Louchez 8

A read-through of Louchez 8, no practice, recorded on the 4G iPod touch, positioned a few feet in front and left, face of iPod towards me (so the mic hole is away). I added Small Chamber reverb in Ableton, set to 26% wet.

Louchez 8 by TFox17

A bad job on Louchez 7

Was feeling a little frustrated at the lack of progress on my project to record all the Louchez studies, so I turned on the mic for #7. At first it was a total disaster, but after a number of runs, I got one that was merely terrible. I've posted it below. It's frustrating, because it's a pretty piece, but I'm not able to take it quickly enough to give it a light, 6/8 allegretto air, plus all the goofs (and worse yet, the *fear* of goofs) make it feel stodgy. So it sucks. Maybe it's the best I can do, right now today? Fine, whatever, but why should that affect how the listener hears it? It's either effective and works, or it's not.


Louchez7 by TFox17

Louchez 6

I want to finish learning and recording the Louchez's, they aren't that hard. This one is #6, which I actually had a nice take of a few days ago, but Voice Memo app ate it. Claimed it was recorded, but wouldn't play it back, and after syncing, it was gone. Oh well, a chance to try again. This time recorded onto my laptop, and with a different mic than I've tried before. This is an AT802 dynamic omni mic, bought by my dad many years ago, and was apparently a pretty good mic back then.

Louchez 6 by TFox17

Louchez 5

Full disclosure: there's a cut in this. The take that had a decent feeling of being in one had a terrible second half, even worse than this. So I redid just that part, and spliced them together. Still not as good as I can hear in my head, but I'm a flawed, flawed person, and maybe I just need to learn to accept that.

Louchez 3 and 4

Not perfect, but time to keep moving. Reed is G5, recorded on the iPod, with my thumbtack mike after it went through the wash. The first one didn't survive that trip, but this one seems to still work fine.

Louchez 2

My quest for easier pieces that I can play perfectly isn't going so well. Here's the next one from the Louchez book, #2. It's long and sustained (titled Sonority), and I found it hard; it took me quite awhile to get through it without falling apart. I think it'd sound better with vibrato, but I stopped trying to add any, because it screwed me up. So all the oscillation remaining is the stuff I can't control. Ah well, I guess it makes me sound human.

Execution

Concepts and ideas are worth very little, what matters is execution. If something has not been executed well, whether it's a consumer product, a business, a lab experiment, or a piece of music, it just doesn't work. As an idea person, I struggle with this. I watched another of the Norman Herzberg videos, the one about his teaching. First, they asked him about what orchestras his students got jobs in. He didn't list these, instead he listed those where two (or more!) of his students had jobs! (Indeed, this thesis claims that his former students held the majority of major orchestra bassoon positions in the US. Wow.) Asked about his teaching philosophy, he went through listing his scale and interval exercises and the etude books he had his students do (Milde Scale and Chord studies, Orefici Melodic Studies, Jacobi Six Caprices (but not International edition), Jancourt, Gambaro, Orefici Brauvura Etudes, DuBois, and finally, only then, the Milde Concert Studies). I'd actually worked through some of these in high school, like many of his students, but he'd say "Do 'em again. I wanna hear em." He'd test people who'd claim they'd already worked up an etude, and none ever could play it top to bottom without falling apart somewhere. He had some short dismissive remark about artistry (or that's how I interpreted it); saying, I teach you to play the instrument. But get him started on fingerings, or vent keys, and he'll talk for an hour. His students ended up with great facility, bombproof technique, which is, quite evidently, exactly what you need to win an audition. In a sense, this is the true realization of the operator mentality.

Inspired, rather than stumbling through another Milde badly, I tried getting an easy etude really clean. Here's the first one from a French etude book (Jean Louchez), recorded on the iPod:



The notes are right, and the fingers moving mostly together, and most of the attacks are there, but it's still full of flaws. I'm particularly surprised about how many note transitions sound like a gliss -- I'm not really intending that, maybe a speed of finger motion thing. The tremor in the tone bugs me, maybe softer reeds could help, or adding vibrato to cover it.