand the phrasing. Notes are in one beat in time, but are often phrased with a different beat. So, always thinking of them as "belonging" to the beat they are "in", breaks up the phrasing and makes it harder to learn. For example, we think of pick ups as "belonging" to the following beat or measure. You may not recognize them 100% of the time (like in the middle of a piece) but they're usually easy to spot. It's easier to play "AND-ONE" than "one-and, two-and, three-and, four-AND". By extension you can then recognize phrasing within a measure or phrase, observing which notes go with what. Like "this sixteenth rest on the beat is empty, but the three sixteenths in the same beat are actually phrased with the quarter on the following beat."
Like Paul says, style and context matters in how you think about the same written patterns. Marches are written a little differently from waltzes and arias. Each have characteristic rhythms and conventions. The words you might associate with four sixteenths in a march might be different than the same notes in a waltz. In a march sixteenths might be "dat, da, da, dat". In a waltz "doo, da, da, da". In a symphony "doo-be-doo-be". You know what I'm saying. (All the "words" I use involve things like "doo-be-doo-be".)
Feeling the beat on the eighth, quarter, half, or whole as appropriate helps. Also taking the measure in 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, etc. as appropriate also helps. Sometimes you may have to start by subdividing everything, then once you get it figured out correctly you can take it in larger chunks. You might learn a fast march in 4 or 8, and then perform it in 2.
Also, keep an eye out for lots of tiny notes that are supposed to be embellishments, or rubato. They are sort of notated precisely, and sort of notated "something like this". They actually require a very good sense of time, but can't be played precisely "in time". It's more like "in flexible time with these groupings".
- Matthew Simington
Post Edited (2022-01-13 03:46)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-01-13 05:13
I forgot to mention yet another basic operation that most of you know an do. If there is any possible confusion around some rhythm as I scan the sight reading music that I am about to play, I hum the rhythm on a static pitch just to reinforce what I am about to play.
That is also a staple in the Leon Russianoff school of playing.
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-13 06:00
The truth is that Western classical music has not paid as much theoretical attention to rhythm and meter as it has to most other aspects of music such as tuning, counterpoint, harmony, voice leading, dissonance and resolution, tonality, orchestration, ornamentation, form and development, etc. Other world classic music traditions have developed methods of keeping track of rhythmic subdivision and complexity in music that surpass our typical training. To learn to read rhythm and meter really well (rhythmic solfege) one might want to draw on the methods used outside Western tradition. One source would be the Carnatic music of south India. Not only do the tabla (percussion) and sitar players in that tradition practice a sophisticated method of counting and subdividing the beat, but even the dancers can do it, and keep up with the instrumentalists. Richard Hoffman drew from this tradition when he developed his system of Takadimi, which follows the Carnatic practice of assigning syllables to note values and rhythmic subdivisions. Look at the 3 part introduction to Takadimi applied to Westen classical music--on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=getting+started+with+the+Takadimi+rhythm+counting+system
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Takadimi+rhythm+counting+system+part+3.
Sure this system takes some time and practice to learn well. But no more time and practice than scales, arpeggios, and finger technique patterns. My Indian friends who have been trained in rhythm solfege systems like this find any clarinet music I show them to be simple and completely transparent rhythmically--even pieces as complex as the Eliot Carter Concerto or the Stravinsky Story of a Soldier (or his Rite of Spring)! They can clap their hands immediately and accurately to the rhythmic patterns as well as fluently vocalize them.
Bassoonist Bill Douglas worked with his friend Richard Stolzman for a time to develop a system of rhythm solfege drawn from non-Western music, including African, Arabic, and Indian, as well as American jazz. The need for this is great and no doubt many people are working out their own versions.
Post Edited (2022-01-13 06:53)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-13 07:10
Thanks for explaining all that.
The Takadimi system looks like just what I need. I'll watch the videos. Thank you very much for pointing it out.
Jen
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2022-01-13 09:40
I taught the "1 E & A" method to my beginners in 6th grade. It worked. I also taught them it was fine not to use it if they could hold a steady beat and use the math to play the correct rhythms-- this is how I learned (no words/syllables). Either way, rhythm has nothing to do with phrasing and I don't think using syllables/words or simply math should mean one is not phrasing properly. My feeling has always been -- right notes-- right rhythms -- phrasing and musicality in that order. But some will disagree as there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Sorry I don't think that really helped with your question.
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
Post Edited (2022-01-13 09:43)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-13 19:49
Hi Tom,
It's actually immensely helpful to have people come along and say that there is no single right way.
My son and my clarinet teacher tell me that they both have an "inner metronome" and I definitely don't.
The one place in my life where I have a definite sense of natural rhythm is from horse riding in my teens. I had a clear beat of the horses hooves, and I find that useful in music sometimes, because horses have 2/4 time, 3/4 time, 4/4 time in their different natural gaits.
I'm very encouraged to hear that it's not a well defined thing though. I thought maybe I had a bit missing and I'm delighted to hear that I don't.
Jennifer
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2022-01-13 22:54
Jennifer, Yes, everyone is different. In my 19 years of teaching band (all ages), I actually came across 3 out of maybe a thousand(s) students who really "couldn't count". One kid was unable to tap his foot evenly, so counting a half note for two equal length beats was not ever gunna happen. Yet later he became an integral part of my HS Jazz Band on Tenor, at times taking solos. Still couldn't count and at times came in wrong, but he could really work a solo.
Unfortunately one of the other 2 was a 7th grader who (yikes...) played percussion...
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-01-14 00:37
Just a thought. If someone hummed a note to you and asked you to parrot that back, couldn't you make that the same length that you heard?
That's all there is to rhythm.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Djudy
Date: 2022-01-14 01:12
Thank you sunnydaze for raising this problem - I struggle with rhythmic reading too, coming to sight reading at an advanced age of 65 just a few years after having picked up an instrument. And I still struggle although happily many other of the musical challenges being brought under control now allows me to really try to work on this remaining hurdle.
And thank you to seabreeze for the great youtube examples on the Takadimi system, much better than others I had investigated but not found helpful, so I was sticking to the Number method 1-e-&-a learned in grade school (yes we did have a music teacher from First Grade and a school orchestra for the 5th and 6th grades, so long ago !). Each has its merits. I'm going to give Takadimi another chance.
For info, I had found reference to the Number method, and Kodaly, Gordon and French Time Names as well as the Takadimi. And in French a triplet is read as 'tri-o-let' .
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-14 02:23
Judy,
To learn how to play rhythm patterns correctly you must find a teacher who believes rhythmic perception and performance are teachable. If the teacher believes it is a matter of pure intuition and you either "have it or you don't" then you are doomed. Then it almost becomes a theological question of some are saved and others dammed. A similar situation obtains in the pedagogy of reading. Normal children are hardwired to learn language; that is speak and hear it. But reading the graphic representation of language on the page (or electronic monitor) is a rather different skill. The rancorous arguments between whole word readers and phonetically analytic readers is a baneful waste of time. Children and adults use both methods in different proportions from one individual to another. The child who learns to read phonetically will eventually recognize many of the word "holistically" and not bother to apply phonetic principals. But when she meets an unfamiliar word, it will be a great help that she knows how to apply phonetic principles (including, of course, spelling principles) to at least derive a probable pronunciation. Some words are pronounced in ways governed by regional history that violates normal phonetic rules. But "that's life" as the philosopher says. In Oxford one goes up to Magdalen (pronounced "Maud-lin" College, is that correct? But if a well read but regionally ignorant person says "Mag-di-lin" instead, the locals quicky correct them, and how much harm is done? Life is give and take, not rule by absolute prescription.
So even a method like Takadimi will not ALWAYs yield the best way to play a rhythm. But,like phonetics training, it can be very useful. Good reading skills begin with phonemic awareness. Good rhythm skills begin with counting and subdivision awareness. From what you say, you were at least given some practice in subdividing the beat--the "One-an-eh-ah" routine. That was a good beginning that you need not to discard but to build upon. You need to apply the concept and practice of beat subdivision to music not just in 2/4 and 4/4 time but also to 3/4, 6/8, 9/8 and other time signatures. I would send you to the Baermann method Book 2 for many little pieces he has written in those different time signatures. Open the page to these, ask your teacher how exactly do you count these rhythms over the underlying beat. Sing the rhythms over and over until you get then just right. Then play them over and over until you get them just right. Do this day after day in different time signatures and different rhythms and let all this experience of singing, counting, subdividing and playing the rhythms percolate in your brain, hands, and unconscious Then, lo and behold, one day you will awake and upon seeing the particular rhythm patterns you have been practicing, you too will be able to enter the twilight zone of the adept who believe they just "have the "innate sense" to perceive and play these rhythms.
If Takadimi gets you there faster use it. If something else works better, use that. But you CAN learn to play rhythmic patterns. It helps to hear a good clarinetist with a nice tone play a selection of rhythmic patterns. Here's Medina, a New York freelancer playing exercise 15 on page 34 of the Carl Fisher edition of the Baermann Book 2 (which is online for free).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHKDmshSHok
Baermann's no 14, a little Romanze, also on page 34 of the Carl Fisher edition, may be more difficult for you to count because it is in the less common time signature 3/8. You will be counting 1, 2, 3 throughout but at some points,
( like measures 22 and 24) the subdivision "1 and 2 and 3 and" is important because the 1 is a rest and the first note begins on the "and" following 1. That is, the downbeat is silent and the upbeat contains the first note. I can play most of the rhythm patterns in this piece holistically, but when I come to those passages with the rest on 1 I revert to my "musical phonics" of counting all the subdivisions of the beat so I am neither early nor late in making my entrance.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=baermann+book+2+no+14. Top hit on page.
Post Edited (2022-01-14 08:57)
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2022-01-14 04:00
Like many others, I can subdivide & analyze most rhythms pretty quickly and then retain and play them. There are exceptions, like the following.
- Swing rhythms are among those that are not played exactly as written, and exactly how they should be played depends on other things. You have to catch the rhythm and the style in your ear.
- That thing Spohr did in the first movement of his second concerto, just before the stately second theme, where a bar of dotted 8ths & 16ths is followed by a bar of half-note triplets divided into dotted 8ths and 16ths, which is then followed by a bar of dotted 16ths and 32nds - a speeding up that's expressly contradicted by a "rit." underneath. After analyzing, practicing AND interpretive head scratching, I still have little confidence I can produce whatever effect it was that the composer took such pains to indicate.
- Offbeat triplets. Analyzing this rhythm became frustrating, but fortunately there's a good video on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4TyBe6AHEI
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-14 05:10
Philip,
Adam Neely's comments on rhythm are thought provoking. His "Why Classical Musicians Feel Rhythm Differently" was especially good, as were his observations on how the perceived difficulty of a rhythm can vary greatly with the way it is notated. Notating the offset quarter note triplet as a series of tied eighth note triplets does make them easier to play. The Strad article on orchestral faking (written by a cellist) covers more than just rhythmic faking but it does underscore just how lacking music education in the classical field is when dealing with rhythm. Players from various Indian backgrounds and many jazz players today can handle meter shifts more systematically and with greater assurance than typically trained classical players. Rare indeed is the player who can instruct a newcomer on exactly what to think and count and subdivide while playing through either the trio or the larger ensemble versions of Stravinsky's Story of a Soldier. By now that should be child's play but it's not. Just shrugging and saying "wing it" or even more dubiously, "you've just got to feel it, man" does not constitute instruction. Instruction implies a system of some sort that can be followed to produce a result. Rhythm instruction needs to be brought up to the same level as instruction in embouchure, articulation, scale and arpeggio patterns, and fingering drills. The fact that rhythm in most traditional Western classical music is not nearly as complex as rhythm in classical Indian music or Afro-Cuban, for instance, only makes the neglect of rhythmic training even less excusable.
Post Edited (2022-01-14 05:13)
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2022-01-14 06:30
To be honest, as a classical player I never felt that my rhythm skills were weaker than say, jazz players. Or weak in any way. In fact, the only difference in playing jazz from classical is swinging the 8th notes -- and then only if the jazz player IS playing swing style (jazz players/bands do play other styles where the counting is same as classical). I've dabbled in playing jazz at times and for years directed a HS jazz band.
Yes, I'm sure some non-Western music styles contain difficult mixed rhythms, but the math is always the same.
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
Post Edited (2022-01-14 06:32)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-14 07:03
Just as a historical curiosity, around 1959 I studied with an old Italian teacher who used Pasquale Bona's 1905 text Rhythmical Articulation to teach rhythm and meter. He put everyone from trumpet players to singers through this thing whether they could play or sing the actual notes, just to get the rhythm right. It's online at https://openlibrary.org.
Nothing in Bona would prepare one for Debussy, Bartok, or Stravinsky, not to mention Milton Babbit, or Elliot Carter. But it did cover older material pretty well rhythmically.
Later I discovered Joe Allard's Advanced Rhythms. That one is great for learning to subdivide syncopated rhythms and count difficult tied notes, especially if you work through it in cut time. But still little on mixed meters and irregular meters or the methods of counting across measures when meter changes.
Joe Allard Advanced Rhythms is a PDF at several sites.
One book that did tackle modern meters and rhythm head on was Allen Sigel's 20th Century Clarinetist published by Franco Colombo in 1966. It's been out of print for a long time and I haven't even seen a copy for the last 10 years. It seems to have vanished from the face of the earth when it ought to be on every clarinetist's music stand. (Or perhaps a better pedagogical variation of it covering similar material.)
Another bold idea might be to invite percussionists from different musical traditions (including modern Western classical) to co-author method and etude books for clarinet. You'd ask them, "so what do clarinetists frequently screw up rhythmically that you think is concerning?" Now that would be a really different method book!
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Post Edited (2022-01-14 07:25)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2022-01-14 11:41
It was the difference between Romantic, Jazz, and French Baroque rhythm conventions that got me thinking about timed phrasing vs. numerical counting.
As a kid I could never figure out all those off beat quarter note combinations in Jazz charts, until I figured out what sounds they represented. Once I associated the symbol with a familiar sound and phrase it all made sense, and for the most part I didn't have to think about it.
Ferling etudes drove me absolutely nuts in high school and college. Once I realized the slow ones were operatic arias, all those insane 32nd note rhythms with triplets made perfect sense.
I'm working on some French Baroque pieces right now, which from a conventional perspective are notated nothing like they are supposed to be played. Notes are written with the "wrong" values, or left out entirely, and there's all these signs for ornaments. After you look a bunch of stuff up and find out what it means, it starts to make sense, and you realize "Ohh, THAT'S how it goes."
I see some kids are transcribing jazz solos now using triplets where they should probably be writing eighths. They are trying to be too literal. I wish I had their ear and persistence, but it makes it impossible to read. They aren't observing the distinction between actual jazz triplets and hurried or delayed eighths. The player is thinking "eighths", but they don't come out exactly on the beat. It *might* more accurate scientifically to write triplets, but it obscures what the notes really are. It's impossible to know how to play it. It doesn't even follow classical conventions. The literal temporal duration of the note isn't as important as the function and intention.
I've sung Greek chant in Church (a little, I don't know Greek), and Americans inevitably butcher the rhythm because they aren't used to it. It has a very distinct pulse, flow, and "meter" of sorts. It's not hard to pick up, but it's different. A Greek Psaltis (choir director) always directs with a hand or pencil very strictly to keep it together. It's very important. Americans just sing it straight through with no feel whatsoever, and loose all the phrasing. The whole character is lost. It's like a completely different tune, even the basic rhythm. The Greek notation has very accurate note values, which can easily be put in Western notation, but the pulse or "meter" needs to be understood to read them correctly.
FWIW...
- Matthew Simington
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-14 20:45
Thank you very much for all this brilliant discussion and for all of the book references. This thread is a keeper I reckon.
Seabreeze - I really like all these books that you are mentioning. They will keep me in practice material for years. Thank you so much for taking the time to write them all down. I love that they are available online too. Also, I had to really think hard about it when you said you were studying in 1959. I always assumed you were about 35 years old. That was a big surprise.
I have been looking at the takadimi videos and combining what I learned there with what I am learning from the Peter Wastell book. I put it all together and things are falling into place so so fast. It's really amazing.
The takadmi videos taught me to think about 2s 3s and 4s but at different speeds according to the music. I had never thought about that.
The Peter Wastell book teaches me to think of 2s as "doc-tor" and 3s as "ten-ta-tive".
I learned from my theory workbooks last year about how to see the 2s, 3s, and 4s in the music (simple and compound time). That was all new to me last year.
So today I tried applying the combination of it all, while sight reading in the Peter Wastell book, and it was really amazing.
Instead of getting lost in a featureless jungle of notes, I was able to count "doc-tor" or "ten-ta-tive" right through the simple and compound timing structure and sight read quite complex things. After a couple of bars I got the feel for what the musical intepretation was, and started to be able to sight read musically, and it was the most amazing feeling.
It was like when I got my first pair of distance vision glasses at the age of 10 and was suddenly able to see all that stuff that everyone else was able to see before. Really magic.
This is such a helpful thread. Thank you very much for explaining it all. My teacher will not recognise me when he sees what I have learned.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-14 21:16
Also - in answer to Paul's question -
It's a bit tricky to tell you what I can do intuitively in rhythm.
I can sing in choirs, because I can sing along when someone else does the sight reading. I can do it well enough that I once sight-read my way through Handel's Messiah in a scratch concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and I did that quite competently.
However, I have never been able to sight read a tune alone without having listened to a recording first. In fairness, nobody ever explain to me how to do it.
When I was asked to march as a teenager, I was trained to put my feet down quietly, because at the end I always parked my last foot one beat after everyone else. I was also the person who went the wrong way in aerobics class.
Metrones give me the heebie jeebies.
For this question:
" If someone hummed a note to you and asked you to parrot that back, couldn't you make that the same length that you heard?"
That would be a definite "no" for me.
I am really really enjoying being able to sight read today. It's like getting a magic power suddenly.
Adult learner, Grade 3
Equipment: Yamaha Custom CX Bb, Fobes 10K CF mp,
Legere Bb clarinet European Cut #2.5, Vandoren Optimum German Lig.
Post Edited (2022-01-14 21:18)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2022-01-14 21:58
SunnyDaze wrote:
> It's a bit tricky to tell you what I can do intuitively in
> rhythm.
I have reasonably good rhythm.
But ...
Can't dance. Go figure.
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2022-01-14 23:00
When I was learning to play clarinet and read music I found rhythm difficult as well. Two techniques I found helpful were 1) rhythm drills, and 2) looking at any music and reading the rhythm in my mind, but without my instrument (one less thing to worry about). While I appreciate you don’t want to separate rhythm from the notes too much, these are just more techniques to add to the armoury and to use as and when.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-14 23:24
Yes, the soul of music is its rhythm. The pulsation of life. All the more reason why music teachers need to have a more systematic way of teaching rhythm and meter in its historical and cultural contexts. Definitely a neglected subject. Even the rhythms within the same historical period are not the same. Handel's rhythm is not Bach's; Purcell's not Rameau's. The rhythm of Gregorian chant flies like a bird on the wings (and winds) of its melodies--a weightless rhythm with "ictus" points for breathing and emphasis.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2022-01-15 00:05
Quote:
Just a thought. If someone hummed a note to you and asked you to parrot that back, couldn't you make that the same length that you heard?
That's all there is to rhythm.
But that isn't all there is to rhythm, is it? Rhythm must have, for example, some sort of context. Indeed, music is, among other things, a pattern of durations or a complex of a pattern of durations. And in order for rhythm to become meaningful, a listener must be able to compare one duration to another and therefore grasp the various relationships that comprise the pattern. In tonal music, these patterns are articulated by regularly recurring equal durations of time, alternations of long and short or loud and soft, repetitions or change, voice-leading, harmony, etc.
There's also a very important physical aspect of rhythm that's missing from the discussion. To perform precisely a rhythm, you must "feel" the rhythmicity of the music and not simply intellectually "count" it. My ear-training teacher made us work from a rhythm book and "ta" the rhythms. When a beat (or a subdivision of a beat, if you were taking a slower tempo) wasn't articulated by a ta, you would clap your hands. A whole note, then, would be "ta" (with the "a" bit sustained), clap, clap, clap. Very importantly, the clapping gave a physical sensation to the act of subdividing. And when we play an instrument, we must create a similar sensation in the fingers, air, or tongue, etc. (the air shape moving to the middle of a whole note, for instance, or the fingers going up on a quarter and then down on the following beat like a conductor giving a "prep" beat).
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-01-15 04:10
First the Handel: Maybe the idea of hearing (really hearing) one note and humming or playing it back is a bit arcane. The Handel is just a good example (just a bit more advanced). You’ve heard the Hallelujah Chorus and would naturally sing it as it sounds, one long and three short notes. Easy
But to answer Brycon I would say yes, absolutely that one note’s duration is the essence of good rhythm. One only needs then to put another note after that the same duration, and you have rhythm. I recall Clark Brody, a past principal of the Chicago Symphony speaking of Larry Comb’s audition (for asst principal/Eb at the time). Brody said Combs was the only candidate that played with good rhythm. He didn’t say one of the top players with good rhythm (though I’m sure all the finalists were amazing players). He said, the “the only one.” So it’s not so simple to execute (and Larry was playing Weber’s First Concerto). I think we, and I mean all of us, make it WAY more complex than need be. Sure we can talk about playing an even group of five notes over four beats all day long, but the basics of a steady pulse often get buried under too much “over think” and distractions like “foot tapping.” Haven’t we all seen student groups playing with feet moving in all manner of rhythms simultaneously. Their playing is inevitably much better than it “looks” so why do we insist on teaching tapping feet?
.............Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2022-01-15 08:28)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-15 10:06
I see what Brycon means, definitely. I can do a group of notes, but I couldn't reliably repeat one note. It's like the brain measures the length of a note relative to the others on either side, and with nothing to compare, where would you even start? Odd.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-16 00:24
Kids start rhythm with little "echo words" that mimic frequent patterns, such as "caterpillar" for 4 equal notes (usually 16th notes), "merrily" for 3 equal notes (triplets), and "tum-ti, tum-ti" for dotted eighth and sixteenth note patterns. This is a start but doesn't go very far. To advance further some reliable method for subdivision of the beat is necessary--some kind of rhythmic solfege lattice must be laid down as a guide. Whatever method is chosen, to be effective and useful it must work in all the time signatures in which music is usually found. Counting time only in simple 2/4, 4/4, and 3/4 is a dead end.
To gain confidence and accuracy in subdividing the beat, make friends with music written in time signatures such as 6/8, 12/8, and 9/8. Learn to count well in those time signatures, and later adventure forth into 5/4, 7/4 and other "odd" meters. Eventually you will want to confront switching or "mixed" meters for example a sequence like 6/8, 7/8, 3/4, 6/8, 2/4, 6/8, 3/4, 9/8 that occurs in measures 44 to 51 in Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. But we won't try anything as perplexing as that just yet.
Here are two videos to study and practice with. Compound Rhythm Understood 1, Compound Rhythm Understood 2.
First just watch, then replay and sing along, then play along with.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=compound+rhythm+part+1
l
Post Edited (2022-01-16 04:27)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2022-01-16 21:18
Quote:
I can do a group of notes, but I couldn't reliably repeat one note. It's like the brain measures the length of a note relative to the others on either side, and with nothing to compare, where would you even start? Odd.
Yes, exactly correct. We need a context, which could be as simple as a single preparatory beat from a conductor, to make sense of a rhythm.
As I was saying in my post to Paul, many facets of music provide such contexts. Tonally speaking, if we play the first five notes of a scale, our ears hear scale-degrees 1, 3, and 5, the stable pitches of the key, as more weighted and scale degrees 2 and 4 as less weighted (which is why jazz musicians add certain chromatic passing tones to scales, creating an even-note scale that they call a "bebop scale," and therefore align tonally stable notes with metrically stable downbeats). Or in the rondo theme of Mozart's concerto, for instance, the repetition of the opening bar in bar 5 creates a sense of weight at these spots. We might begin, then, to speak of phrase rhythm, tonal rhythm, and so forth. And rhythm as a whole deals with the intersections of all these various patterns.
So does rhythm boil down to the precise duration of a single pitch? I have no idea. That sort of thinking is so reductionist that it becomes intellectually and practically useless (Okay, good rhythm is matching precisely a duration you hear. How do you then practice it so that you can sight read a piece on the clarinet?) Moreover, intellectualizing rhythm as some property of the memory ignores the entire history of music education, from Renaissance choir boys singing upon the book and marking the tactus to modern ear-training students doing solfege while conducting. Perhaps your rhythm problems are the result of you unknowingly following Paul's advice and using your memory, your memory of "how the piece goes," rather than being grounded in the patterns of pulse, meter, phrase, etc., and being able to situate the rhythms you see on the page within them.
Post Edited (2022-01-17 03:41)
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Author: Djudy
Date: 2022-01-16 21:26
Thank you seabreeze for all your help and interesting observations. And sorry to have been slow about getting back to this, I'm babysitting a grand in the middle of this HUGE covid spike here in France which has upended my schedule and haven't been able to give the time I'd like to music. Still the little I've been able to do has quickly revealed the strengths and weaknesses of the takadime system - the only real solution is put in the milage and on the pertinent exercises. I need to find the Baermann ! Again, my thanks !
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-17 20:05
Hi Seabreeze,
Thank you very much for explaining that. I think that that is probably a long way in the future for me as I'm still getting to grips with the basics, but I will put it on my list, and it's really good to know what I need to do when I get there.
Hi Brycon,
Yes I think I've very much grown up in the habit of repeating what I hear, and with no sense of pulse and meter. My teacher talks about it all the time, and I only just am starting to get to grips with what pulse means, and in the simplest time signatures. I think the penny is dropping at last though, and I hope that now I have a clue of what I'm trying to do, I will be able to get better at it.
Thanks!
Jen
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2022-01-17 20:31
SunnyDaze wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm learning how to sight read timing at the moment by playing
> through "learn as you play clarinet" by Peter Wastell.
>
> The book recommends that I think of words like "doc-tor" when I
> read paired quavers and "Ten-ta-tive" when I play triplet
> quavers.
>
> I have tried it and it is working brilliantly for me. I'm
> delighted, because I really never knew how to sight-read timing
> before.
>
> I'm an adult learner (aged 46) and in the past I always learned
> how the timing of a piece went by listening to a recording
> before playing it.
>
> I just wondered if I could ask what other words you all use
> when you read specific combinations of note lengths, as this is
> an area where I have noticed that the books are really short on
> guidance.
>
> Alternatively if you know of books that teach this well and in
> more depth, I'd be really glad to know which ones.
>
> I think that all the less experience people coming to the forum
> would be so grateful to know more about this, and I know I
> would.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jennifer
Hi Jen:
I hesitated on commenting here under the principles of "if you're not pretty sure you have value to add, keep silent."
I never learned from the various schools of thought others have suggested, and when I originally read here about the idea of assigning words to rhythms I was concerned that changes to tempo might negatively affect this technique.
But after reading here I've come to believe that my HS teacher may have had the best advice on this subject when I raised similar thoughts with him--"back before household plumbing."
He said that rhythms, not music are something we memorize. And we get good at them from exposure. Towards that end, he wisely suggested I get myself in front of the sheet music to everything I possibly could, even, or perhaps especially tunes I already had in my head.
"Oh, that's the rhythm on paper to that popular music phrase," I'd say to myself silently.
And education happened.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance, even if you only or mostly watch at first, of involving yourself in an ensemble. In my youth, immersed in such things at summer camp, "thrown into the metaphorical deep end," my sight reading improved exponentially.
Post Edited (2022-01-17 20:33)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-17 20:50
Thanks SecondTry, That's really good practical advice.
I can't get out to groups at the moment but I'm doing the next best thing by going back to really simple clarinet duets and putting the sounds and the sheet music together and figuring it all out. I think that's the same thing as you are suggesting, but in the house.
I'm really finding it helpful to go back to very simple stuff as it takes away all the other difficult things and lets me focus on just thing that you are talking about - which is trying to tie up the written rhythm with the sounded rhythm.
I just heard that I passed my bronze and copped music medal today, which I know probably sounds ridiculous, but makes me very happy. Next is grade 1 (which I'm doing for the second time). Last time the whole thing was hard after months of practice. This time I will be sight-reaeding it pretty well at the first go, but then going back to think more deeply about how the upbeats sound and how tricky rests fit into pulse and meter all these mysterious things that are quite new to me.
I'm trying to play them as duets with my husband, which is quite tricky as some of the piano accompaniments are quite hard but we are having a go.
I really like having time to go back and think about this in depth, rather than just skidding along trying to cope as I did in earlier years.
Thank you very much for taking the time to comment. It's really very helpful
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Author: kehammel
Date: 2022-01-19 06:25
I once played in a renaissance band, and the rhythms in some of that music can get really hairy. Maybe the hardest was La Spagna by Josquin des Prez:
https://imslp.org/wiki/La_Spagne_(Josquin_Desprez)
The parts tend to move independently, and sight reading it correctly was beyond us. Even subsequent playings sometimes resulted in a train wreck, because an error in counting by any one player made it really tough to hear where you had to be.
A professional musician in our group provided a pretty good solution- He said don't hesitate to number and mark the principal beats in every single measure (literally 1 & 2 & 3 &, even though the placement of measures is arbitrary in music of this era).
It might seem like something only a rank beginner would do, but in this case it really helped. The idea is to keep the pulse in one's head, drop a note or two if you have to reorient yourself, and use the marked beats as a visual guide to get back in quickly.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2022-01-19 07:51
kehammel wrote:
> A professional musician in our group provided a pretty good
> solution- He said don't hesitate to number and mark the
> principal beats in every single measure (literally 1 & 2 & 3 &,
> even though the placement of measures is arbitrary in music of
> this era).
>
> It might seem like something only a rank beginner would do, but
> in this case it really helped.
If only my rank beginner students had been willing to mark beats! It happens all the time in a professional band or orchestra. But marking beats usually happens after you've missed something, and the point of any marking is to prevent yourself from making the same mistake more than once. I'm not sure it's so helpful as a sight-reading technique.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-01-19 08:00
I’m not sure about marking the beat for sight reading either but the more common marking is just “slashes” over the main beats. On some funky stuff, or things I miss just because, I’ve even done “up arrows” and “down arrows.”
……….Paul Aviles
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Author: kehammel
Date: 2022-01-19 20:24
You're right, Karl. Marking the beats in the music was not part of sight reading. It was what I did after finding that we kept messing up even after sight reading was behind us.
But this brings up an interesting point. Except for the occasional times when a conductor passes out something completely new, I seldom sight read in the way that a professional musician would. By which I mean playing a part from start to finish at first sight. I've usually played bits of the music beforehand at home, which is a little different because I can start or stop playing as I like. Or I've listened to a recording of the music, or at least looked over the part.
It's amazing to an amateur like me that professional studio musicians can walk in, play music they've never seen before, and even make a recording on the very first take. Now that's sight reading!
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-01-19 21:43
This may be a comment more for the Audition Information post but, orchestras are repertory groups. There doesn’t have to be sight reading there (except perhaps work premieres with little time between finish and performance). As a repertory player you always have access to music in advance if you need it.
…………….Paul Aviles
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2022-01-19 22:15
Paul Aviles wrote:
> This may be a comment more for the Audition Information post
> but, orchestras are repertory groups. There doesn’t have to
> be sight reading there (except perhaps work premieres with
> little time between finish and performance). As a repertory
> player you always have access to music in advance if you need
> it.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> …………….Paul Aviles
>
I hear this Paul...I understand it, but I am respectfully at a loss regarding the intention of why you expressed it.
Maybe I need to clarify myself.
Orchestral auditions almost invariable involve some sight reading component, right? I mean maybe if "Boris Allakhverdyan" is auditioning for a NY Philharmonic opening this step of the auditioning process might be bypassed and seen as unnecessary, but you can't be saying that sight reading isn't an integral skill set here, right?
Sometimes there's very short lead times between rehearsal and performance, and few rehearsals. Sight reading ability makes up this difference, right?
I don't seek to challenge you sir...I'm just missing your point.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-20 00:18
Remaining in a comfort zone of familiar musical patterns and styles is one reason many players have trouble with sight reading. Playing Klose, Rose. Lazarus, Langenus, Cavalini, (and yes, even my favorite Baermann, etc) over and over rehashes a very limited exposure to the meters, rhythms, and even the scales and harmonies represented in the larger world of music. What's missing? Latin American rhythms and especially Latin American syncopation, for one. For a nice dose of that try Paco D'Rivera's little book, "8 Exercises for Latin Jazz." For some tricky pieces in 5/8 and samples of cakewalk, ragtime and other North American music see Mark Cropton's "Sight Reading and Transposition Tests for Clarinet, Grades 6-8" and Steven Blutman and Michael Blutman's "Festival Sight Reading" book for clarinet. Steven is a percussionist (and I believe percussionists ought always to be either coauthors or editorial reviewers of clarinet books). Weiner's Music carries the clarinet version. The authors boast that they have included 800 examples for sight reading. There is ample practice not only in playing but in accurately counting rests--also a very important part of sight reading. https://www.allstatesightreading.com has a series of sight reading practice books. And there are the computer generated workouts of the Sight Reading Factory at https://www.sightreadingfactory.com.
Sight reading aids like these are of most value when they draw the clarinetist out of the comfort zone of the same old styles and the same old rhythm patterns and open up the path to a greater range of music. Directly confronting the new material in those diverse musical styles is an even better way--much better, in fact, to improve sight reading.
Post Edited (2022-01-20 00:39)
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2022-01-20 09:40
Agree about the Rose, Baermann, etc. type books being very basic and limiting. They are a good start and necessary. There are quite a few books of contemporary etudes, such as the Jettels, Uhl's, Polatscheck, John P. Russo, and one of my favourites the 16 Contemporary Etudes by Frantisek Zitek, to mention a few. Lots of odd rhythms in these sort of books.
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
Post Edited (2022-01-20 09:42)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-20 16:06
kehammel - that's really interesting that that is still useful at such a high level. My teacher gets me to do that too in hard pieces, just with slashes as Paul says.
I started the 2022 grade 1 book and it's weird to find that I can sight read the tunes and fine out how they sound, rather than having to listen to recordings. Also to find that I can correct my mistakes by counting now.
It's like having been blind for 46 years and learning to see. I really like it.
I'm also really enjoying grade 1 because it uses only the chalumeau register, which is my favourite part of the clarinet range. I kind of wish that people used the chalumeau notes more in the compostitions that are set in the harder grades.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-21 18:03
I had a really good day of clarinet playing today. Now that I can count time, I can play with a recorded accompaniment correctly. I don't need to wait until I hear the piano note to know where I am meant to be so I can just bash on and still be in time with the piano when I get to the end. It's pretty exciting stuff really.
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Author: kehammel
Date: 2022-01-22 04:32
I'm going to relate the following anecdote, since SunnyDaze is a scientist (like me), and she might like it. Some of you may already know it. It's not about sight reading, but it's not completely off topic.
Albert Einstein was a decent amateur violinist, and he used to play occasionally with well-known professional musician acquaintances. The story goes that one day he was playing with Artur Schnabel at the piano. Einstein kept getting lost, repeatedly bringing the rehearsal to a halt. Schnabel turned to him and said, "What's the matter, Albert, can't you count?"
Post Edited (2022-01-22 07:28)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2022-01-22 10:37
I played in a "Schnabel-esque" community group. I had easy eighth note arpeggios for about 16 measures and got lost every - single - time. I tried watching, stomping my foot, playing soft, playing loud, following, leading, etc. - all to no avail. I decided not to play and listen. Half of the group was very clearly playing at one "tempo", and the other half at a distinctly different "tempo". I gave up. I don't remember what I did at the concert, but when I heard the recording later I knew it wouldn't have mattered.
- Matthew Simington
Post Edited (2022-01-22 10:41)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-23 01:36
kehammel - I'm really glad I'm in such good company. Thank you for telling me such an encouraging story. :-) Maybe Einstein was a dreamer, even when he intended to be concentrating. I can identify with that too.
Matt74 - Thanks also for your encouraging story. It's really wonderful to know that this happens to others too. In the community orchestra that I used to play in, one of the conductors once said that his favourite part of the evening was listening to the timing of the strings and the wind players diverging, and wondering which group would finish first. I like that.
I recorded my grade 1 performance exam today and it went really quite well. My husband says that when I play now, he can't be quite sure whether it is me, or whether I'm playing back the ABRSM recording from my PC. That's really quite a step up for me. I'm very happy about that.
Oddly, I find now that I can play the grade 2 pieces much much better than I could when I was actually studying for the grade 2 exam last time. I'm wondering whether the answer to sitting the grade 4 exam might be to wait and do it when I am half way through learning grade 6 (if that happens). Might be a lot more relaxing that way.
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2022-01-24 11:37
I thought about doing the ABRSM. I never finished music school, so I kind of feel like I would like to "finish" something. It would also be a good way of making myself focus on specifics, and polish things up a bit - in case I ever need to perform things like whole tone scales (LOL).
I did miserable with ear training in college. Basically they actually didn't teach it at all. It was a sink or swim sort of thing, and done in the worst way possible way for me. So I liked that aspect as well.
- Matthew Simington
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-24 15:15
Hi Matt,
Yes I completely understand what you mean. I struggled constantly with music growing up, and when I get an ABRSM Grade certificate I feel as though it's giving me the approval and saying that I reached a milestone. I really find that a very positive part of the learning process.
I think maybe with music is very easy to constantly notice the problems, and having someone come along and hand out approval in written form is super-helpful.
I also think the ABRSM tunes are very well chosen for giving me the skills that I need, a little bit at a time, which is very helpful.
I noticed that it was very good with the theory books as well, until I got to grade 6 and then there was no easy route to get from Grade 5 to Grade 6. I think we need about 3 other theory grade between 5 and 6.
Jen
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-25 13:29
My sight-reading has brought me a whole new grade of problem. I just tried the next Baermann tune, and I can play it easily, and I know it like the back of my hand, and I can't remember where I've met it before. It's the weirdest thing. Like meeting a person in the street and not being able to remember why I know their face. :-)
It's just called "No. 9" in book 2.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-01-25 18:28
No, it doesn't seem to be that. I think it's just another piece that I play from another clarinet book, but I can't seem to remember which one. It doesn't matter really. I just thought it was funny that it popped up like that.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2022-01-25 18:35
Lots of collections use material from Lazarus, Baermann, Klose and other standard 19th century clarinet methods. You may well have played the etude in some other collection.
Karl
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-01-26 01:30
If you like the tunes in the Baermann method and would be interested in the piano parts that Baermann wrote for them, see this relatively new and accessible edition:
Robert Erdt, editor, "[Baermann] Tune Book 1, op 63 for clarinet" and
"[Baermann] Tune Book 2, op. 63," Schott Publishing (2016).
This edition includes the clarinet part, the piano part, and a CD recording of both the piano part alone and the clarinet and piano together for the tunes in Book II of the Baermann Method. Amazon USA carries it and so does Presto Music, and many other distributors. The pieces take on a different character when played with the piano accompaniment. The need for balance, blend, good tuning, and phrase interpretation rises to the top in the original two-instrument version. Solo exercises are transformed into performance pieces.
Post Edited (2022-01-26 05:19)
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The Clarinet Pages
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