 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-11-21 17:39
What practical use have you made of you knowledge of intervals. Buddy DeFanco says we should have a complete understanding of scales and intervals.
I don't see where these fit into my playing. Thats why I'm going to college.
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Author: Mark Charette,
Date: 2001-11-21 18:11
Intervals <b>are</b> harmony and dissonance, the very basis for all music western or otherwise. The relationships of notes to each other is the base for all music, as is rhythm, timbre, pitch, and volume (and more ... but those are the easy ones ;^)
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2001-11-21 18:18
Hi Bob.
One of my son's reads by interval and also can pretty much play anything by ear...using intervals. He knows what a fourth looks like and sounds like and where it is on his instruments. Knowing about intervals helps one see patterns in music, which I do.
For example major scales can be though of in intervals the major scale goes Major 2nd, major 2nd, minor 2nd...Major 2nd, Major 2nd, Major 2nd, minor 2nd: regardless of what note you start on. Major chords are always Major 3rd, then minor 3rd in their most basic or root position. Forgive me if you don't know what these intervals are...
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-11-21 19:03
I know that we have Major, minor, dimished and augmented intervals. i'm just trying to understand them and get them straight in my brain.
Ginny welcome back.
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Author: Jim E.
Date: 2001-11-22 06:02
It often seems (at least in my case) that we clarinetists (and other wind players) experience music in the way we play it, that is on the horizontal or melody line. We can forget that music is also vertical with a whole hormonic structure, hence the value of learning intervals and chords etc.
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-11-22 14:32
Jim: I agree with you 100%, I think this is one of my main problems.
It's like english. We know the words, we can read them, but do we think about nouns, verbs, puncuation and that all go into making beautiful prose.
have a great day.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-11-22 15:26
One of the most frustrating concepts in teaching is reminding the students to notice EVERYTHING above and below the staff as well as just the notes. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've told them to expand their visual field to include the ENTIRE staff...GBK
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-11-22 18:17
To GBK. Ok here is your nickle. What do you mean when you said "to expand their visual field to include the ENTIRE staff".
i look at the Key Sig. the time, the general flow of the notes are there any Accidentals etc.
What else should I be looking at.
Bob
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-11-22 18:29
Bob...Sorry, I should have been more specific. By the ENTIRE staff, I mean all composer notations which pertain to the music. That would also include all dynamic markings, all tempo markings, and all expressive markings (staccato, tenuto, sfz...etc) which the composer intended when he wrote the piece.
Too many times, the students merely just "play the notes" and think they have mastered a particular piece. By "expanding their visual field" they are taught to notice everything on the page - above and below. An added benefit to this is that they eventually "see" larger sections of music at one time, and are able to read ahead. This is of GREAT benefit when sight reading.
I hope that explains it as well as possible...GBK
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-11-22 18:37
Bob...one more thing. A good analogy would be the way we read written English. Obviously we do not read just one word at a time (that would aurally sound strange,as well as be very slow) but rather "groups" or phrases of words. Your eye captures a larger field of view and processes the information.
The same holds true of reading music. If we can see a bigger field of view, all the little notational devices on the page will not be overlooked. It's just a matter of training your eyes to not look only look narrowly horizontally, but see the larger picture. That includes looking ahead to see what is coming, as well...GBK
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Author: Jerry McD.
Date: 2001-11-23 12:50
Bob,
This is a common problem among us wind players because we can only play one note at a time and it is very difficult to grasp an understanding of the vertical nature of harmony. I would suggest that you learn how to play the piano. I don't mean to create any real technical mastery, but enough proficiency so you can play some simple chord progressions and maybe a melody or two over a chord progression in the left hand (maybe 6 months of lessons from a competent teacher of adults). This will really open your eyes, and more importantly your ears, about how harmony and melody work together. This will also help when you are playing in a group to see where your part fits. Are you melody or accompaniment? Root, third, fifth, or seventh? All of these elements have different characteristics of how you play them and where they move, and learning a little keyboard will help develop a better understanding of the 'big picture' of music. You can learn these things without having any keyboard skill but it can help speed up the learning curve and improve your playing and musicianship of your primary instrument.
Happy playing!
Jerry McD.
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Author: Bob Curtis
Date: 2001-11-25 21:15
Bob:
Take it a little easier and think of music as a story. We, as musiciajns, have to supply the story line, all of the sound effects, get every one into the feel of the story, excitement and all, and then make sense out of the whole thing.
The use of intervals is one of those items like a scale. Each key signature has it own particular set of "buttons" or "keys" you push down to make the notes sound correctly to our ears. If you don't know which button to push or push the wrong one something sounds diffferent with the scale. You recognize this immediately and know that the "interval" between the notes is not corect. It is a little like following a highway map.
As our ears get more familiar with how a particular interval sounds we can automatically look at a piece of music and almost sound it out in our head instead of having to play it to hear what it sounds like. We learn what the intervals are and can reproduce these sounds in our minds OR on our instruments. This saves a lot of time in selecting a new piece or scanning a selection to see whether we like it or not, or if it is the correct selection.
By the way, I presume that you art taking some type of theory course. If so, next year will be easier. Generally, you learn all the rules the first year, and the next year you learn how to BREAK all the rules. Then is when the fun comes in.
Good Luck,
Bob Curtis
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Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-11-26 02:50
Intervals taught me how to read bass clef and alto clef. Not that I'll need to read alto clef that often, but it helps all the same.
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