 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BrianChau
Date: 2009-09-24 01:07
Hi all,
In our high school orchestra, we were recently given "Fiddle-Faddle" by Leroy Anderson. On my part it says "Bb Clarinet", but because it begins and ends with a concert D major, and switches to concert G major, I am not sure if I should transpose it to A clarinet. Any thoughts?
Also, what is the original key of this piece? I am not sure if our copy is the original or an arrangement.
Brian
Brian Chau
University of British Columbia Concert Winds
Post Edited (2009-09-24 03:50)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2009-09-24 01:49
The original orchestral key is D major, with a key change to G major at letter D, and back to D major at letter H.
The Bb clarinet part is in E major and A major.
The part lies fine on the Bb clarinet, no need to transpose.
BTW - Leroy Anderson rarely, if ever, scored his pieces for the A clarinet.
...GBK
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-24 02:03
If you have an A clarinet and you think you can do a better job playing it on the A clarinet, then I say more power to you--go ahead and transpose.
On the other hand, if you're perfectly comfortable playing it on the Bb, then just stick with the Bb.
Only you can decide what's best for you, though. What I'd do is take a few passages representative of the difficulty of the piece and try transposing those over to the A and see which works better for you. Judging from the key signatures, I'd expect it to be easier on the A clarinet (where you have 1-2 flats instead of 3-4 sharps), but that's not necessarily the case. You really have to try these things out to be sure, especially if there are a lot of accidentals in the part--my orchestra played a piece last year in which the first page was easier to play in the key of Db rather than D simply because the part was full of natural signs.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-09-24 02:06
I agree with GBK, I've never seen a Leroy A. piece for A clarinet. ESP
http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-24 02:28
Ed Palanker wrote:
> I agree with GBK, I've never seen a Leroy A. piece for A
> clarinet.
I haven't either, and I've never transposed one for A clarinet either, because I've never found any of Anderson's pieces difficult enough to play to make transposing them worth my while.
On the other hand, I wouldn't hesitate to transpose one of his pieces to play on the A clarinet if I was having trouble playing it as written. There's no sense in slopping through the part on Bb if it you can play it noticeably better on the A. You do the composer more disservice if you play it poorly than if you play it well on an unspecified instrument, IMHO.
(And, chances are, the only reason Anderson wrote everything for Bb is so that you wouldn't need an A clarinet to play the piece, since so many students and amateurs don't own them. They could print both an A part and a Bb part, but that just means more expense for the publisher.)
Post Edited (2009-09-24 02:37)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2009-09-24 09:32
I wouldn't transpose it. Four sharps isn't too bad for clarinet and is something you should get used to and comfortable with if you intend on playing orchestral pieces, transcriptions of orchestral pieces, etc. I remember reading somewhere on this board that a lot of orchestral, operatic, etc. pieces are in concert D major. Something about it lying well with the stringed instruments and allowing more "open" strings to be played.
While it might be easier for you to transpose it and play it on an A clarinet (I'm horrible at tranposing...this would make it F and Bb?), you'd be doing yourself a disservice in not practicing those keys that are tougher for you. I'd say stick with it, and you'll be better off for the future.
Alexi
PS - I have a great book, Classical Studies for Clarinet transcribed and edited by Himie Voxman that I bought from Van Cott (sponsor of the board under the MUSIC AND BOOKS section). It has a bunch of violin and cello partitas/sonatas trasncribed for clarinet. GREAT to work on and play, most of them have sharps and they'll really help you get familiar and comfortable with playing in those keys with sharps. Worth buying (in my case, twice as my first copy was borrowed and never returned!)
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-24 14:04
sfalexi wrote:
> I wouldn't transpose it. Four sharps isn't too bad for
> clarinet and is something you should get used to and
> comfortable with if you intend on playing orchestral pieces,
> transcriptions of orchestral pieces, etc. I remember reading
> somewhere on this board that a lot of orchestral, operatic,
> etc. pieces are in concert D major. Something about it lying
> well with the stringed instruments and allowing more "open"
> strings to be played.
That's true, and on second thought, I have to agree with you about the educational benefit of not transposing. When I was in junior high school I played in my city's youth symphony. I didn't own an A clarinet, and by far the most common key I encountered was E Major (which would be concert D major). So I got used to playing in keys with lots of sharps really quickly. I was thankful for this experience when, as an adult, I was handed Copland's Hoedown (which is in this key and written for Bb clarinet) to read through and play on a concert the same morning. I did not have time (or staff paper) to write out a transposition and I must confess that I'm not that great at sight-transposition, so I played it as written. So there will always be times when you need to play in these rotten keys, even if you have an A clarinet at your disposal.
Practice your E Major scale and scale in thirds (out of Klose, Baermann III, Jettel, or whatever you use) and you'll get used to it pretty quick. I conquered my 7th grade fear of sharp keys in short order that way--in fact, I came to dislike flat keys instead.
With regard to the key of D Major, I think it is no accident that so many of the great violin concertos are written in this key: Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky. The violin has a D string and an A string, which make D Major a particularly comfortable key to play in for violinists.
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