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Playing Clarinet from easy piano sheetmusic

Author: Elkwoman46
Date: 2011-11-19 19:24

I acquired a song book (Mary Poppins) for easy piano.
I have noticed over the years that easy piano song books can mean different things. I have seen some that are simply the melody lines.
In this case, I can tell at a glance that it is definitely easy, but just a bit more complicated than plain melody lines.
In some ways, these filler notes and chord notes between the melody lines can probably afford the clarinetist the chance to also improvise using these notes, but here is my question...

In general, if there are two notes on the same note, does one basically play the higher note? Also, if there are two or three notes on this one note, can a clarinetist actually play some of these or more than one of these notes by opening up or closing really fast to sound like someone playing a chord on a guitar, that fast?

How does one really tackle using this kind of in between sheet music, without loosing some of the extras it offers, but still sounding clearly the melody line?

Any information on this would be kindly appreciated.

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Re: Playing Clarinet from easy piano sheetmusic

Author: Chris P
Date: 2011-11-19 19:50

If there are two or more notes to a stem, the uppermost is usually the melody note and the others are the chord tones, but that's not always the case. The higher note could be a higher harmony part (eg. in 6ths or 3rds above the melody) or the melody could even be in the left hand with the right hand playing a counter melody - it all depends on who arranged or wrote it. Sometimes the melody is shared between treble and bass staves (between left and right hands) as well, but in most songbooks you'll find the melody is usually in the treble and at the top of each stem.

What I find annoying about some songbooks with piano is they often have the melody in the piano part as well as the vocal line. I bought a book of popular Bernstein tunes for oboe and piano and nearly all the tunes have the melody in the piano part and that doesn't give the xoloist much freedom if the pianist is a bit on the rigid side, so it's a case of the pianist leaving out the melody notes and letting the soloist play the melody how freely they want to instead.

You can use the other notes that make up the chords to base your improvisation around, but do have the melody in mind as a guide.

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.

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