Grateful

Here's our performance of Grateful this morning. Basically my wife's arrangement, and she's on piano. Our son is playing clarinet. Lotsa fun.

Grateful by TFox17

A classical voice teacher analyzes metal singers

At the suggestion of a metal blogger, a voice teacher listens to and critiques several famous heavy metal singers. Short version: lots of very skilled singing. But the human voice is the human voice, and an expert knows how to analyze it and maybe improve it, whatever the style. I love this kind of thing, even if I don't know what "adducting the vocal cords" means.

Claudia Friedlander

Grateful

I've got another gig, playing in our church next week. It's my wife's show, but she wanted me and our son to play too, and kinda put off picking pieces. One piece she has worked up is a vocal arrangement of Ian Tyson song Grateful, which she played with a small ensemble from her choir. I'd never heard of this song, but Ian Tyson I knew from Four Strong Winds, which gets played all the time around here. (I heard him sing it once for the Queen in the rain, that was kind of cool.) So it's country, but not that new-fangled Nashville stuff. And Grateful is obscure enough that I can't find it on YouTube. It's a simple song, extremely simple: exactly eight notes, one complete C major scale, without a single accidental or change of key. An understated cowboy prayer. The nice thing about playing a song is that the phrasing all works very comfortably for a wind instrument. It even fits into the range of my voice (though when I tried singing, both my wife and son started yelling at me to stick to bassoon). The down side is that, unlike a singer, I have none of the sounds or meanings of the words to use to keep things moving and interesting. Not much to do other than do my best to be simple and beautiful, and hope the vocal quality of the bassoon sound evokes the song.

Update: Ian Thomas, not Ian Tyson. Sigh, nevermind (in a Gilda Radner voice).

Milde scale studies

For studies, I'm working on the Milde scale etudes, Op. 24. I did them before, in 1984 and 1987, based on the dates in my Weissenborn, but I don't think I understood them then. I thought they were boring scale studies, didn't practice them much, and played one a week at my lessons until they were done. With M, I'm going through them at a much slower rate. After a year of study, I'm about half-way through, so about one a month. And I'm putting a lot of time into them, more than anything else I practice. I'm finding that they are quite beautiful, if you really dig into the harmonic changes and singing through the lines. Not easy, though.

Here's me playing #13, Eb scales, in a lesson back in August. I was pretty happy with it.

Milde Scale 13 by TFox17

Ice music

Here's a guy who carves his instruments out of ice. (Daily Mail article.)
I'd think that'd create some difficulties: ice is not exactly the easiest material to work with, even when it's cold. And I note that he tends to stay away from the wind instruments. But it works well, given that. And it reminds me that cold weather is coming here, it's already started frosting in the evening, and the days are getting shorter and nippy. I'm glad I can stay indoors while I play.

Gigs

I've been playing at the university more frequently. I really like playing with that crowd, since the general level is higher than my usual band, and it's a challenge for me. The first time I played there I was terrified. I'm less terrified now, but I still find it very difficult. I devote at least 90% of my attention trying to play in tune, with just a touch left over for everything else.

The most recent few times was a small ensemble set up by a student conductor, working on making an audition tape. We played the Beethoven Wind Octet, Op 103. I found this pretty interesting, since most of my life I've played with other amateur musicians, but under professional conductors, and this was basically reversed. Conductors can indeed make mistakes, and their mistakes affect the sounds that get produced, but their mistakes are different in kind from the type of mistakes that musicians make. An unclear or uncertain movement on the upbeat, and everybody comes in ragged. An unnecessary movement in a rest, and a player comes in. The funny thing about it is, it always seems like the players are at fault, even if the root cause can be traced to the center of the room. And also, it's possible to acclimate to almost any conducting style. In high school, I occasionally played in one community orchestra whose geriatric conductor balanced on a stool, making small vague motions with one of his hands. It was impossible to find a beat, but I was soon clued in that the entire orchestra watched the concertmaster's bow for entrances. And it worked fine, we were all together. This student conductor is much better than that, but there's nevertheless a process of developing a mutual understanding. Also interesting is the aspect of recording. I'm reminded of Doug Yeo's advice to stop immediately, and not waste even a moment continuing recording after an error which wrecks a take. It's the exact opposite of performing, where continuity is king. Here, what matters is the conductor's performance, and not ours, but you'd have to imagine that whoever was listening would care about how the ensemble performed under her baton. One of the takes seemed pretty good to me, but she immediately discounted it, apparently she'd made a face or two after small kaks from the players. With your back to the audience, no big deal, but it's the kind of thing that's easy to see on a video of the conductor. She seemed pretty happy with the last take, and indeed, I think we sounded pretty good. Amazingly enough, rehearsal helps. And we even got paid, if you count free food.

I also got asked to sub at a dress rehearsal with the main group. I really wanted to do it, but unfortunately had a work commitment. With regrets I said no, figuring they'd find someone else or do without. When the time rolled around, the event I was at wrapped up a little early, and I realized that if I rushed, I could show up late to the rehearsal I'd declined. Not sure if I would be needed, or even welcome, I decided to go anyway, just in case. I scurried in maybe 15 minutes late, looking to see if they found somebody else. No, and the conductor waved me in without stopping. I put the horn together, and was a bit surprised to discover a chair and a stand for me with the music on it. Had they not been told I couldn't make it? Were they mad that I was late? Nothing to do but play, but they weren't stopping for me or anything. After looking over the shoulder of the other bassoon player, I tried to guess where they were. Joining in I got a smile from the conductor, so I guess I did something right. And afterward I got invited to play in one of their concerts later in the year, so I'm pretty happy about that.

A ciranda of seven notes

I'm currently working on Villa-Lobos, Ciranda das Sete Notas. I picked it from a pile of possible music M laid out because: it was relatively recent, so a good contrast to having worked on Mozart; and because it was Spanish, and I figured that I'd have a lot to learn since I'd never worked on something Spanish before. I'm having fun with it, but I was correct in thinking that I would have a lot to learn. For instance, I was having a hard time remembering its name. While chatting with my mom, I figured that it might help if I figured out what the name meant. It took a moment, but apparently it means Ciranda of seven notes. Also, it's Brazilian, not Spanish. That's what I mean about having a lot to learn. And a ciranda? That, apparently, is a
a circle dance, done in the village, with everyone of all ages particpating. While imbibing traditional Brazilian cocktails. Sounds like fun. Here's the pop singer's Ciranda, mentioned in the article about the dance: