The hard part

This is my hardest part in the concert coming up on Sunday. The piece is Beethoven's Egmont overture, and I've clipped out woodwind part (oboe, clarinets in Bb, and bassoons) from the score. In the fermata bar, the violins cut off the King's head, with a dramatic C-G! Then the woodwinds enter, with second clarinet and bassoon (that's me) on octave F's, then adding parts, in the shocked quiet after the decapitation. After this, there's a rousing finale, but I'm worried about the notes before.

That opening F is marked ppp, and it needs to be very quiet, mysterioso. There's no other sound in the hall. The clarinet I'm playing with can play with a subtone anywhere down to zero; the bassoon, not so much. The first rehearsals, he was playing really quiet, not only because it was ppp, and because the conductor wanted it quieter, less and less, but also because he felt insecure about the pitch, so he kindof wanted to sneak in and hear how it sounded. You'll bury me, I told him, and asked him to do what he could to help us match dynamic-wise. (Ie, play louder, please!) I'm doing what I can: tons of support from lips and diaphragm, slow air, muffled fingering (add low D and E). I think the conductor has gotten the idea after watching me struggle, and hearing the pops, cracks and dropouts when I get too soft: at the rehearsal last night he asked clarinet 1 to meet us on dynamic. It's sometimes described as a knife edge, playing a double reed as soft as possible, but a better metaphor is a cliff's edge. Things are fine a comfortable distance away from it, it's fine creeping up to it, it's even okay balanced right on it, but any jiggle, and down you fall, with no hope of recovery. I'm also slurring the whole thing. My part has each note rearticulated (even the Db, unlike the score here), but adding tongue is just too risky, and I don't think the articulation is needed.

Intonation is a struggle too. I've played this lots against a drone. The F I'm playing as low as I can, without it drooping, the Db needs to be up and supported, the Bb down, with open throat, and the C fully supported. If I'm reading the chords right, the harmonies are F, Db major, G half diminished, C major, making the key change to the final section. So I'm usually the root of the chord, except for the Bb, which is a third, and should therefore be a little extra low. I guess you could also call that G chord a Bbmin add 6, to emphasize the bass line and the descending thirds F-Db-Bb, but calling it G helps recognize it's relation to the C following.

Looking back, I see I've mentioned this passage twice before. Ah well. I guess it's a hard spot. But I'll say this: even though it's hard, and even though I still can't play it as perfectly as I can hear it in my head, I can say that practicing it has helped. It really works, practice. Imagine that.

Dynamics and intonation

The biggest things I'm struggling with, in the university orchestra, are intonation and volume. The bassoons were being constantly shushed in the first couple rehearsals, and several times I got called out for being out of tune. Since intonation is an ensemble thing, maybe it's not surprising that I would struggle when jumping into a new group, particularly one that has much higher standards. Still, it's embarrassing at best. I spent some of the weekend playing perfect intervals against a loud synth tone from my iPod, and maybe it helped. At least, the conductor never once bothered to interrupt the entire orchestra in order to single out my intonation, so that's an improvement anyway.

Dynamics is another matter. Some of it is just focusing on being quiet in the quiet bits, and trying to do more with the phrasing. So 90% is okay, but not perfect. But there's one spot... a ppp open F, soli 2nd bassoon entering with 2nd clarinet, in the Egmont overture right after Egmont gets his head cut off by the violins. He's spent rehearsal time on it in every rehearsal, I spent my lesson time on it, I've worked on reeds for it, I've blogged about it, and it's not there yet. I think I can do better, but it'll be work. Double reeds just can't get as soft as other instruments, something that's worthy of a technical blog post at some point. I did talk to the clarinettist, to beg for a bit of mercy. Apparently he was trying to hide in that entrance, since he was uncertain about the pitch. (He's got an open G, I think?) Hopefully if I can convince him to come up to pp or so, we'll be able to have a bit of balance while I can have a decent chance of sound coming out. The other tricky part of that passage is the rest of the notes. It's supposed to be very legato, but my tonguing at the edge of sound production resulted in too big a gap between the tones. Maybe I'll just try slurring everything.

Serious orchestra again

For the next few weeks I'll be playing a couple of minor pieces with the university's orchestra. I've subbed in with them before, but this is the first time I've been scheduled to play with them. It's a fabulous experience, since the level is so much higher than my usual. First rehearsal was a few days ago, and things went mostly fine. The big repertoire for this show, including the wonderful solo in Firebird, is being handled by their two performance majors, so my job is primarily ensemble playing. But man, playing accurately and sensitively enough to fit in is not easy. I got called out a couple of times, both times for being too loud. One spot is a triple-p 2nd bassoon solo entrance on an open F after a pause, with maybe one clarinet and nothing else, which was both too loud and sharp. Clearly I need to spend some more time on dynamics and reeds. Mostly my practicing focuses on smoothness and beautiful full tone, and haven't concerned myself with how immediately and securely the reed responses when playing softly. I also think it's funny, getting nailed on something that might be the first note you'd teach a new bassoonist. Reminds me of my attempt to find something I could play well, except here, I wasn't able to play it well enough. Just goes to show, the things you think you need to work on, and the things you actually need to work on, may not be the same.

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.

Concert publicity

Here's what I put on the door of my office this afternoon. You can tell it's a serious concert, since we're charging admission, even if all of the proceeds are going to some worthy cause.

Had a rehearsal tonight. The sub for our conductor got a surprise gig, so we had a sub for the sub, a student conductor who carefully videotaped his performance. He did great, except maybe on time management, and we didn't do the Mozart. We have our last rehearsal next week, then the show the week after. It'll be fine.

Plotting the tempo

There was some discussion awhile back about whether, and which, rock bands played to a click track, ie used a metronome to keep their drummer precisely in time. Post-recording quantization is also used, and, like pitch correction, has percolated down to consumer software such as Garage Band. I thought it would be interesting to use the same software to see how steady my beat is. Here's the version I used, which allows you to upload your own track for analysis. (Or, if you just want to look at tracks found online, this is slightly more advanced.)

This is a plot of the tempo during the rehearsal last night. Our maestro picked a rather bright pace, compared to previous rehearsals, perhaps because we had only a couple minutes of rehearsal time left. To be honest, it felt a little too fast to be in control for me, although on an absolute scale it's a reasonable speed. There's some wandering up and down, but it ends up about where it started. After the rehearsal I was guessing the speed at 116, but in fact it averages more like 106, which is around where I'm aiming. When you're working with the software, you can have it play sections, and watch the marker move on the plot, so you can see and hear how the tempo change affects the music.

For comparison, here's a plot of Dag Jensen's recording. It's much faster overall, around 120 average, and steadier, with certain large deviations for effect.

Finally, here's the recording itself. I'm not happy with it, but being pseudonymous is what lets me post stuff like this. And while I did screw various things up, the final show is probably going to sound a lot like this, so I can consider it a preview.

  Mozart Rehearsal 2011-05-03 by TFox17

An anemic rehearsal

Played a rehearsal this evening, mostly working the fourth movement of Beethoven 5. Not hard, but lots of midrange stuff, D's and E's above the staff, the flattest notes in my current setup, requiring a lot of effort to get close to in-tune. The dynamics are forte and fortissimo, trying to compete with the brass, so it's hard work. Today was extra-exciting, since I'd just given blood a couple hours before, so I had less hemoglobin to carry oxygen around. There were definite times I had a pounding, elevated heart rate, as my body compensated for the anemia with increased blood flow. That's certainly not usual. And once or twice I felt a touch faint, and spots in my vision. I felt glad every time a few bars rest came along. I think I played fine though, or at least, no worse than usual.