 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: marcia
Date: 2026-01-22 02:37
My community orchestra will be performing Peter and the Wolf on March 1. I am the (un?)lucky person that gets to play the cat climbing the tree. I have spent considerable time on it already. It seems to be hit and miss at the moment. Any suggestions as to how to practise it most effectively?
Marcia
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2026-01-22 07:12
Think of each "run up" as a separate chord. Each one is easy, so all together should also be easy. Easier said than done. If you've got good technique it's all a mental thing.
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Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2026-01-22 18:32
It is easier to think of it as a sequence of triads (the 5th of each is at the bottom - 2nd inversion, but each fifth is flatted by a half-step - (on an A clarinet) Gb(F#)-C-E/G(Abb)-Db-F, etc.
It's one of the few passages I've played for which standard "muscle memory" really never seemed to help. After years of battling with it, I was much better off visualizing the ascending triads on a keyboard. BTW, I do, for no particular reason I can describe, feel more comfortable playing it on an A clarinet. Somehow the initial takeoff is easier for me than starting on F-B-D# on a Bb clarinet.
BTW, don't at first get suckered into trying to match speed with the recordings you hear. One of the most helpful experiences for me was hearing a live Philadelphia Orchestra children's concert one Saturday morning a long time ago. Don Montenaro was playing it, and they probably hadn't rehearsed much, if at all. Don took it about as slowly as I've ever heard it played - still a fairly quick climb up the tree, but sort of loping instead of scrambling up. The conductor didn't try to hurry him - I'm not sure after all these years that he even tried to set a tempo with the stick. It sounded fine and much more comfortable than most of the helter-skelter recordings you can find now on YouTube.
Have fun with it.
Karl
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