 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-10-12 02:12
When you see these key sig. what do you do?
play them or put them aside?
As for myself i look for another arrangement.
peace
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Author: willie
Date: 2001-10-12 04:42
I envision evil things to do to the composer of these pieces.
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Author: msroboto
Date: 2001-10-12 04:55
Well in a piece we are playing in our community band it has f# major in the key signature of part of the piece.
Luckily for us 3rd clarinet players though the key signature does change for us we have no playing part. ALL of us freaked when we saw it Most of us have been in this band for less than a year and are mostly getting back into playing with others.
The fact that we had not playing part didn't stop the band director from glaring at us to play something (though nothing was in the printed part)!!!
He did succeed in intimidating one of us enough that she felt she had to at least put the clarinet in her mouth.
Good luck to the 1st's and 2nd's that actually had to play....
1..2..3..4..2..2..3..4.............
;-)
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Author: JOHN GIBSON
Date: 2001-10-12 04:59
I play (occassionally) with the church band. Most all of the arrangements are in C# or F#. At the very least, the music has no fewer than 3 #'s involved. Needless to say after 30+ years not playing and picking it up again just a year ago....I'm pretty "rusty" not to mention intimidated....so I usually just "noodle" along in the back. I studied clarinet for six years during junior and senior high, then played rock and roll drums professoinally in San Francisco for the following 7 years. I've always considered myself a musician not a "reader". I think that true music comes from 'feeling' not the written page. My apologies to Mozart and all the rest, but they too ad-libbed and only wrote in score so the rest of the world could have their beautiful insight.
True musicians are those that improvise and play by ear.
That's my 2 cents worth......
John Gibson
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Author: Marcia Nottle
Date: 2001-10-12 05:49
Those of us who have A clarinets can cheat and play in an easier key-a semitone higher. It means transposing but I think it would be the lesser of two evils.
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-10-12 12:33
Practice it and play it. Unless it is very fast, it's seldom as bad as it looks. Also if a piece like this is on the program schedule, I practice the scales in these keys just so my fingers get refreshed in where they have to go without the stress of having to read a part at the same time.
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-10-12 12:37
Here is another tip. Think of it in the enharmonic key signature. For example C# major (7 sharps) is the same as Db major (5 flats). This might be a little bit easier. F# major (6 sharps) is the same as Gb major (6 flats). Although the number of sharps and flats are the same, wind players often handle flats a bit better than sharps.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-10-12 13:00
JOHN GIBSON wrote:
> I studied clarinet
> for six years during junior and senior high, then played rock
> and roll drums professoinally in San Francisco for the
> following 7 years. I've always considered myself a musician
> not a "reader". I think that true music comes from 'feeling'
> not the written page. My apologies to Mozart and all the rest,
> but they too ad-libbed and only wrote in score so the rest of
> the world could have their beautiful insight.
> True musicians are those that improvise and play by ear.
I too played professionally (jazz bass), was not a reader, and felt that true musicians play from "feeling" pretty much exclusively, too.
I was wrong. Not being able to read leaves you as only half a musician. It's the same as book reading - it's better to be literate than illiterate. You can listen to a tape of "Old Man and the Sea" or read it. Give me the book anyday.
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2001-10-12 13:39
I just ignore key signatures, also I pay no attention to all those black notes with a whole bunch of lines going across the top of them.
Can't figure out why nobody ever call me back to play in their groups...................
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2001-10-12 15:08
If you have an A clarinet, use it!
All those sharps will disappear magically ;->
Of course you need time to switch...
-S
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-10-12 16:13
dee:
then on the other hand you have the key of B with 5 # vs. Cb with 7 b. You can't win.
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Author: Katfish
Date: 2001-10-12 16:35
I concur with William. That's what Carl Baermann Vol. III was written for. (F# is nasty though) John brings up an interesting point. Throughout history there seems to have been this Appolonian-Dionysian split between, on one extreme, the hipper than thou, I'm such a creative musician I can't be bothered by the notes, but don't ask me to read anything type, and on the other end the 8 hours a day in the practice room drudge who can play all the notes but sounds as sterile as a computer.Most of us fall somewhere along this spectrum. I fall toward the drudge end. We thought you creative types were too lazy to practice, or too uncoordinated to cut it. You thought we didn't have a musical idea in our head and needed to geet a life outside the practice room. That's why I admire people like Wynton Marcellus who seem to be equally at home in both worlds.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-10-12 19:12
Pianists routinely play in 5, 6, or 7 sharps. Look at some Chopin, or Schumann.
Sorry...no sympathy here...learn to play in those keys...
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-10-12 19:56
gbk--you will have to admit that hitting a black key is a wee bit easier then trying to remember all of the fingering changes required to play 7#.
i do need the sympathy--sorry
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-10-12 20:52
No offense meant...sorry. However, think of the fact that as a beginner, if the first key signatures that you ever learned to play in were F# major and C# major exclusively for the first 2 years, we would now be saying that C major and F major were impossibly difficult to play in. It all depends on which side you look at...GBK
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Author: Suzanne
Date: 2001-10-12 21:49
Play it, you have to learn how sometime.
I had a studio gig (in other words, read it once, if that, and then play it for the tape) and basically everything was in these keys (it was back-up for a SINGER, so what should I have expected? j/k) I suppose the composer wasn't thinking about an A clarinet... anyway, I did fine because I have practiced music in those keys.
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Author: Nicki
Date: 2001-10-12 22:31
1. Wish you had an A clarinet.
2. Cry and get over it!
3. learn it at metronome speed of 44 and work your way up!
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Author: Nicki
Date: 2001-10-12 22:33
1. Wish you had an A clarinet.
2. Cry and get over it!
3. Learn to read sharps
4. learn it at metronome speed of 44 and work your way up!
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-10-12 23:30
what percentage of music that we play is written in either of these majors?
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Author: John Gould
Date: 2001-10-13 00:39
Practice.
When you do, pay attention to what F# "feels" like to the fingers. You'll be pressing a lot of "key" notes, and a few "hole" notes. You'll be depressing keys from the sides of the horn. That sort of thing.
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Author: Jessica
Date: 2001-10-13 06:40
I don't know if this would work for you, but whent here get to be more than 5 sharps, I start thinking in terms of what's not sharp (eg, F# major--B natural) and then playing everything else sharp; it works a lot better than thinking, ok: F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#
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Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-10-14 14:44
I find F# very easy. But that's only because I've spent countless hours improvising to music in the key of E (concert)
It's only C# that's hard for me... and then I just pretend I'm playing A# minor
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Author: allencole
Date: 2001-10-14 20:48
If you play professionally on clarinet, you have to accept that string and guitar players LOVE keys like concert A, E and B. You also have to accept that singers universally sing in the worst possible keys. Just about any pit orchestra book will illustrate this beautifully.
I'm sure that I'll aggravate a few people with this, but here are some steps which may be useful.
1 - Be able to smoothly play your F# and C# scales without the use of alternate fingerings like Fork B/F#, Fork D#/A#, or side-key F#/C#. While these fingerings can provide enhancements to straight scale runs, they are generally impediments to using the scale as a living tool for real-world, real-time situations.
2 - Learn to meander over these scales with simple songs like The First Noel, Joy to the World, My Country Tis of Thee, etc. (I generally practice them using Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring) Do it slow at first, so that you can address the sequencing of your pinkies!
3 - Take a book like Tunes for Clarinet Technic and read some simple tunes in F and C as if they were in F# and C#.
4 - With regards to #1, also practice scales in thirds and I/IV/V arpeggios. These involve different sequencing of your pinkie keys/levers, and you want to be used to all three situations. This will lower your workload as you concentrate on EVEN MORE different situations where you have to mark your fingerings.
Bob, here's an even more direct answer to your question:
I often find that when in keys like this, I feel like I'm sight-singing the music in my head and playing it by ear using the scale that's embedded in my fingers from practice. This method also works well with transposing, as long as the music stays relatively gets simple. When it gets harder, I just have to practice it or else.
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Author: Danielle
Date: 2001-10-15 01:39
I've done a bunch of pit orchestras, thanks to going to a "musical theater is god, but the musicians are cool too" camp, as I call it. A LOT of the music has 5, 6, or 7 sharps or flats. I found that playing with 7 flats or sharps is actually pretty easy-just transpose everything up or down a half of a step in your mind. Sometimes, the musical director just has us cut out the unimportant stuff (like scene-change music) if it's got a million sharps or flats, or just has the piano and drums play it. (Like when I did "The Music Man", and he had just the piano and percussion do "Gary, Indiana"-but maybe that was because it was a week before the show, and that song goes impossibly fast. ugh). Anyway, I've gotten used to playing in hard key signatures. And it's fun to brag to my friends in my section that I played with 7 sharps. :-D
Danielle
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