 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kfrank1
Date: 2005-11-07 01:45
I am an intermediate level doubler looking to start collecting music for sight reading practice. This would be for the purpose of passing an audition for a pit band if ever an opportunity comes up in future. Apart from free sheet music, which books would you recommend that would have good bang for the buck in terms of material for sight reading practice?
Maybe, method books, Rose etudes, Melodious & Progressive, Rubank Duets, etc?
Thanks
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Author: ClariBone
Date: 2005-11-07 04:05
I'm still doing Klose (going on 4 yrs. now). Theres some cool etudes and some HARD technical passages. I got mine for about $30.00 and I'm ALMOST half way. I'd call that money well spent!!!
Clayton
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Author: kfrank1
Date: 2005-11-07 04:16
But wouldn't doing that be more of a technical exercise rather than sight reading? I'm assuming that you are using the whole book for sight reading. Wouldn't it be better to sight read just the tunes from method books so any of your errors would be due to sight reading rather than technical problems?
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-11-07 04:22
There are infinite numbers of books or methods to use for strengthening sight reading, etc... but for something a bit different I would highly recommend getting a copy of the Arban Complete Conservatory Method For Trumpet.
As I've written many times before, one nice feature of the Arban book is that all the exercises, melodies, duets, themes and variations, etc... all lie (for the most part) between C4 and C6, thus the student gets to build technical skills in the most used clarinet register. This book is excellent because it makes the student USE their scales and arpeggios, rather than just recite them back.
For practice in sight reading and phrasing, the Arban book has 150 short melodies taken primarily from operas.
After 30+ years of teaching out of Klosé, Rose, Baermann, Kell, etc... it is rejuvenating to find another supplemental method which builds skills and covers ground in a slightly different way.
The only problem - the book weighs about 3 pounds...GBK
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Author: Chalumeau Joe
Date: 2005-11-07 10:43
In addition to the Arban book, I'd also recommend Buddy DeFranco's "Hand in Hand with Hanon".
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-11-07 15:11
A respected local tenor sax man in his 80s(!) recommends keeping a stack of stuff around for sight reading. I've taken his advice; and its helpful.
Also, I've found that sight reading in an ensemble setting is great because you have the pressure to keep the tempo. I've started to be able to pick out dominant notes and "favor" them when I can't cut the hard stuff. That is: play the first note of a fast triplet or beamed 1/16ths and skip the others in the beat until you can master the passage.
Bob Phillips
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2005-11-07 19:18
The method books aren't that great for rhythm development. They of course are technically hard, but not much rhythm difficulty.
Jazz is what will do that for you. Get some jazz study books to read from - they will help you the most for pit music.
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Author: kfrank1
Date: 2005-11-07 20:05
For some reason I find it harder to read classical music than jazz, probably because most of my playing has been that area.
I once went to an audition for a pit band and found it hard to sight read the piece which was a classical piece. That's why I was thinking about using tunes from method books etc.
But, yes it's probably a good idea to practice sight reading both.
Thanks all for the suggestions
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Author: ClariBone
Date: 2005-11-07 21:23
kfrank1 said "But wouldn't doing that be more of a technical exercise rather than sight reading? I'm assuming that you are using the whole book for sight reading. Wouldn't it be better to sight read just the tunes from method books so any of your errors would be due to sight reading rather than technical problems?"
Its both technical excersizes and sight-reading (ever hear of killing two birds with one stone??).
Yeah it would be better to use method books if you ONLY wanted to improve sight-reading (generally, imho, method books deal MAINLY WITH lyrical passages and slower etudes). Have you mastered a lot of technical excersizes?? The Klose is like a method book + some. It gives you the oppurtunity to stretch your mind with the concept of which alternate fingering to use, and gives VERY complicated rhythms. You mentioned auditioning for a pit band. When called upon to sight-read, you may face a piece with a lot of technical passages (lets face it, its clarinet candy!!!). Why only limit yourself to lyrical sight-reading, when you could improve your runs!?!?
Clayton
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2005-11-07 21:29
Quote:
When called upon to sight-read, you may face a piece with a lot of technical passages (lets face it, its clarinet candy!!!) Clarinet Candy. Now THAT was a fun piece to play . . .
But I agree here. Not only should you worry about the technical passages for the audition itself, but what if you were to pass the audition, and then you are asked to learn a technical piece in a short amount of time that you aren't even close to prepared for? Now you'll be part of the band, but you won't be pulling what SHOULD be your weight in it.
Best to listen to the pros above.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: kfrank1
Date: 2005-11-07 21:53
I do technical exercises as a separate practice to sight-reading. But I agree, there is probably some overlap either way. I guess I can start off with the tunes in the method books and if that gets too easy then start sight-reading other material from there.
As for passing an audition and then not being able to play a technical piece in the music, I'm not too worried about that. I think my weakness is auditioning. I suspect this is true for most, their playing in an ensemble is better than their auditioning.
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