Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2007-08-01 01:13
I had a suprise great practice session this evening, one of those times where much seems natural and more seems possible. After 3 hours I wanted more, MORE, but desisted in respect of my current physical limits.
Anyway, toward the end I took out the Mozart concerto just to drill on a couple hard spots, and I got to reflecting on a recording of it I heard recently, by Thea King playing the basset clarinet. I remember admiring her playing and also some interpretive things she did (like accenting certain trills with nice dramatic effect). However, I disliked some of her choices for utilizing the low notes on the basset clarinet.
King seemed to take EVERY opportunity to play low, especially when it came to altering descending broken arpeggios into descending straight arpeggios, and many of those hit me as awkward. Some seemed to make musical counter-sense, losing something valuable in the melodic line, though I've no doubt Ms. King had solid reasons for those choices that could easily be inaccessable to my less studied taste.
Well, my instrument can't plumb the bowels of the basset hound -horn!, I mean - but I realized tonight I can still play in that game . . . in the other direction. In the last movement there's ASCENDING broken arpeggios that can be straightened. Of course, the result takes one soaring into the ultissimo (c'''', d'''', etc), but hey, if Mozart's guy could have played it that way on his basset thing, I've no doubt Mozart would have wanted him to. :-)
Please note that this is MY idea, and I'm claiming intellectual property rights. So I better not hear any of you performing it that way for big bucks, at least until I do. (Yes, this is supposed to be funny.)
Question - how high do others here practice their scales? I'm trying to implement the whole fingering chart (found somewhere from this site), but so far I'm only able to manage things up to f'''' or f#'''' - and not so fast or smooth or in tune either. It's getting better, but why am I doing it? I can play the Mozart up an octave, but frankly it doesn't sound so good up there (at least, when I do it.) So, what pieces use those notes?????
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The Clarinet BBoard
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