tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76080996533735777602024-03-16T13:53:21.363-05:00Clarinet CacheClarinet Cache collects clarinet-related web content in one place as a resource for clarinetists. It accompanies the "Clarinet Cache" column in quarterly journal The Clarinet.ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.comBlogger175125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-40164001699708793572019-01-25T09:48:00.000-06:002019-01-25T09:48:25.981-06:002019 - New BeginningsOver the past ten years Clarinet Cache was fortunate to have the opportunity to write columns for The Clarinet; however, the ICA board restructured the journal and our column will no longer be included in publications. We would like to thank our readers for their support and contributions over the years to the never-ending search for interesting topics on the web. Although Clarinet Cache will no longer be associated with the ICA, we will continue serving our readers via posts on this blog. Check back often for new posts as Clarinet Cache hopes to start the new year with a big bang!ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-87569769961132399362017-01-18T11:54:00.000-06:002017-09-21T08:55:24.796-05:00We've moved!In partnership with the <a href="http://www.clarinet.org/" target="_blank">International Clarinet Association</a>, our blog is now merging content to The Clarinet [Online]. Electronic versions of Clarinet Cache columns featured in <i>The Clarinet</i> can now be accessed at <a href="http://www.clarinet.org/tco">www.clarinet.org/tco</a>. Become an ICA member today and you'll get full access to our columns!ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-41991508003293252442017-01-17T09:36:00.000-06:002017-09-21T08:56:00.520-05:00Creating an Online Presence: Advantages and Getting Started <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 3pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Part 1: Getting Started</b> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today, more and more musicians are creating websites and establishing an online presence as a marketing tool. Current technology offers free or inexpensive options and various outlets for developing personal websites, including sites with built-in features to assist those with limited technological experience. In this first installment of a series of columns on creating an online presence, we will explore ways and share ideas on how to effectively market yourself on the internet.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why should I have a website? </b><span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;">Professors, private studio teachers, students, freelance musicians and ensembles can benefit from maintaining an online presence. Performers will want to promote themselves and their music, while teachers and students may want to incorporate more educational components into their sites.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A very simple website for a clarinetist might serve as a sort of online business card, with an email address, a short professional biography and a headshot (photo). Other features might include audio or video recordings, a calendar of events, and links to other relevant websites. This approach provides a landing place for people who are actively trying to find information about you, but it generally does not attract frequent or repeat visitors.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A blog is a specific type of website, or a part of a website, that is great for providing serialized information, such as articles called "posts" that are published on a regular or semi-regular schedule. Blog “platforms” like <a href="https://wordpress.com/com-vs-org/">WordPress</a> and <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Blogger</a> are online services that provide lots of other built in features, like the ability to categorize or tag posts, a search function, and automatically-organized archives of old blog posts. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In some cases, a website can become a small source of income. If you have products to sell, your website can be a place to receive orders. You can also make space available for advertising, if that suits your vision for your site. Advertising deals can be made directly with sponsors, or ads can be provided by services like <a href="https://www.google.com/adsense/start/#?modal_active=none">Google Adsense</a>. Advertising can pay handsomely for the very highest-traffic websites, but smaller sites may earn only a few cents per month.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do I need to be a computer whiz?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyone with enough tech savvy to set up a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> account can set up a very serviceable website or blog in an hour or less using one of the many services that provide quick-and-easy startup (stay tuned for a future column!). These platforms can seems daunting to use, but many have design templates you can choose from, making the creation process simpler and easier for less-experienced users. Those who have a grander or more specific vision for their online presence can find plentiful online tutorials on <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp">HTML</a>, <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/css/">CSS</a>, <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/js/">JavaScript</a>, and other web technologies, and may prefer to build their sites from scratch, or to hire someone to bring their vision to life. Try visiting several types of sites to familiarize yourself with various layouts and design concepts that catch your eye. Just a few minutes of research can help you decide what type of content and look you may want for your own personal page.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Will anybody visit my website?</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social media is a great way to promote new content, like recent blog posts or new performance videos. Start by sharing links to your latest creations on the social media sites that you use most (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, and <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/">Pinterest</a> are popular ones for sharing links). Your friends and colleagues are the most likely people to re-share those links with their own contacts, and strong content can, with a little luck, spread to a wider audience. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Syndication feeds, including technologies like <a href="https://www.rss.com/">RSS</a> (Really Simple Syndication) and <a href="http://atomenabled.org/">ATOM</a>, make it possible for individuals to “follow” your blog using a feed reader (<a href="http://www.feedly.com/">Feedly</a> is a popular choice), so notifications of your latest posts are delivered to them automatically. Syndication feeds also help sites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter present your content to potential readers in an attractive way. Most blog platforms, including WordPress and Blogger, work behind the scenes to provide this feature automatically.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stay tuned for the next column in our series that offers a comparison guide to help select the right platforms for your online needs.</span>ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-68689378664868389412016-09-17T17:27:00.000-05:002017-01-17T13:16:57.526-06:00Website Watch (September 2016 column)<div style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 18pt;">
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Adam
Ballif</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Adam Ballif teaches clarinet at Brigham Young University–Idaho.
His website, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.adamballif.com/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">www.adamballif.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, is an
excellent example of a professional website, with his biography, audio samples
of performances, and materials for his BYU-I students. It also has high-quality
general clarinet resources including an annotated repertoire list and
information on clarinet conferences and festivals. Ballif’s site is the home of
the “ClariNotes”<i> </i>newsletter, a one-page publication with clarinet tips
and exercises, as well as a blog covering pedagogical topics. Another
interesting and useful feature is “Ballif Beats,” custom-made click tracks for
repertoire that is difficult to practice with an ordinary metronome. Several
are available for download, including the second movement of the Bernstein <i>Sonata</i>
and several works by Eric Mandat.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Anne
Bell's ABC</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Anne Bell is a clarinetist and educator and the creator of <i>ABC </i>(Anne
Bell’s Clarinet) at <a href="http://anne-bell.woodwind.org/">anne-bell.woodwind.org</a>, which has been in operation since
1998. Bell’s site includes very comprehensive and carefully categorized link
lists, pointing clarinetists toward resources related to all aspects of the
clarinet and clarinet playing: repertoire, recordings, history, education,
acoustics and more. If you are looking for clarinet-related information, try
Bell’s site for a meticulously curated collection of high-quality links.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Clarineat</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sean Perrin’s website <a href="http://clarineat.com/">clarineat.com</a> is the home of the Clarineat
podcast, a fascinating interview show featuring clarinetist guests like Martin
Fröst, Harry Sparnaay and Michael Norsworthy, plus inventors, composers,
entrepreneurs and other people involved in the clarinet world. The website is
the place to listen to the show or find subscription links. The site also
includes web-only content like product reviews, discussion forums and an online
store selling many of the products mentioned on the podcast. Be sure to sign up
for the email newsletter to be eligible to win giveaways like products reviewed
on the site and signed copies of guests’ CDs.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Audition
Cafe</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Orchestral auditions and vacancies are often announced through
social media sites such as Facebook’s public group “Clarinet Jobs,” but another
great resource for current listings of open auditions is at
<a href="http://www.auditioncafe.org/">www.auditioncafe.org</a>. Here postings from orchestras stretching across four
continents are conveniently listed by instrument and easy to search. Each job
opening contains links to separate webpages that give dates, deadlines, and
other pertinent audition information. Don’t forget to check out the site’s
audition tips section where viewers can read Richie Hawley’s article on “Your
Next Audition,” which breaks down the audition preparation process into five
stages, or listen to Ricardo Morales’s expert advice in his YouTube video on
how to prepare for an audition. Even a short video by actor Bryan Cranston, who
plays the lead character on the hit TV drama “Breaking Bad,” has good advice
for musicians pursuing the orchestral audition circuit. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sean
Osborn</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">With an extensive personal website at </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.osbornmusic.com/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "garamond" , "serif"; text-decoration: none;">www.osbornmusic.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">,
clarinetist Sean Osborn has created a site that highlights not only his career
as a soloist, teacher and composer, but also provides valuable resources to
both educators and performers. His educational links are worth looking into as
his lengthy articles on improving technique and legato fingers are very insightful.
In the orchestral guide link, Osborn presents mini-master classes written on
commonly requested orchestral audition excerpts taken from a paper he wrote on
teaching and performing excerpts. Viewers can access the entire 60-page paper
or go to individual entries listed alphabetically by composer and excerpt. He
covers topics such as phrasing, fingerings, tips and general background
information on each piece, lending his expertise as an orchestral player to the
reader. All of the master class entries contain links to YouTube videos of
Osborn playing snippets of the excerpts. For the entire gamut of Osborn’s
videos, visit his YouTube channel at SeanOsborn. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bulletproof
Musician</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Applicable to all types of musicians at all levels, Noa Kageyama’s
website www.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "garamond" , "serif"; text-decoration: none;">bulletproofmusician.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is a
wonderful resource for interesting articles and research on performance
methods. As a violinist and performance psychologist on the faculty at
Juilliard, Kageyama frequently posts his own articles on topics pertaining to
practice techniques and learning processes, including mental strategies
musicians can use to overcome lulls or setbacks in their own practicing.
Addressing and analyzing commonly shared issues and obstacles faced by all
musicians, Kageyama’s writings are enjoyable to read and can help any
clarinetist become a better and more confident player.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Stay tuned for more useful and interesting
clarinet content on the web, as well as an upcoming series of columns on
building your own online presence! As we shift content to the International Clarinet Association's webpage, <a href="http://clarinet.org/">clarinet.org</a>, you can now access Clarinet Cache electronic columns directly on "The Clarinet Online" component at <a href="http://clarinet.org/tco/">clarinet.org/tco/</a>.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
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ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-15047251523778866432016-03-11T13:28:00.001-06:002016-03-11T13:28:08.897-06:00Clarinet Choirs<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Supplementing our September 2015 column on clarinet ensembles, we extend our coverage to larger ensembles, namely clarinet choir websites that caught our attention. In this column we are excited to welcome Bret Pimentel as a guest author for Clarinet Cache. As an active blogger and regular contributor to the clarinet community, Bret has been mentioned several times in our column and blog posts, and his article for "The 21st-Century Woodwind Doubler" appeared in the June 2015 issue of </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Clarinet</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. We welcome him and his expert knowledge in our never-ending search of the web.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-37e244aa-6712-9a8c-f15c-dd8a159212b4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Northwest Clarinet Choir</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.nwclarinetchoir.org/">Northwest Clarinet Choir</a> is an active community-based ensemble that promotes clarinet choir music in the Seattle area. Under the direction of William Blayney, the ensemble recently performed at ClarinetFest 2014 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana as well as other clarinet festivals in previous years. Members in the group are of all ages with various backgrounds and livelihoods, including regular participation by the All-City Clarinets, a separate performing ensemble consisting of area high-school and middle-school students. Touting one the largest private collections of clarinet choir sheet music in the United States, Northwest Clarinet Choir often performs both original compositions and arrangements, many of which are done by Blayney and other members of the ensemble. To hear the group perform, check out the two videos posted on their website or visit their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/NWClarinetChoir">YouTube channel</a> for several hours worth of video footage. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Los Angeles Clarinet Choir</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another very active group that has been in existence for over ten years is the <a href="http://www.losangelesclarinetchoir.com/">Los Angeles Clarinet Choir</a>. Under the principal direction of the group’s founder Margaret Thornhill (author of “The Clarinet Choir” column in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Clarinet</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) and associate director Victoria Ramos, this sixteen-member choir has performed at several festivals, including ClarinetFest 2010 and 2011. Known for its unique programming and dedication to premiering new compositions and arrangements, this professional ensemble regularly posts new videos to the YouTube channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Arundo76">Arundo76</a>. There you can find scores of high-quality performances by the group as well as performances from the Claremont Clarinet Festival.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Austrian Clarinet Choir </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.msmautern.com/fkp/?klarinettenchor">The Austrian Clarinet Choir</a> (österreichische Klarinettenchor) was formed in 2007 by members of the Austrian Clarinet Society. It is led by Dr. Friedrich Pfatschbacher and Armin Suppan, and rehearses in the facilities of the Musikschule Mautern. The ACC’s German-language website features several performance videos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Capriccio Clarinet Orchestra </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Orchestra” truly is the correct word for the <a href="http://www.capriccio.nl/">Capriccio Clarinet Orchestra</a>, a 40-member ensemble based in the Netherlands. The CCO, directed by John de Beer, performs ambitious transcriptions of large-scale orchestral works (such as the complete Dvořák </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New World </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Symphony!). The group has maintained</span><span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> an active worldwide performance calendar since 1989, and also does educational outreach events.</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The CCO’s website provides ample inspiration--video and audio recordings, as well as historical information--for clarinetists interested in forming large clarinet ensembles. It also includes an <a href="http://www.capriccio.nl/351_Music_library">extensive and searchable repertoire list</a>, with publisher information.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The University of Illinois Clarinet Choir</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One unexpected source unearthed in our research lead us to the <a href="http://www.dfapam.com/clarinetchoir/">University of Illinois Clarinet Choir’s page</a>. Chronicling the history and legacy of the ensemble and its founder, Harvey Hermann, this website provides interesting information on the history of the group, activities, and literature performed by the ensemble. Serving as director from 1965 to his retirement from the group in 1998, Hermann had to write numerous transcriptions for his students, including major orchestral works, out of necessity due to the small body of clarinet choir repertoire available at that time. Unfortunately, the ensemble no longer exists, but Hermann's contribution to the literature and genre are still present. By going to the <a href="http://www.dfapam.com/clarinetchoir/recordings.htm">recording links</a>, we can hear and experience works from the seven LP recordings Hermann made with the group. These digitized files from the original LPs are quite a gem. Hermann also has music for sale on the site. Here you can peruse a <a href="http://www.dfapam.com/clarinetchoir/2006pricelist.pdf">listing of unpublished original works and transcriptions</a> from his own library, with many of the compositions taken from manuscript copies and reproduced with software notation. </span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chattanooga Clarinet Choir</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The <a href="http://www.chattanoogaclarinetchoir.com/">Chattanooga Clarinet Choir</a> has a notable website that contains resourceful information and links to other clarinet choir websites, select artists, and music and equipment vendors. At one point in time the site featured tons of live audio files of a variety of clarinet choir works, but currently the sound files are not accessible. A large collection of public domain sheet music is available to download, including clarinet and piano works and unaccompanied pieces (site requires password for this link), but unfortunately no clarinet choir literature is listed. The group was founded in 1999 by Jay Craven and is directed by Lok Kim. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Silverwood Clarinet Choir </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The <a href="http://www.silverwoodclarinet.com/">Silverwood Clarinet Choir</a> is a professional ensemble in central New York state. Pamela Mastrobattisto leads the group, but frequently turns over the baton to guest conductors. The SCC does polished performances of challenging repertoire including transcriptions and original compositions.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Silverwood Clarinet Choir website includes many performance videos and audio recordings, a selective repertoire list, and links to the group’s other online outlets, including a <a href="https://silverwoodclarinet.wordpress.com/">clarinet choir blog</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/silverwood.choir">Facebook page</a>.</span></div>
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ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-52404966810913321872015-12-23T12:46:00.001-06:002015-12-23T12:46:22.926-06:00The Fidelio Podcast: Interview with Marie Ross (Dec. 2015 column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LCmNycxZkss/VnrqMUBhSeI/AAAAAAAAArE/rYPtplocKio/s1600/Marie%2BRoss%2Bphoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LCmNycxZkss/VnrqMUBhSeI/AAAAAAAAArE/rYPtplocKio/s320/Marie%2BRoss%2Bphoto.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this column, we interviewed Marie Ross about The Fidelio Podcast, her twice-monthly podcast about topics in the arts including early music and period instruments. Dr. Ross is a historical clarinet specialist and arranger living in Germany. She is associate principal clarinetist with the French period-instrument orchestra Ensemble Matheus, and performs regularly with various other historical orchestras including Concerto Köln, MusicAeterna and Akademie für Alte Music Berlin. You can listen to the podcast at </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.295; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://fideliopodcast.libsyn.com/">http://FidelioPodcast.libsyn.com</a> and access more information including tons of photos of Marie and her guests on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FidelioPodcast/">podcast's Facebook page</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clarinet Cache:</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Why did you decide to create The Fidelio Podcast?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marie Ross:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> This is a big question, with a few different answers! I went to high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy, which is a school for many artistic disciplines. It was great to be around not only other serious musicians my age, but also kids who were pursuing careers as dancers, visual artists, and actors, etc. Fifteen years later, having gone into the highly specialized world of early music, I started to miss the different conversations with artists outside my discipline. I find these are often the kind of conversations that can open your mind to new ideas and give you fresh inspiration or a new approach for your own work. I also remembered when I was a student I would hear recordings of historical performance, but I had very little idea of what it really was, how those musicians got involved in it, or how they were working. It turns out that being a historical performer is very different from life as a mainstream modern classical musician. I wanted to describe some of these things to people and to share my own experiences as a historical performer. Audio is the best medium for me to do that – I’ve been in love with radio since I was young – and podcasting itself is a revolutionary movement like early music!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CC:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The show features guests with diverse backgrounds. How you do select guests?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MR: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I always choose artists whose work I love, who have inspired me, and who I’m excited to share with other people. Many of my guests work at various different artistic endeavors, like Michael Walters who was transitioning from being a ballet dancer into an actor, or the Steindler sisters who are both baroque violinists and fashion designers. I started out interviewing friends, amazing artists that I’ve met in my life and who I knew I could count on for a fascinating and deep conversation. Then I started interviewing the artists I was lucky enough to be working with, world-class singers and conductors. And now, as in the case of long-time Simpsons director, Mark Kirkland, incredible artists are starting to find me. He had heard my podcast, gotten in touch, and now after we made a couple of great episodes about his career in animation and his own projects as a filmmaker, I consider him a good friend. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CC:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> What are some of your favorite clarinet guests or topics covered?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MR: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I started the show, I wanted to establish that it wasn’t a clarinet show – or even a music show – so I actually avoided having too many clarinetists as guests in the beginning. I did interview Luigi Magistrelli about his set of late Romantic German clarinets owned by Dieter Klöcker. Luigi shared so much information about the instruments, but also made a point to talk about his relationship and respect for Klöcker, even mentioning how he can still feel Klöcker’s sound in the clarinets when he plays them. That interview was a part of two episodes I did with my early music colleagues about the stories of their favorite original historical wind instruments. I’m a huge opera fan, so I love interviewing opera stars. What’s fun is that usually I end up talking to them about playing clarinet, and we start comparing singing with being an instrumentalist. The episodes I make myself without guests are all special to me as well. One of my favorites to make was about my experience playing a whole season just of Rossini opera, and how that changes you as a player. I did a lot of research about Rossini and the Italian opera world of the time, and compared it with the opera productions we make today. It was fun to see how hectic and chaotic musical life was then, and how not much has changed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CC:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Your podcasts are interesting and informative from a historical perspective. What kind of audience does your podcast reach? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MR: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Making the podcast has been an incredible experience because I’ve reached such a wide audience. I’ve made a lot of friends with people who have heard it and gotten in touch on social media. Because of the podcast, I’ve been in contact with Irish poets, Broadway theater fans, art students, Los Angeles filmmakers, James Joyce scholars, all kinds of musicians from around the world, and of course just regular people who are interested in the arts. When I make an episode or an interview, especially with musicians, it can be tempting to get too technical or too much into detail that only other professional musicians would understand, but I try hard to avoid that. Each time I make an episode, I think specifically of three people who I know are out there listening: a 15 year-old girl in Paris who is studying piano and found me from my first episode, an amateur footballer in Indiana who has an office day-job and told me that he has become more curious about culture since finding my podcast, and my mom – who still knows very little about music, but will listen if I explain things to her. Having them in my mind helps me keep the content clear and accessible.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CC:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> What are your future plans for the podcasts?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MR: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I plan to start having more clarinetist guests. I am looking forward to doing an interview soon with Frank Cohen among others. Otherwise, I’m just planning to keep meeting interesting artists who show me how all the arts are connected, and to use it as a platform to talk about what we do as historical performers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CC:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Do you have any new performance projects lined up?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MR: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, I’m very excited because in 2016 I will be putting together a wind octet made up of the best historical wind players from all over Europe, a kind of “dream team” to play in the Concertgebouw Brugge. Classical-period wind octet music is my topic, so I’ll be talking a bit about my research and playing my own arrangements with the group. I also have a new Rossini opera coming up with Ensemble Matheus, and the “Folle nuit” concert we do, which I want to make a podcast episode about. It means “crazy night,” and we play all kinds of music all night long from 7 PM to 7 AM. We play our symphonic and operatic repertoire, but then different groups of musicians also play solo repertoire, jazz, rock, and last year we even had an orchestral “karaoke” concert where people from the audience came up and sang opera arias with us! It’s totally insane and ends with a huge breakfast with the audience in the morning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CC:</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> And lastly, what is your favorite clarinet to play on?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MR: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s a difficult question. Some days I think it’s my 10-key late Classical clarinet which is probably the one I play most often, some days I think it’s the basset-horn, and sometimes I definitely think it’s one of the Oskar Oehler late Romantic clarinets. Actually I think I’m a lot like my friend Alexis Kossenko. I asked him to bring one of his favorite flutes to talk about for my episode about instruments, and the next day he came to the theater with five flutes from different eras, because there was just no way he could choose one. So we sat backstage before our performance, and he demonstrated all of the flutes for me and told me about each one, which I later made into a whole episode!</span></div>
<br />ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-39088329443387068522015-12-07T12:48:00.001-06:002015-12-07T13:04:29.407-06:00Clarinet Chamber Ensembles (Sept. 2015 column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clarinet Chamber Ensembles</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this column we took a look at clarinet chamber ensembles with interesting resources on the Internet. Using the listing of ensembles at the clarinet.org “<a href="http://www.clarinet.org/Links.asp" target="">Links</a>” page along with other sources, we came up with some standout groups that have good audio files and videos online, and may help you discover new repertoire for small clarinet ensemble.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carolina Clarinet Quartet</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In our research for this column we came across <a href="http://carolinaclarinet.org/">Carolina Clarinet Quartet’s website</a> and were impressed by the amount of information located on their page. The PDF file of their music library covers over three hundred clarinet quartets and many entries include timings and brief remarks on each piece. Several of these works have been arranged by Carolina Clarinet Quartet’s founding members Brent Smith and Jim Williams and are available for purchase on the site. Over half of the entries contain audio samples and recordings made by the group, allowing visitors an opportunity to hear excerpts of pieces. These recordings, coupled with the practical annotations, are a great resource for those wishing to expand their knowledge of the genre’s repertoire. Also found on the website is a list of the group’s favorite compositions to play and a link to Smith’s informative article “<a href="http://carolinaclarinet.org/mpc_matl.pdf">Clarinet Mouthpiece Materials</a>.” Another useful component of the website is an extensive index of clarinet quartet organizations, searchable by both name and location. Despite the index page not being updated for over two years, this list provides further points for exploration of clarinet quartets, and provides links to their websites. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chicago Clarinet Ensemble</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The <a href="http://chicagoclarinetensemble.org/">Chicago Clarinet Ensemble</a> is a group made up of both professional clarinetists and gifted younger students from the Chicago area. With a flexible approach to instrumentation, the ensemble’s membership ranges from two players to thirty-five or more musicians. Many of the group’s performances have featured guest soloists such as Stanley Drucker and Anthony McGill. Founded by Rose Sperrazza in 2007, the ensemble is in residence at Northeastern Illinois University. Aiding in the promotion of new music, the group has commissioned eight new works and even has a composer-in-residence, Leo Schwartz. His newest compositions are listed on their website, including audio and video footage of two of his works. Visit their website to learn more about their core members, current events and performances, and hear live performances by the group, including a work for clarinet choir and synthesizer.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clarinetes Ad Libitum</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://clarinetesadlibitum.net/">Clarinetes Ad Libitum</a> is a Portuguese clarinet quartet with percussion, performing folk and traditional music of a variety of cultures. The videos on their website show their affinity for theatrical performances -- they often utilize percussion and vocals, and extramusical elements include a fog machine and removal of shirts onstage! You can also stream their entire album “<a href="http://www.clarinetesadlibitum.net/contradanza/">Contradanza</a>” via their website: a good place to explore clarinet quartet repertoire off the beaten path.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ensemble 54</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The clarinet quartet <a href="http://ensemble54.com/">Ensemble 54</a> (Josh Kovach, Pascal Archer, David Gould and Nuno Antunes) doesn’t have a ton of information on its website, but they they have a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Ensemble54">Facebook page</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Ensemble54NYC">YouTube account</a> where you can find some great videos of their repertoire. These video performances include works by Tomasi and Farkas along with less traditional fare, like a work for clarinet quartet and solo ocarina, and even a duo arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-aqcHlSFEI">Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy</a>” for A-flat sopranino clarinet and contrabass clarinet!</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Farallon Quintet</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The <a href="http://farallonquintet.com/">Farallon Quintet</a> from the San Francisco Bay Area is a unique chamber group that solely performs clarinet quintet (clarinet plus string quartet) repertoire. The group was founded in 2012 and all of the quintet members are active musicians performing in the Bay Area. Clarinetist Natalie Parker is also principal clarinetist of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. The quintet’s repertoire is not limited to the standard works and they have worked with a handful of composers to commission and premiere new works. They also play lesser-known compositions such as film composer Bernard Herrmann’s quintet </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Souvenirs de Voyage, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">which can be heard on a video on their <a href="http://farallonquintet.com/videos/">website</a>.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The ensemble’s website includes a <a href="http://farallonquintet.com/blog/">blog</a> that allows the group to expand upon their musical mission and to highlight new or unknown works and their composers. One blog post alerts viewers the large volume of works found on <a href="http://earsense.org/">Earsense</a>, an extensive chamber music database, which currently lists <a href="http://earsense.org/chamberbase/works/index.php?lid=-1&composerKey=0&nationality1=0&nationality2=0&male=on&female=on&ensemble=9&instrument1exactly=0&instrument1count=1&instrument1=-1&instrument2exactly=0&instrument2count=1&instrument2=-1&instrument3exactly=0&instrument3count=1&instrument3=-1&instrument4exactly=0&instrument4count=1&instrument4=-1&instrument5exactly=0&instrument5count=1&instrument5=-1&instrument6exactly=0&instrument6count=1&instrument6=-1&instrument7exactly=0&instrument7count=1&instrument7=-1&instrument8exactly=0&instrument8count=1&instrument8=-1&instrument9exactly=0&instrument9count=1&instrument9=-1&opusnumber=&title=&modality=0&keysig=0&datetype=1&date1=&x=20&y=13">169 compositions</a> for the genre. This database is a terrific starting point for those researching or looking up chamber music with various instrumental combinations that include the clarinet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Duo Gurfinkel</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Turning to literature for clarinet duo, the website of the <a href="http://duogurfinkel.com/">Duo Gurfinkel</a> is a great place to start. These twin brothers from Israel, Alexander and Daniel Gurfinkel, were born in 1992 and by the age of 12 were performing as soloists with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The duo’s website has some great performance videos along with a handy repertoire list including works for two clarinets alone, two clarinets with piano, and two clarinets with orchestra.</span></div>
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ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-29142199402273058952015-06-29T10:00:00.000-05:002015-06-29T10:00:43.204-05:00New Clarinet Blogs<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this column, we explore several interesting clarinet blogs that have emerged in the past year or so. But first, we want to acknowledge the retirement of our editor and teacher James Gillespie, known to us now and forever as “Dr. Gillespie.” His talent as an editor lies not just in his vast understanding of clarinet history, but also his ability to look ahead to the future. It was back in 2008 that he had the foresight to envision a column about internet resources for clarinet, and offered advice and support as we designed the Clarinet Cache blog and worked on those first few columns. As clarinetists, scholars and writers, Dr. Gillespie has influenced both of us immeasurably. We join in with the rest of the clarinet community in thanking him for his dedicated work to advance our profession through the written word.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">HeatherRoche.net</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of our new discoveries is a popular <a href="http://heatherroche.net/">blog by Heather Roche</a>, a clarinetist originally from Canada, now living in Germany and specializing in contemporary music. Her posts on extended techniques go well beyond the material found in many textbooks. She explores specific types of multiphonics, prepared bass clarinet (modifying the instrument for unusual effects), slap tonguing, and other techniques, all with helpful videos and audio examples. Roche recently held a composition competition, financed by a crowdfunding campaign (see our <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2014/12/clarinet-crowdfunding-december-2014.html">December 2014 column</a> on crowdfunding initiatives by other clarinetists) and publicized via her blog. Since then, she’s published a couple articles giving valuable advice to composers. Roche is not afraid to branch off from contemporary music to explore other subjects; her "<a href="http://heatherroche.net/category/repertoire/">Collaborative History of the Clarinet</a>" series provides thoughtful commentary on Mozart/Stadler, Spohr/Hermstedt and other famous composer/clarinetist pairs.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Music1oh1.wordpress.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">In her budding blog "<a href="http://music1oh1.wordpress.com/">Music1oh1</a>," Mary Alice Druhan reaches out to musicians, teachers and students alike with her insightful posts aimed to help readers cope with the various challenges of learning and playing the clarinet. As associate professor of clarinet at Texas A&M University-Commerce and an active performer, her perspective on topics like facing performance-based challenges, correcting technique, and understanding how to set practice rooms expectations and goals comes from years of experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In her "<a href="https://music1oh1.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/branching-out/">Branching Out</a>" blog post, Druhan gives a guide to high school solo repertoire and discusses the advantages to assigning multiple works from different musical periods over the course of one year. Her lists of works within each period could serve as a starting point for teachers looking to keep their students interested and engaged in the learning process while covering significant works within the repertoire. The post on practice room expectations gives students advice on how to start enjoying their time in the practice room and how to get more out of each practice session, something most students struggle with. Druhan created Music1oh1 in September 2014, and it has already become an appealing resource for clarinetists. We hope that she will continue with her inspirational postings in the future!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">RichardStoltzman.com</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman needs little introduction to our readers, who may be interested to know about a new blog on his website at <a href="http://richardstoltzman.com/">RichardStoltzman.com</a>. A fairly recent initiative, the blog has a handful of posts including answers to frequently asked questions about Stoltzman’s equipment and practice habits, a remembrance of Benny Goodman, and links to recent performances.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-69678638295834121372015-03-30T16:20:00.000-05:002015-03-30T16:21:09.347-05:00Website Watch (March 2015 column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.clarinet.org/Journal/library.asp">James Gillespie Online Research Library Project</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As was announced in the December 2014 issue, the I.C.A. has launched its James Gillespie Online Research Library, named in honor of our illustrious editor! The library is a searchable archive of every issue of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Clarinet</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, from 1973 to the present. That’s 164 issues to date -- more than 40 years of master class articles, clarinetist profiles, equipment discussions, music reviews, and much, much more. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The treasures available in the archive are numerous. Clarinet historian Albert R. Rice contributed a number of excellent articles to the journal over the years, beginning back in volume 4. Michael Webster has written 64 articles in his “Teaching Clarinet” series, a fantastically thorough resource for teachers. Did you know that Paul Harvey’s first article for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Clarinet</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “The Clarinet Music of Gordon Jacob,” appeared in volume 2? And don’t forget James Gillespie’s own work dating back to the very first volume of the journal, including his multi-part features “I Wonder Who the Clarinet Player Was? The Hollywood Clarinetists” and “The Movies of Benny Goodman -- A Pictorial Retrospective.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The <a href="https://www.clarinet.org/Journal/library.asp">Online Research Library </a>also serves as a valuable record of original writings by esteemed clarinetists who are no longer with us. These include pedagogical articles by Keith Stein, historical articles by Pamela Weston, equipment investigations by Lee Gibson, and Rosario Mazzeo’s “Mazzeo Musings” series, which ran from 1986 to 1994.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The applications for use of this library are many. Performers can do a search for the title of a work they’re preparing to find historical information or master class articles. Clarinet professors can consult the wealth of pedagogy articles for help with the challenges of teaching clarinet -- or they could even make the library a required course text, introducing their students to the I.C.A. and the benefits of membership. Scholars will want to consult the numerous articles on historical clarinets and clarinetists of the past. Without a doubt, clarinetists around the world will be inspired to join the I.C.A. in order to gain access to the incredible resource of the James Gillespie Online Research Library.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.wesleyferreira.com/">Wesley Ferreira’s website</a></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you, like many musicians, dutifully created a personal website sometime in the early 2000’s and then let it languish with sporadic updates ever since, you might want to look to <a href="http://wesleyferreira.com/">WesleyFerreira.com</a> as inspiration for an update. Ferreira has gone above and beyond the typical bio/calendar/audio artist website, creating a clean, contemporary online space that serves not just as a digital business card, but a platform for interacting with his audience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ferreira’s site first caught our attention with his “Clarinet in the Digital Age” project. In the fall of 2014, he encouraged fans to vote on repertoire for an upcoming recital. Visitors to the “Vote” page had the opportunity to choose between two musical selections in six different genres, with audio clips to help make their decision. Ferreira has committed to performing the most popular selections on his “Clarinet in the Digital Age” recital on March 9, 2015 at Colorado State University, where he is on faculty. Bringing the project full-circle, the concert will be live-streamed online so that fans from around the world can listen.</span>ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-6014994358010533032014-12-18T14:56:00.003-06:002014-12-19T08:24:09.029-06:00Clarinet Crowdfunding (December 2014 column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">In recent years, a new model has emerged for artists and entrepreneurs looking to raise money for their projects. Crowdfunding, in which the Internet is used as a resource for fundraising small amounts of money from a large number of people, has revolutionized the way many musicians approach recording projects. <a href="http://kickstarter.com/">Kickstarter.com</a> is the most popular platform for this type of fundraising, so in this column we’ll explore several recent Kickstarter campaigns by clarinetists.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David Gould</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In May of 2013, clarinetist David Gould finished fundraising for his project <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1905576063/the-forgotten-clarinet?ref=nav_search">The Forgotten Clarinet</a>, a recording of lesser-known French works for clarinet and piano. Currently bass clarinetist for the American Ballet Theater Orchestra in New York City, Gould recorded more familiar works like </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raymond Gallois-Montbrun’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Concertstucke</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and Marc Delmas’ </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fantaisie Italienne</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, along with obscure works such as Paul Ladmirault’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sonata</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for Clarinet and Piano </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and Rene de Boisdeffre’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three Pieces.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Using a common tactic for Kickstarter campaigns for recording projects, Gould offered a copy of the completed CD as a reward for donating at least $20 -- allowing the campaign to function as a preorder for the CD. Funding obtained from Kickstarter covered Gould’s costs for recording, mastering, and production of the recording, which is now available for purchase.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paul Cantrell</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Composer Paul Cantrell used Kickstarter back in September of 2012 to help fund the manufacture and publicity of his work </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paul/the-broken-mirror-of-memory?ref=nav_search">The Broken Mirror of Memory</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for bass clarinet and piano. Receiving first prize in the 2012 I.C.A. Composition Competition, the work was premiered at ClarinetFest in Lincoln, Nebraska with great success, and with the help of supporters through donations on Kickstarter, Cantrell was able to print and distribute recordings and scores. Exceeding his initial fundraising goals, he was able to provide additional promotion of his work with the extra funds. Originally conceived as a piece for piano and cello, Cantrell worked with bass clarinetist Pat O’Keefe to breathe new life into the piece. Commentary by Cantrell and snippets of the piece can be heard on the video posted on his <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paul/the-broken-mirror-of-memory?ref=nav_search">Kickstarter page</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0f2105; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michael Lowenstern</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michael Lowenstern’s unique <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/earspasm/recording-the-concert-and-contest-collection-for-b?ref=nav_search">Kickstarter project</a> funded a set of recordings of each work in the popular Rubank </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Concert & Contest Collection</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> book of solos for bass clarinet. Unlike many musicians who use Kickstarter to raise funds to create a recording for commercial release, Lowenstern’s goal was to provide these recordings for download online for free as a resource for bass clarinetists. In July 2013 he met his $4,500 goal to cover the recording costs, and the tracks are now available on his website at <a href="http://earspasm.com/">Earspasm.com</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GremlinsDuo</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most recent project we took a closer look at was a CD and method book project by <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gremlinsduo/cd-and-method-book-launch?ref=nav_search">GremlinsDuo</a> (Tim Fitzgerald and Jonathan Goodman). The clarinet/bass clarinet duo raised $1,700 this past August to release a CD of commissioned works and publish their two new method books, the first focusing on quarter-tone exercises and the second comprising a “Buddy System” warm-up book. As with many of the other campaigns, the finished products are offered as rewards at various levels of backer support. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Among the other Kickstarter campaigns to reach their fundraising goal are projects by clarinetists <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lauracarmichael/trace-a-clarinet-and-bass-clarinet-cd-by-laura-car?ref=nav_search">Laura Carmichael</a>, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/variego/regress-a-new-cd-of-music-for-clarinet-and-electro?ref=nav_search">Jorge Variego</a>, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339320817/andrew-deboer-the-clarinet-music-of-nikola-resanov?ref=nav_search">Andrew DeBoer</a>, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/460628153/refractions-vol2-music-for-solo-clarinet-and-elect?ref=nav_search">Gleb Kanasevich</a> and the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sqwonk/sqwonk-cd?ref=discovery">Sqwonk Duo</a>, to name a few. Visit <a href="http://kickstarter.com/">Kickstarter.com </a>to explore these successful campaigns and learn more about this method of fundraising. You might just be inspired to become a backer yourself!</span></div>
ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-46854313027508421612014-09-06T22:17:00.000-05:002014-09-06T22:24:22.218-05:00A Guide to Bass Clarinet on the Web (Sept. 2014 column)For this special bass clarinet-themed issue of The Clarinet, we created an annotated guide to some of the best online bass clarinet resources.<br />
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<b>International Bass Clarinet Research Center</b><br />
One of the most exciting bass clarinet projects on the web today is the <a href="http://www.circb.info/">International Bass Clarinet Research Center</a> (Centro Internazionale di Ricerca sul Clarinetto Basso, or CIRCB). This website essentially attempts to gather any and all information relating to the bass clarinet and make it accessible to users in an easily searchable and sortable database of annotated listings and primary sources. There are versions in English, French, German and Italian.<br />
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The project’s stated goals are to increase insight into the history and the evolution of the bass clarinet and to stimulate biographical and historical study of players and their works. To that end, the contributors have created a database with more than 7,300 compositions and more than 100 recordings. The catalog of repertoire is easily searchable and includes a discography and publisher for each work. There is also an annotated bibliography of bass clarinet books sortable by subject, as well as dissertations, full-text articles, and scans of original manuscripts for older works featuring the bass clarinet like <a href="http://www.circb.info/?q=node/92">Verdi’s La Forza del Destino</a>, with much of this material available for download. At CIRCB you can even find information about <a href="http://www.circb.info/?q=patents_page">patents</a> relating to the bass clarinet and a <a href="http://www.circb.info/?q=instruments_page">catalog</a> of early models of the bass clarinet. And if you’re not looking for something specific, the homepage includes featured recordings and videos so you can start exploring.<br />
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Italian clarinetists Stefano Cardo, Elisa Marchetti, Alessandro Monitillo and Roberto Bocchio launched CIRCB in 2010, and it has since gained contributors like Albert Rice and Keith Bowen, and a video endorsement by Harry Spaarnay. These individuals are to be commended for creating a website that is not only an invaluable resource, but also aesthetically pleasing and well-organized. The sheer wealth of information and ease of use only makes us wish for a similar website for the soprano clarinet.<br />
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<b>Jason Alder</b><br />
Jason Alder’s personal website, <a href="http://jasonalder.com/">JasonAlder.com</a>, has a snazzy interface that first greets viewers with layered tracks of bass clarinet sounds, and with the option to view the site with a high or low-speed connection. Alder is an American clarinetist and bass clarinetist residing in Amsterdam and specializing in new and contemporary music. He has created an extensive quarter-tone fingering chart for Buffet instruments available in PDF format. Multiple links to his videos and recordings on his homepage include music from several ensembles that he collaborates with, including the group Payazen!, a “psychedelic klezmer-jazz band,” where you can hear him wail on the bass clarinet. Alder’s blog is full of helpful, in-depth information including updates about his current projects and reviews of technical gear such as clip microphones. Alder has a knack for writing and his blog narratives are a pleasure to read.<br />
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<b>Sauro Berti </b><br />
Sauro Berti, bass clarinetist of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, has a commendable website at <a href="http://www.sauroberti.it/">www.SauroBerti.it</a> with downloadable files of bass clarinet sheet music, as well as audio and video files of Berti performing on soprano clarinet, bass clarinet, and basset horn. In the “downloads” section you can find the introductory page and first etude of his book, <a href="http://www.sauroberti.it/uploads/documenti/PRESENTATION.pdf">Venti studi</a>, which contains exercises tailored to the specific needs of the bass clarinet and basset horn that other standard method books fail to address. His links to both a <a href="http://www.sauroberti.it/uploads/documenti/comparance.pdf">reed strength chart</a> and a <a href="http://www.sauroberti.it/uploads/documenti/comparbecchi.pdf">bass clarinet mouthpiece comparison chart</a> prove helpful in comparing commercial reed strength variances and in corresponding facing measurements of many factory-made and handcrafted mouthpieces. For full access to all of the components on Berti’s website, viewers can register on the site for free. And for readers not fluent in Italian, we recommend using an Internet browser that easily allows translation of websites, such as Google Chrome. Although activity on his website and blog has remained dormant for the past few years, we hope that Berti will continue to add more valuable content in the near future.<br />
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<b>Michael Lowenstern</b><br />
We reviewed Michael Lowenstern’s website at <a href="http://earspasm.com/">Earspasm.com</a> back in our December 2008 column, but a lot has changed since then -- and we would expect nothing less from Lowenstern, whose talent at the bass clarinet is equaled only by his talent for web design. He recently recorded the classic Voxman bass clarinet solo book, the Rubank Concert & Contest Collection, and made the recordings available for free download from his website. Registering to the site for free also allows access to download PDF scores and MP3s of music by Lowenstern and others. He also has a great <a href="http://www.earspasm.com/omega/blog/">blog</a>, and bass clarinetists owe it to themselves to explore <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/earspasm">Lowenstern’s YouTube channel</a>, with about 2,000 subscribers and 40 videos in his “So You Want to Be a Bass Clarinet Player” series.<br />
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<b>Edward S. Palanker</b><br />
Edward S. Palanker, bass clarinetist with the Baltimore Symphony and retired from teaching at the Peabody Conservatory, has written many articles for The Clarinet over the years. He has made these articles available on his website <a href="http://eddiesclarinet.com/">Eddiesclarinet.com</a>, where his section on bass clarinet includes some great information about orchestral excerpts for bass and what can be expected at a bass clarinet orchestra audition.<br />
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<b>The [Bass] Clarinet of the 21st Century </b><br />
E. Michael Richards’ book <i><a href="http://userpages.umbc.edu/~emrich/clarinet21.html">The Clarinet of the Twenty-First Century</a></i>, mentioned in our March 2012 column on contemporary clarinet resources, is available online and has a <a href="http://userpages.umbc.edu/~emrich/chapter6.html">chapter focusing on the bass clarinet</a>. Richards discusses at length the acoustics of the instrument and its extended techniques, with accompanying spectrograms. The chapter includes fingering charts for altissimo, quarter-tones and multiphonics, with examples from contemporary music.<br />
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<b>Aber/Lerstad Altissimo Fingerings</b><br />
Another resource for bass and contrabass clarinet altissimo fingerings is a <a href="http://home.gethome.no/terje_bjorn.lerstad/altissimo.html">website</a> with articles and charts by Thomas Aber and Terje Lerstad. Aber’s bass clarinet chart encompasses fingerings from C-sharp3 to C5; Lerstad’s contrabass chart ranges from C-sharp3 to an impressive G6. Both charts indicate which fingerings work best on different makes of low clarinets.<br />
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<b>The Woodwind Fingering Guide </b><br />
<a href="http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/clarinet/basscl_alt_2.html">Timothy Reichard’s altissimo Boehm-system finger chart</a> for alto, bass, and contrabass clarinets at <a href="http://woodwind.org/">Woodwind.org</a> is easy to read, with commentary on pitch tendencies. Although Reichard’s chart does not reach as high as Aber and Lerstad’s fingering charts, the layout and clean format of the chart makes it a go-to resource for players and teachers alike.<br />
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<b>Alea Publishing</b><br />
Alea Publishing at <a href="http://bassclarinet.org/">Bassclarinet.org</a> is a company that specializes in bass clarinet sheet music. Created by the group “Duo Alea,” bass clarinetist Michael Davenport and pianist Kimberly Davenport, the website contains a large inventory of bass clarinet music available for purchase. In 1998 they began to compile what is now an extensive <a href="http://www.bassclarinet.org/bibliography/">bibliography</a> of bass clarinet compositions of solo works, chamber ensembles, concertos, and duet arrangements, with newer works continuously added. An impressive number of entries listed under the “Bass clarinet with tape/electronics” section illustrates how popular this genre of instrumentation was three or four decades ago, with the main group of compositions dating back to the last quarter of the twentieth century. One great feature of the bibliography is the option to purchase music directly from Alea Publishing within the entries (when applicable). Another useful component is the classified section, a wonderful platform for those wanting to buy or sell bass clarinet-related items.<br />
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<b>IMSLP</b><br />
<a href="http://imslp.org/">IMSLP.org</a> is always a great resource for public domain sheet music, and it has a mixture of newer original works for bass clarinet and and older transcriptions. Just look under “Instrumentation/Genre” and find the bass clarinet category under “Featured Instruments.”<br />
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<b>Contrabass.com </b><br />
The Octocontrabass page at Grant D. Green's fascinating site <a href="http://contrabass.com/">Contrabass.com</a> has a collection of information on the lowest of the low wind instruments.<br />
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<b>NewBassClarinetGroup</b><br />
All you need is a Yahoo! login to join a fairly active Yahoo! group called “<a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/NewBassClarinetGroup/info">NewBassClarinetGroup</a>” with many knowledgeable contributors.<br />
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Let us know if we missed any important bass clarinet website and we'll add them to the list.<br />
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<br />ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-45942072344710972882014-06-10T21:40:00.001-05:002014-06-10T21:40:45.041-05:00Clarinet Social Media Roundup (June 2014 column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since the Clarinet Cache column began in 2008, social media has in a few short years become one of the primary ways that many people communicate and share information with others. By now most of you are aware that you can connect with your favorite performers and ensembles online; these days everyone from your local clarinet repair technician to the U.S. Navy Band is on Facebook, with more and more joining Twitter all the time. Here are a few of our favorites on Facebook and Twitter:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, all of our readers will want to make sure they’ve connected with the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/icaclarinet"><b>International Clarinet Association</b> Facebook page</a>. Previously, the International Clarinet Association had a “group,” which still exists and is very active with members posting often. But as Facebook evolved, they introduced the concept of “pages” designed for organizations and businesses, and the I.C.A. decided to take advantage of the new format. Timothy Phillips, professor of clarinet at Troy </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">University, set up this page in February 2013 and continues to do a great job maintaining it on behalf of the I.C.A. “Like” the I.C.A. page for information about clarinet workshops, competitions, clarinet news, and announcements from the I.C.A. -- and look out for photos and reviews from the upcoming ClarinetFest in Baton Rouge!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the way back in September 2008, our column published an interview with James Zimmerman about his new Facebook group, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/clarinetjobs">Clarinet Jobs</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Like the I.C.A., Zimmerman decided to migrate activity to a “Page” which has more than 4600 likes. This page has really become the place to go for news about upcoming auditions and audition winners.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clarinet-Corner/100671133356648">Clarinet Corner</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Facebook page, Timothy Phillips lets you know what interviews and music he has coming up on his radio show Clarinet Corner, which you can listen to online.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Denise Razzouk created the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClarinetjazzCJP">Clarinet Jazz Point</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> page in 2009 and continues to actively post videos and news about jazz clarinet. The page has nearly 4,000 fans who also share their own links and projects.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ve blogged a couple times about the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/clarinets4conservation">Clarinets for Conservation</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> organization, which combines sustainability efforts and musical instruction in a unique way: they support efforts to protect and plant the mpingo tree from which clarinets are made, while also offering free clarinet instruction for the communities in which these trees grow. Stay in touch with this group’s efforts via their Facebook page, where you can learn about ongoing fundraising efforts and volunteer opportunities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the younger crowd, the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClarinetMemes">Clarinet Memes</a> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">page shares clarinet-related memes including quite a few Spongebob references!</span></div>
<a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_LrWeVXaup6Rk9RbuRRxUQPWvPVFFX9zwaJZ4lzAUsW4WfAiTA3W9o9q_Esl-yg4VKY-8gJOVTVJvbFKIZwi07l2LG_qpBpDifq94n0afvR7cUre7hfaptRA1MdxFNRXwQ" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img alt="Photo: So true for clarinet players...." border="0" height="387" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_LrWeVXaup6Rk9RbuRRxUQPWvPVFFX9zwaJZ4lzAUsW4WfAiTA3W9o9q_Esl-yg4VKY-8gJOVTVJvbFKIZwi07l2LG_qpBpDifq94n0afvR7cUre7hfaptRA1MdxFNRXwQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none;" width="400" /></span></a><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><br /></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter is a great way to keep up with the latest news and find links to clarinet content of interest. Here are some of our favorite performers on Twitter: </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><strike style="font-weight: bold;">@JBlissClarinet</strike> [edit: handle changed to <a href="https://twitter.com/Julian__Bliss">@Julian__Bliss</a>]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Julian Bliss, British clarinetist</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/earspasm">@earspasm</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Michael Lowenstern, NYC-based bass clarinetist</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/requinta">@requinta</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Wesley Ferreira, professor at Colorado State University</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/multiphonic">@multiphonic</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Gregory Oakes, professor at Iowa State University</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/ThiagoTavares">@ThiagoTavares</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Thiago Tavares, Brazilian Symphony Orchestra </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/ThomasPiercy">@ThomasPiercy</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Thomas Piercy, artistic director and clarinetist of the Gotham ensemble in NYC</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here are some of our other favorite feeds:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/woodwindninja">@woodwindninja</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Bret Pimentel’s educational feed about all things woodwind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/clarinetjobs">@ClarinetJobs</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Clarinet Jobs feed about audition postings and winners</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/cclarinetist">@CClarinetist</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/cclarinetist"> </a>- Curious Clarinetist shares posts from their blog on a variety of clarinet-related topics</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/clarinetnow">@ClarinetNow</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Account associated with the Clarinet-Now website, run by West Point Band clarinetist Chris Jones</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/clariperunews">@ClariperuNews</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Clarinet news from South America via Marco Mazzini</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, on Twitter you can also find many clarinet-related businesses like </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/VandorenUSA">@VandorenUSA</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/legerereeds">@LegereReeds</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/backunmusical">@BackunMusical</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and Phil Muncy of Muncy Winds (</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://twitter.com/klarinut"><span id="goog_1892185273"></span>@klarinut</a><span id="goog_1892185274"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). Check out everyone we’re following on Twitter by looking us up at </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://twitter.com/ClarinetCache">@ClarinetCache</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span>ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-32102360005771043192014-03-11T22:46:00.002-05:002014-09-06T22:23:40.743-05:00Website Watch (March 2014 column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Vintage Clarinet Doctor</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeremy Soule runs a vintage clarinet repair business out of Staunton, Virginia, and his website is a great resource for lovers of vintage horns. <a href="http://thevintageclarinetdoctor.com/">TheVintageClarinetDoctor.com</a> offers information on vintage instrument history, makers, different fingering systems, and historical background on obscure instrument brands. An overview of the different types of systems is a great tool for understanding the evolution and innovations made to the clarinet over the decades. High-quality photographs accompany the various systems listed and make it easy to visualize and compare the differences between each type of key system. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-6e24e2d1-b45f-2cd0-2f3d-c13400667ec3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can also purchase vintage clarinets and mouthpieces directly on Soule’s site or send in your antique instrument for repair. The “before and after” pictures offer a close-up view of rare instruments and reveal how the instruments are brought back to life after being overhauled. The instruments pictured include a rare piccolo clarinet in A-flat and a 1928 Kohlert silver sax oboe. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those interested in the restoration, construction, or the technical side of instrument repair be sure to visit Soule’s blog, <a href="http://www.thevintageclarinetdoctor.com/the-licorice-shtick-blog.html" target="_blank">The Licorice Shtick Blog</a>, accessible through the home page. Here Soule covers general topics as well as matters pertinent to instrument repair. The entry on swedging and countersinking is particularly enlightening to those interested in the mechanics of woodwind repair. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Discerning Clarinetist</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://discerningclarinetist.com/">DiscerningClarinetist.com</a> is a newly designed website by Tyler Zey where you can purchase and sell lightly-used clarinet equipment at discounted prices. Products for sale include mouthpieces, cases, instruments, and barrels with a return policy that gives customers a trial period to test out equipment. Similar to the return policies of larger commercial retailers, returned merchandise is accepted with a return shipping fee and restocking fee paid by the customer. In each product entry, Zey includes a brief description of the product with multiple close-up photographs for closer inspection. All mouthpieces sold on the website have undergone a screening process to ensure that they play well.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An additional component to the site is an active <a href="http://www.discerningclarinetist.com/#!blog/c18qr">blog</a> with daily entries, many of which center around mouthpieces. Here, you can find useful information on mouthpiece resurfacing, blanks, how to select a mouthpiece, and even a link to a comprehensive article written by Clark Fobes comparing molded mouthpieces to rod rubber mouthpieces. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This winter, Zey offered a clarinet mouthpiece grant to students age 16-25 in need of a new mouthpiece. The grant application required applicants to submit a YouTube video of their playing, along with a recommendation letter and personal statement regarding their goals as a clarinetist. The winner chooses from a handful a mouthpieces shipped to them, or in the event no mouthpiece is selected, they are awarded a cash prize of $125. We hope to see more innovative grant programs like this in the future from <a href="http://discerningclarinetist.com/">DiscerningClarinetist.com</a>!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robert Marcellus Master Class Files</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*** Since the March 2014 Clarinet Cache column has gone to print, we have received notification that some of the information taken from the web regarding this project and the performers involved are incorrect. We thank Steve Cohen, associate professor of clarinet at Northwestern, for bringing this to our attention and for giving us with background information on the project.***</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As we posted in an October 2013 Clarinet Cache blog entry, access to hundreds of hours of master classes taught by legendary clarinetist Robert Marcellus is now open to the public through the Northwestern University's Audio + Video Repository which is powered by Avalon Media System, found at </span><a href="http://media.northwestern.edu/" style="line-height: 1.15; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://media.northwestern.edu/</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Formerly Variations on Video, Avalon Media System is an open source project that Northwestern, in partnership with Indiana University and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is developing to manage large university collections of digital audio and video files. The system is slated to be in production as early as Spring 2014.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sixty-four different recordings of his master classes from 1977 to 1990 are now cataloged on this website. In these master classes, Marcellus coaches various students on fundamentals such as phrasing, air support, and voicing, and imparts his pedagogical wisdom in discussion of repertoire and sequencing of study materials. These newly released archived recordings allow modern-day students and teachers to continue learning from one of the greatest and most influential clarinet teachers of all time.</span></div>
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ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-54811966616546935682013-12-21T08:13:00.001-06:002014-03-16T11:27:34.832-05:00Website Watch (December 2013 column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">ClarinetCentral.com</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Greeting viewers with the beautiful and languid sounds of Harold Wright performing Richard Strauss’s Duet-Concertino for clarinet and bassoon, the homepage of </span><a href="http://clarinetcentral.com/" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">ClarinetCentral.com</a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has much to offer clarinet enthusiasts. Webmaster Russell Harlow has done an excellent job in providing a unique platform that allows viewers to listen to and compare various national styles of clarinet playing. The abundance of rare photos and excerpts of audio files of distinguished clarinetists from around the globe make this website an invaluable resource.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tracing the lineage of clarinet teaching originating with European-American players such as Daniel Bonade, Gustave Langenus, and Simeon Bellison, Harlow conveniently categorized musicians by their nationality, including a set of links for easy <a href="http://rharl25.wix.com/clarinetcentral#!countries/c5fp" target="_blank">comparison of the national styles</a> of sound associated with Austria, France, England, and America. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over fifteen countries are represented on the website, each with numerous listings of clarinetists including biographies, photos, and audio samples. Many of the sound files are of symphonic solos or exposed sections of chamber music, and many of the recordings span across several decades, giving listeners the opportunity to hear the evolution of the clarinetist’s sound and style. A handful of entries also include famous pupils of teachers. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One notable entry is on <a href="http://rharl25.wix.com/clarinetcentral#!gustave-langenus/c2cz" target="_blank">Gustav Langenus</a>. His biography highlights his innovative approach to teaching as he may have been one of the first clarinet teachers to help students via long-distance learning. Langenus would record himself playing his own etudes and studies on 78 rpm records and mail them to students lacking access to a local clarinet teacher. The student would then listen to the recordings, fill out the accompanying questionnaire to document their progress, and return it to Langenus, who would then respond accordingly. On these archived recordings, you can hear Langenus’s voice as he calls out the etude number and plays the musical line.* [Edit: the voice is not actually Langenus; see note below]</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The “<a href="http://rharl25.wix.com/clarinetcentral-3#!technique/c84t" target="_blank">Embouchure and Technique</a>” section features a comical group photograph of the principal woodwind players of the Philadelphia Orchestra whimsically playing their respective instruments, followed by a second snapshot of a similar pose, this time with serious expressions. Daniel Bonade’s expression in the humorous photograph is priceless! In this section Harlow has compiled articles by Ralph McLane and James Collis on playing with a double-lip embouchure. He also includes Tom Ridenour’s three-part video explanation of double-lip embouchure and an audio file of oboist Marcel Tabuteau explaining the art of supporting the air. Anatomical diagrams of the chest, abdominal, and facial muscles further explain the concepts taught by Tabuteau. One interesting component of this section is the application of double-lip techniques by multiple clarinetists in different manners, highlighting the benefits and usefulness of playing double-lip.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An accompanying <a href="http://clarinet-central.com/" target="_blank">blog</a>, also run by Harlow, mirrors content found on the main site and can be accessed from the home page. Although the blog contains many broken links or repetitive material borrowed from the main site, there is a handful of photos worth pursuing and also an interesting article on Louis DeSantis. Various clarinet-related merchandise, clothing, and printed music are available for purchase from the Clarinet Store section. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only few hiccups were encountered when accessing the Clarinet Central website. As noted on the homepage, viewers using PCs or Google Chrome as their Internet browser may experience troubles accessing the toolbar for the audio files. Harlow recommends using Internet Explorer for access to all of the audio files. Hopefully Harlow is working towards fixing these technical issues as this site is a definite must-see for all clarinetists. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ClassicalConnect.com</span></div>
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<a href="http://classicalconnect.com/" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">ClassicalConnect.com</a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a streaming audio and video website for fans and performers of classical music. All content is user-generated -- anyone can upload tracks, and the online community can leave comments and vote on the quality of each selection. A search for “clarinet” brings up more than 150 recordings by performers as accomplished as Alexander Fiterstein and John Bruce Yeh, along with many lesser-known players.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While visitors to the site can listen to the first three minutes of any selection, the free registration allows users to hear the full versions, create their own playlists, vote on recordings, and maintain an individual artist profile. Artists can upload MP3 files and link YouTube videos to the site, with all their recordings linked back to a profile page with biographical information. Users can also enter their concert information into an online calendar, though feature is somewhat lacking in that you can browse by instrument or performer but not location.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">One useful aspect of the site is the ability to create playlists which can be shared and embedded on other websites. Teachers can create playlists for students to listen to, and performers are able to create a playlist of their own performances that can be embedded on their personal website. Better yet, these embedded playlists update automatically when the playlist is updated at ClassicalConnect.com.</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because users upload the content, recordings range widely in quality of audio, performance quality, and even volume level. Like YouTube and other websites where content is user-generated, the quality and usefulness of the website is directly related to the activity of the users. If many high-quality recordings continue to be uploaded, and clarinetists rate recordings thoughtfully, it could prove to be a much more refined resource for listening to clarinet music than YouTube, where low-quality recordings often have high view counts. But as is, many tracks on ClassicalConnect.com are currently unrated, and there is a lack of variety and quantity (there is only one recording of the Mozart concerto, for example).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite these issues -- and the fact that the interface could use updating -- it’s a great place to discover new repertoire and performers. With more participation from performers and listeners, it has the potential to become a valuable resource for clarinetists.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Note from David Ross:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; white-space: normal;">I did want to make a little correction to what you wrote about Langenus. His “Clarinet Correspondence School” is certainly a fascinating document of a world long gone. I have a complete set of these discs and they make interesting listening. But the voice announcing the etudes is certainly not Langenus. The practice in early (pre-WW1) discs and cylinders was to have a loud-voiced speaker (not the player) announce the pieces to be played, and this is what Langenus did.</span></span><br />
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ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-70332028532283194052013-10-29T17:27:00.000-05:002013-10-29T17:27:07.255-05:00Robert Marcellus Master Class Audio Archives<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qmDHsv8_SNI/UnA19aYmecI/AAAAAAAAAm4/CnutSiRHhEY/s1600/marcellus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qmDHsv8_SNI/UnA19aYmecI/AAAAAAAAAm4/CnutSiRHhEY/s1600/marcellus.jpg" /></a></div>
Northwestern University has released archived audio files of <a href="http://media.northwestern.edu/" target="_blank">Robert Marcellus master classes</a> and made them available to the public on their library website. Here you'll find 64 recordings dating back from 1977 through 1990 of Marcellus coaching students on solo and chamber music, as well as master classes and conversations with Clark Brody, William Brennen, Ron Oldrich, and Christopher Severin. Thanks to Phil Paglialonga and Timothy Phillips for bringing this to our attention!<br />
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<br />ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-57168586301356817632013-09-08T09:27:00.002-05:002014-03-16T10:39:20.451-05:00Clarinet Dissertations Online (Sept. 2013 Column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many dissertations which sat for years in obscurity on the granting institution’s library shelf are now being digitized and made publicly available. A process which used to involve filling out an interlibrary loan request and waiting several weeks is now as easy as downloading a PDF. In this column, we explore online resources for finding full-text digital versions of clarinet theses and dissertations.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Graduate students and faculty researchers will find these resources useful to survey scholarly literature about clarinet-related topics, but they are not just for academics. At a time when much dubious information is available on the Internet, theses and dissertations provide a trustworthy source for information that has been thoroughly reviewed and approved by a student’s major professor, university committee and deans or other school officials. These documents are a logical place to turn when looking for more information than Wikipedia or articles in past issues of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Clarinet</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> can provide.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the largest open-access databases for scholarly research is the <a href="http://www.ndltd.org/" target="_blank">Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)</a>. This international organization’s website yields a listing of over 2,500 full-text electronic theses and dissertations involving the clarinet. Although it is bit tricky to navigate at first, begin your search for clarinet-related documents by clicking the “<a href="http://www.ndltd.org/find" target="_blank">Find ETDs</a>” on the home page. From there you will utilize the “<a href="http://www.ndltd.org/" target="_blank">Scirus ETD Search</a>” located a few paragraphs down. Here, a helpful side-menu offers keyword suggestions to refine searches or you can limit your search with additional keywords of your choosing. Each document’s entry is linked to the respective university’s database, from which you can access the full text directly. The "<a href="http://www.ndltd.org/find" target="_blank">Find ETDs</a>" page also has a list of links to other databases that may be helpful in an extended search.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many university libraries are beginning to post full-text dissertations that are publicly accessible through their websites. These individual university databases often overlap with NTLTD, but may have more up-to-date collections. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few examples are the <a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=103" target="_blank">University of Rochester</a>, with digital dissertations from Eastman students beginning from 2008; and <a href="http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/" target="_blank">Florida State University</a>, which grants access to electronic theses and dissertations dating back to 2003. The <a href="https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap:1:" target="_blank">OhioLINK ETD Center</a> currently lists over sixty-five dissertations involving the clarinet from Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, and Bowling Green State University. The <a href="http://digital.library.unt.edu/explore/collections/UNTETD/" target="_blank">UNT Digital Libraries</a> contain full-text dissertations of clarinetists who received their DMA from the University of North Texas from 2000 to the present. UNT was one of the earliest institutions to begin requiring electronic submission of theses and dissertations (along with West Virginia University and Vanderbilt University), so its collection is extensive.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do;jsessionid=C68B8025326F17DB849F8ADDE70AEACC" target="_blank">EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service)</a> is a database of numerous participating UK institutions with several dissertations on the clarinet available to download. To access the digitized documents, you must complete the free registration process. Although many of the documents are open to the public, the required programs necessary to view these documents include Adobe Acrobat Reader and software to unzip the compressed files. In addition to the free downloading options, you can also order paper copies (bound or unbound) and CD/DVDs of dissertations for a fee. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Electronic dissertation records have the added benefit of including supplemental audio and visual materials. Michele Ann Bowen Hustedt’s 2010 University of Iowa dissertation <a href="http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/465/" target="_blank">“The Life and Career of Himie Voxman”</a> includes a film of her interview with Voxman, while Ray Wheeler’s <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1802/25584" target="_blank">1967 study of clarinet tongue position through X-ray analysis</a> is now available through the University of Rochester’s website, including the original videos collected as part of the research. Many clarinetists are also now posting their own dissertations for public viewing on their personal websites, including Rachel Yoder’s 2010 <a href="http://www.rachelyoderclarinet.com/research/interactive-music/" target="_blank">dissertation on interactive computer music</a> for clarinet together with a supplemental spreadsheet of interactive works.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are countless theses and dissertations accessible on the Internet and we have touched upon only a few. If you have a link or web address to your full-text dissertation and would like us to add it our blog posting of this column, please email your information to clarinetcache@gmail.com. Thanks to Tracey Paddock for suggesting this topic!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Updates:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Allison Yacoub, who teaches clarinet at Morgan State University, has sent a link to her University of Maryland dissertation </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/13316/1/Yacoub_Dissertation.pdf" target="_blank">"Compositions for Clarinet Influenced by Non-Western European Musical Traditions"</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tracey Paddock sent a link to her Florida State University dissertation, <a href="http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3853&context=etd">"A Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Clarinetists."</a></span></span></div>
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ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-73996075439271492942013-07-15T10:59:00.003-05:002013-07-15T10:59:55.559-05:00The Mpingo Tree<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a9A8WpEDE88/UeLZ9Csba0I/AAAAAAAAAmY/h06SORvVsJM/s1600/mpingo-tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a9A8WpEDE88/UeLZ9Csba0I/AAAAAAAAAmY/h06SORvVsJM/s320/mpingo-tree.jpg" width="320" /></a>Many of us realize that the world's supply of grenadilla wood is diminishing everyday; however, we might never stop to ponder the ecological and social concerns associated with the harvesting of the African blackwood tree, also known as the mpingo tree. One interesting article tackling this subject, "<a href="http://www.buffalostoryproject.com/2012/12/09/the-dark-side-of-music-clarinets-woodwinds-and-the-african-blackwood-tree/" target="_blank">The Dark Side of Music: Clarinets, Woodwinds and the Mpingo Tree</a>," posted by the Buffalo Story Project, delves into the business side of illegal gathering of the wood and how it affects not only the commercial components of the business, but also the natives who tend to the land<span id="goog_958107278"></span><span id="goog_958107279"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a>.<br />
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As mentioned in the article and in a previous Clarinet Cache <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2012/02/clarinets-for-conservation.html" target="_blank">post</a>, one organization dedicated to saving the mpingo tree is <a href="http://clarinetsforconservation.org/Clarinets_for_Conservation/Our_Mission.html" target="_blank">Clarinets For Conservation</a>. Supporters for this cause reach the children of Tanzania by teaching them about the importance of conservation and gives them the opportunity to learn how to play the clarinet. Visit their <a href="http://www.clarinetsforconservation.org/Clarinets_for_Conservation/Sponsors.html" target="_blank">website</a> to learn more on how you can help save the mpingo tree and become a sponsor for their organization.<br />
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<br />ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-66662120248868440672013-06-16T20:39:00.001-05:002013-06-16T20:39:49.593-05:00Website Watch (June 2013 Column)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paula Corley’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.clarinetcity.com/" target="_blank">Clarinet City</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Educator and performer Paula Corley has a <a href="http://www.clarinetcity.com/" target="_blank">personal website</a> designed to help students and teachers alike. Easy to navigate and filled with bright and colorful photographs, this site is a wonderful resource with numerous educational materials available in various formats. Not only is Corley an author of two great method books geared towards the beginner player, but she is also an artist clinician and clarinet professor at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of the articles found on the site are beneficial to teachers, students, and performers. In her article “<a href="http://www.clarinetcity.com/images/ClarinetFest_2010_Clinic_Handout.pdf" target="_blank">Why Johnny Can’t Play: Expanding the Master/Apprentice Model</a>” from her presentation at the 2010 ClarinetFest, Corley outlines how to devise lesson plans and assess a student’s level of learning and progress. Here she gives valuable advice on how to improve the dynamic involved in the teacher/student relationship. Both her middle school and high school master class articles include technical exercises that focus on long tones and articulations exercises appropriate for each age group. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Offering advice to her readers, the site also has an “<a href="http://www.clarinetcity.com/askpaula.html" target="_blank">Ask Paula</a>” section where Corley gives in-depth answers to readers’ questions on topics such as tone quality, intonation, articulation, and technique. In her responses to readers’ inquiries, you can get a feel for her teaching style and her knowledgeable approach to tackling tough issues. We look forward to reading more of her advice posts in the future! </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-3f41057a-4dd0-89eb-0dda-30c9cff7a668" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Teaching blogs</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many clarinet teachers now have basic websites with biographical info, photos, audio or video recordings, and a few links to resources for their students. Others go a bit further using their websites as blogs to communicate information, resources, or thoughts to their students. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alice Gallagher, a Juilliard graduate who teaches in the San Diego area, has a </span><a href="http://gallagherclarinetstudio.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">blog</a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that pulls together items like videos of performances (both historical and modern players), excerpts from her own practice journal, and her own writings on clarinet playing and clarinet history. Chastine Hofmeister, who studied at the University of North Texas and now teaches and performs in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, uses her </span><a href="http://www.chastinehofmeister.com/" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">blog</a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to post inspirational messages, thoughts on books about practice and performance, clarinet events such as the Texas Clarinet Colloquium, and glimpses into the life of a freelance clarinetist. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both of these are great examples of the use of a personal website to enhance the work teachers do in the studio. Private teaching can be a lonely affair; long hours spent in small rooms teaching one-on-one can make one long for other forms of communication and higher-level discourse. A clarinet blog can be a great way for the private teacher to reach out not only to his or her students, but to the larger clarinet community.</span></div>
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ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-57965396291943690652013-03-25T22:21:00.000-05:002013-03-25T22:21:05.852-05:00Pedagogy 2.0: An Exploration of 21st-Century Innovations in Clarinet Teaching (March 2013 Column)<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Through our research over the past four years
for this column and blog, we have been on the forefront of developments in online
clarinet resources, and we have encountered countless examples of innovative
uses for the Internet and mobile technology to teach clarinet. This column is
based on our presentation at ClarinetFest 2012 in Lincoln, Nebraska and in it
we explore a variety of resources and techniques for integrating
technology into clarinet instruction. Most of these require only internet
access and can be immediately implemented by teachers looking to augment their
traditional teaching style. </span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Sheet Music Sharing Sites</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The Internet is a continually expanding
repository of valuable resources for clarinetists. It is now easier and cheaper
for both teachers and students to explore scores through public-domain sheet
music sharing sites, with access to print music from any computer. In our <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2009/09/free-clarinet-sheet-music-online.html" target="_blank">Sept. 2009 column</a>, we went in depth on the one of the largest sheet music resources, </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://imslp.org/" target="_blank">International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">. Since our first report on the
site, IMSLP has reorganized their instrumentation listing of works, making it
easier to navigate. The site lists around 150
solo <a href="http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:For_clarinet,_piano" target="_blank">clarinet works with piano</a> and 52 <span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://imslp.org/index.php?title=Category:For_clarinet&transclude=Template:Catintro" target="_blank">unaccompanied pieces</a></span>. The increase in
chamber music entries is difficult to calculate due to the nearly 500 listings
of ensembles involving the clarinet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">While many websites offer a general collection
of sheet music, </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://www.clarinetinstitute.com/" target="_blank">The Clarinet Institute of Los Angeles</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> is specifically
tailored for the clarinetist. Managed by David Shorr, this website has
numerous videos, MIDI files, and recordings. The site currently offers a DVD
containing over 840 PDF files of clarinet music for only $13.50-- an unbeatable
price for that amount of music! It has recently widened its instrumental
spectrum to include similar discs with sheet music for wind quintet, all band
instruments, recorder, and stringed instruments.</span></div>
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<b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></b><b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><a href="http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/clarmusi/clarmusi.htm" target="_blank">Oliver’s (mostly) Clarinet Music Page</a></span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> is also a great source for sheet music. Here,
Oliver Seely has formatted chamber music parts into MIDI and MUS files,
allowing you to print the music and download parts into music software programs
such as Finale or Smart Music for accompanimental playback. The downside to
using these types of files is the lack of articulation and dynamic markings. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you don’t have Finale, try visiting </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://www.oliver-seely.woodwind.org/" target="_blank">Mark Charette’s “mirror” of Seely’s page</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">. Charette, who is also the webmaster of
Woodwind.org, has translated the Finale notation files into PDF format,
allowing more viewers access to the music.</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Audio</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">As a teacher, it can be frustrating when
students continually turn to random YouTube videos for reference recordings of
works. Several services can help you to provide better audio resources to
your students, making it easy for teacher and student alike to research new
repertoire and compare interpretations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Many
colleges and universities pay to subscribe to the <b><a href="http://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com/home.asp?rurl=%2Fdefault%2Easp" target="_blank">Naxos Music Library</a></b>,
which can be a valuable tool in the classroom or applied lesson setting.
With a wide variety of recordings from the Naxos label and many other
labels, it is easy to create playlists of repertoire for study. Students
can even listen to playlists from their mobile device with the Naxos Music
Library mobile application.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><b><a href="https://soundcloud.com/" target="_blank">Sound Cloud</a></b>
is a web platform for streaming and sharing audio. One possible use for
this website would be to post recordings of student performances and use the
“timed comments” feature to provide commentary at specific moments during the
recording. </span></div>
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<b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><a href="https://www.spotify.com/us/" target="_blank">Spotify</a> </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">is a streaming subscription service that can be downloaded for
free, with upgrades available for mobile access and premium content. It
is easy to create and share playlists; find a sampling of the clarinet
recordings available by checking out our ClarinetFest 2012 playlist. Spotify is recommended here with reservations, as the low artist
royalties they pay have been a contention with many whose record labels allowed
the service to have access to their music. </span></div>
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<b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></b><b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><a href="http://www.instantencore.com/Artist.aspx" target="_blank">Instant Encore</a></span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> is a source for streaming video and audio uploaded by artists
themselves. It is primarily a promotional tool for artists, but the
quality and depth of information provided about the works and artists make this
a place to be sure to search when looking for reference recordings. See our Sept.
2011 column on streaming video for more information about InstantEncore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span><b><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Video</span></u></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">We wrote in our <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2012/09/website-watch-sept-2012-column.html" target="_blank">previous column</a> about the </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://www.ricoreeds.com/RicoHome.Page?ActiveID=1195&sid=3c1e60d6-9923-4473-a14f-0255b4bc7776" target="_blank">Rico Reeds</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> website, but we’d like to add a few more details from our presentation. Rico has a wonderfully produced website with numerous videos of their
sponsored artists presenting mini-master classes and interviews both on the
homepage and in “<a href="http://www.thelessonroom.com/LessonRoom.Page?ActiveID=1521" target="_blank">The Lesson Room</a>” section.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">S</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">everal videos of the late <a href="http://www.thelessonroom.com/LessonRoomResourceSearch.Page?ActiveID=3037&query=etheridge" target="_blank">David Etheridge</a> show
him teaching and demonstrating a sampling of fundamental concepts from his book
“A Practical Approach to the Clarinet.” These videos are excellent tools for
learning about hand position and other basic concepts. <a href="http://www.thelessonroom.com/LessonRoomResourceSearch.Page?ActiveID=3037&query=gingras" target="_blank">Michele Gingras</a> is
another featured Rico artist with 23 videos available on their site. Gingras
offers performance strategies and tips for more advanced players in her video
series that accompanies her book </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">52 Clarinet Secrets</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">. Here you
will see her demonstrate exercises on how to increase tongue speed, how to form
an embouchure, and other tips found in her book. <a href="http://www.thelessonroom.com/LessonRoomResourceSearch.Page?ActiveID=3037&query=lawrie+bloom" target="_blank">Lawrie Bloom’s</a> instructional videos on bass clarinet are geared to the beginner player and cover fundamental
topics such as instrument assembly, breaking in reeds, and articulation. </span></div>
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<b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/" target="_blank">YouTube</a></span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> is a mega-platform that has countless videos of note for
clarinetists. While we’ve mentioned them before in our columns, we’d like to
put the spotlight on two clarinetists who have produced high-quality
instructional videos that stand out. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/billyboy647/featured" target="_blank">Tom Ridenour</a> has over 96 videos on his
YouTube channel and on them he shares his philosophies on playing double-lip,
reed finishing, and other various topics. Peruvian clarinetist <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/marcomazzini/featured" target="_blank">Marco Mazzini’s</a> channel has several instructional videos in both English and Spanish, as well
as footage of live performances of modern and standard pieces for both soprano
and bass clarinets.</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Multimedia</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">We
blogged about Kyle Coughlin’s <b><a href="http://clarinet-space.skyleapmusic.com/index.html" target="_blank">Clarinet Space</a></b> in a <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2009/05/kyle-coughlins-clarinet-space.html" target="_blank">post from 2009</a>, and it still
stands out as a multimedia resource for clarinet teachers. The
Flash-based “Pitch Name Game” is a fun way for younger students to learn to
recognize pitches on a staff, and the interactive fingering charts with sound
help students to hear if they are playing the notes correctly. <b><a href="http://www.musicteachershelper.com/" target="_blank">Music Teacher’s Helper</a></b> has become a popular tool for private instructors; for a
low monthly fee it handles scheduling, does automatic invoicing, accepts credit
card payments, and allows students and parents to log in to their accounts from
home. Online metronomes have been in existence for many years, but
several now have additional rhythmic training options. Students without
an electronic metronome or mobile app can always use <b><a href="http://bestmetronome.com/">BestMetronome.com</a></b>
or other online metronomes to keep time when practicing at home.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Social Networking</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Social networking is not only useful for
establishing professional connections, but can also serve as a platform for
open educational or pedagogical discussions. On </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://facebook.com/" target="_blank">Facebook</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> many group
pages are dedicated to the clarinet. You may remember our <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2008/09/facebooks-clarinet-jobs-interview-with.html" target="_blank">interview with James Zimmerman</a> back in Sept. 2008 about his Facebook group “Clarinet Jobs,”
which serves as a sounding board for orchestral and band vacancies, audition
tips, and discussion of audition repertoire. Many university teachers are
now utilizing Facebook to share information with students through studio pages,
stay connected with individual students, and even recruit new students.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">The
<b><a href="http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/list.html?f=1" target="_blank">Clarinet BBoard</a></b> on <a href="http://woodwind.org/">Woodwind.org</a> has been mentioned in several of our
blog posts and our <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2009/03/woodwindorg.html" target="_blank">March 2009 column</a>, but it is worth mentioning again as it
continues to be one of the largest and most popular forums for sharing clarinet
information. <b><a href="https://twitter.com/" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b> is another previously mentioned web application
that we want to highlight because of its capacity to reach large audiences and
its nature of immediacy. In 140 characters or less, a person can use
their cell phone to tweet about upcoming events, performances, or to ask other
people questions in real time. Two clarinetists who have secured a large
following on Twitter include Anthony McGill and Michael Lowenstern. Of course,
we also tweet about ClarinetFest and new blog posts on Twitter as
<a href="https://twitter.com/clarinetcache" target="_blank">@ClarinetCache</a>.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">The
last web site listed, <b><a href="http://8notes.com/">8notes.com</a></b>, is geared toward younger musicians and
contains not only social network forums, but also free sheet music and numerous
music theory lessons. The site offers free music and lessons on almost
every instrument; however, the musical content consists mainly of simple folk
tunes and popular music. Members can register and upload any kind of
music to share with others, or make request for scores. </span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Live Online Instruction</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">As bandwidth increases and video quality
improves, many instructors have begun offering lessons online via </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://www.skype.com/en/" target="_blank">Skype</a> </b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">or
</span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/" target="_blank">Google+</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">. Online instruction has many benefits, allowing teachers
and students to make connections across the world with no time or gas used to
travel. It has drawbacks, such as audio and video lag and sound quality
concerns, but teachers like <a href="http://clarinetexperience.com/index.html" target="_blank">Laurel Hall</a> and <a href="http://www.thomasjwestmusic.com/" target="_blank">Thomas J. West</a> are making it work
(and making money doing it). Their personal websites, in addition to
general websites like </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://online-music-lessons.net/">online-music-lessons.net</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> and </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://learnmusicathome.com/">learnmusicathome.com</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
can give teachers an idea of the process for teaching online and equipment
needed. Some new startups like </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://lessonface.com/">LessonFace.com</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> and </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://lessonfire.com/">LessonFire.com</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
are aiming to improve on the Skype model by offering their own specialized
platforms through which student and teacher can meet, combining scheduling,
payment, and live videoconferencing in one place.</span><br />
<br />
** An additional online instruction site discovered after our presentation at ClarinetFest 2012, <a href="http://www.clariskypestudio.com/index.html" target="_blank">ClariSkye Studio</a>, is another great source for online instruction via Skype. The site, recently created by clarinetist Michele Gingras and violinist Harvey Thurmer, offers students 30-minute lessons with both Gingras and Thurmer, as well as other participating music faculty from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio).<br />
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<b><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Mobile Applications</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">These days, smartphones and other mobile devices
have an increasing impact on our day-to-day lives, and teaching is no
exception. Mobile applications can turn a phone into a metronome, tuner,
handheld recording device, decibel meter, spectrometer, and audio/video player.
Using these functions during lessons can provide instant feedback (often
in visual form) for students, and can save time by allowing a teacher to
instantly make recordings and send them to students via email. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">There can be drawbacks to using mobile apps in
teaching: the input and output sound quality can be poor unless using an
external microphone and speakers, for example. Also, not everyone can
afford the devices and expensive data plans. However, once the device is
purchased, tuner and metronome applications are incredibly inexpensive compared
to their hardware counterparts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Our favorite application for integration with
clarinet pedagogy is </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="http://tonalenergy.com/" target="_blank">TonalEnergy Tuner</a></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">. Released in early 2012 by
Sonosaurus, its most basic function is as an easy-to-use-tuner with a great
interface. It allows you to select from a variety of tuning systems
(equal, just, Pythagorean, etc.) and timbres (just about any instrument) for
the tone generator. Much more than just a tuner, though, TonalEnergy can
show the change in dynamics over time with its “waveform” function. This
is highly effective for working with students on dynamic shaping or even
articulation. It also can function as a spectrogram, showing the levels
of overtones in the sound -- an opportunity for a great lesson about the reason
for resonance fingerings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">We
blogged in 2011 about the best metronome apps, so check <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2011/06/metronome-apps-in-review.html" target="_blank">here</a> for more details
about </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Tempo </b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">and other great metronomes to use on your phone. Our
favorite tuners include </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">iStrobosoft</b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> (a strobe tuner by Peterson) and </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">ClearTune</b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">
(a needle tuner by Bitcount). We will be sure to keep you informed when
we hear about other great apps in the future!</span><br />
</div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">In addition to the resources listed above, we
have also compiled a list of recommended readings that discuss both specific
resources and larger trends for technology in education. Visit
our <a href="http://www.clarinetcache.com/2012/08/pedagogy-20.html" target="_blank">August 2012 post</a> to find the list of supplementary articles and our
powerpoint presentation from ClarinetFest. </span></div>
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ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-35849310263530952332013-01-13T17:36:00.000-06:002013-01-13T17:36:25.820-06:00ClarinetReedMaking.comThe December issue of The Clarinet included a fascinating article titled "Reeds: Good or Bad? It's in the Cane - An Inside View of Arundo donax L." by Michael Montague and Tina Ward. In reading this article about the physical properties of good cane, we became curious about a website mentioned as being a great resource for information on making clarinet reeds by hand, <a href="http://www.clarinetreedmaking.com/">www.clarinetreedmaking.com</a>. Created by Joseph LeBlanc, this site is a "workshop" site (a partner website to that of his commercial business selling reedmaking tools, <a href="http://reedworkshop.com/">reedworkshop.com</a>) with information about reedmaking, including this great video overview:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FOsSSFeosNs" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<a href="http://clarinetreedmaking.com/">Clarinetreedmaking.com</a> is packed full of clear and detailed information about blank making, profiling, and finishing reeds, and all the equipment and supplies needed in the process. Photos and diagrams help to illustrate the process. If you have any interest in making clarinet reeds by hand, or just want to get a glimpse into the process, this website is a great place to start!ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-68811982321426816812012-12-04T15:19:00.001-06:002012-12-04T15:19:17.918-06:00Interactive RecordingsRecord labels <a href="http://www.navonarecords.com/" target="_blank">Navona Records</a> and <a href="http://parmarecordings.com/" target="_blank">PARMA Recordings</a> (parent company of Navona) have released several new compact discs with enhanced components that complement the listening experience. Accessible by computer, these interactive components on the CDs include PDF files of scores, program notes, videos, and composer biographies.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cyeNHK2Z184/UL5jZAcoD0I/AAAAAAAAAkc/3JnFc7wtJ1w/s1600/Navona.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="80" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cyeNHK2Z184/UL5jZAcoD0I/AAAAAAAAAkc/3JnFc7wtJ1w/s200/Navona.gif" width="200" /></a>Back in 2008 Navona Records released Richard Stoltzman's album, <i>Phoenix in Flight</i>, which contained PDF files of all the music recorded on the album. Since then, the companies have improved upon the media content tenfold, adding more interactive options such as digital reproductions of liner notes containing additional information not present on the CD case and web apps for mobile ring tones.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-23OD8H9AdaI/UL5jP-wlQ2I/AAAAAAAAAkU/1OuxA_KOnlY/s1600/PARMA+file.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-23OD8H9AdaI/UL5jP-wlQ2I/AAAAAAAAAkU/1OuxA_KOnlY/s200/PARMA+file.jpg" width="165" /></a>Check out <a href="http://www.parmarecordings.com/anthologyofmusic/" target="_blank">PARMA Recording's website</a> where you can find free downloads of scores and parts of music from their newest release, <i>2012 PARMA Anthology of Music. </i>Featuring ten contemporary works for small chamber ensembles, this album contains two works that involve the clarinet. Other newly-released recordings under the Navona label that include clarinet music are: <i>Summer Circle</i>, featuring Martin Schlumpf's <i>Clarinet Trio </i>for clarinet, cello, and piano; <i>Slices</i>, with works by various composers, including two pieces for woodwind quintet and a duo for clarinet and violin; and <i>Claviatures: Modern Chamber Works,</i> with Ayala Asherov-Kalus's composition, <i>Three Rivers, </i>written for clarinet, viola, and piano.ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-48524558238764818162012-09-03T20:10:00.000-05:002012-09-03T20:10:13.990-05:00Website Watch (Sept 2012 Column)<b id="internal-source-marker_0.18396034534089267" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In recent years the websites of clarinet companies have shifted focus from their products to their sponsored clarinetists by incorporating interviews, videos, and biographies. Although many web sites contain peripheral artist rosters, we have come across a handful of sites that take artist endorsements to the next level. Clarinet Cache does not endorse any particular equipment or brand; web sites discussed in this column were chosen for their attention to the artists and the resources they provide to clarinetists of all levels.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://backunmusical.com/">BackunMusical.com</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Backun has created an <a href="http://backunmusical.com/artist-community/" target="_blank">Artist Community</a> where clarinetists who play on Backun instruments or equipment can create and submit their own artist profile. Launched in April 2012, the community directory currently has over 100 artist profiles containing biographies, current positions held, equipment used, and links to related web sites. Backun also has numerous videos posted on their YouTube channel “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/backunmusical/videos" target="_blank">backunmusical</a>.” In addition to the “Tech Tips” and “Backun Studio Series” video segments, videos of Backun Artists such as Ricardo Morales, Jose Franch-Ballester, Jessica Phillips, and Eddie Daniels offer mini-master classes and discussions on various topics. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://ricoreeds.com/">RicoReeds.com</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the homepage for Rico Reeds, large, colorful photos of Martin Fröst and other Rico artists rotate in a slideshow. Even the Rico “Products” section is connected with the artists by showing a picture of a famous artist that plays on each type of Rico reeds. The Rico web site also has a <a href="http://ricoreeds.com/RicoBlog.Page?ActiveID=4615" target="_blank">blog</a> with frequent contributions by saxophonist Tim Price, who writes mostly about jazz and improvisation.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another feature of the Rico page is a link to <a href="http://thelessonroom.com/">TheLessonRoom.com</a> (run by the D’Addario company, distributor of Rico reeds). This useful site has resources including videos, articles, interactive elements, and sheet music. These can be sorted by category of instrument (e.g. “wind instruments”), but not by specific instrument. The clarinet videos include lessons by esteemed clarinetists and teachers like Michael Norsworthy, Michele Gingras, Mark Nuccio, Richie Hawley, and the late, great David Etheridge. The articles are mostly aimed at beginner to intermediate students and address topics such as intonation and purchasing a clarinet, while the interactive elements offer drills for learning different clefs and rhythmic dictation. The sheet music section only has full band scores. TheLessonRoom.com also has a private teacher directory, searchable by location, with a rating system to allow feedback about the instructors.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://vandoren.com/">Vandoren.com</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like Rico, the Vandoren company caters to both clarinetists and saxophonists. With artists categorized under the labels of classical, jazz, and ensembles, this site has an extensive index of performers. Entries for each Vandoren artist vary in length and depth of information; however, the most informative content is found in the videos accessed through “<a href="http://www.vandorentv.com/" target="_blank">Vandoren TV</a>” on the homepage. Here viewers are directed to several different channels containing videos broadcasted in eleven different languages. A majority of these short videos feature clarinetists and several of the videos are overdubbed in multiple languages. Performers such as Philippe Cuper, Paul Meyer, Victoria Luperi, and Giora Feidman step in front of the camera to talk about their own equipment setup and express opinions on how various Vandoren products facilitate their playing.</span></b>
ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-54326052615888561472012-08-13T22:39:00.004-05:002012-08-13T22:41:25.311-05:00Pedagogy 2.0As promised, here is our presentation and handout from our presentation at ClarinetFest on Sunday, August 5, 2012. It covers the internet as a resource for teaching clarinet, and ways to incorporate technology such as mobile applications into clarinet pedagogy.
A more detailed discussion of our presentation content will be published in our December 2012 column in <i>The Clarinet</i> and here on our blog.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="389" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://docs.google.com/presentation/embed?id=1fSxk3OBRFOYcAc0Kbfc4ctwCgyBqnRyG3Tj8BZGYN2w&start=false&loop=false&delayms=10000" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
Here is our handout from the presentation, with a list of resources in printable format and clickable links:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.rachelyoderclarinet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Pedagogy20Handout.pdf" target="_blank">Pedagogy 2.0 Handout</a><br />
<br />
Enjoy!ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-10209709606014352062012-08-12T20:26:00.000-05:002012-08-12T20:26:35.309-05:00ClarinetFest Day 5<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The last day of ClarinetFest was a busy one for us, as we gave our presentation and also performed with the contra clarinet ensemble. After getting our equipment set up, we went to Adam Ballif's lecture: "Incorporating Technology in the Clarinet Studio." Adam demonstrated the use of SmartMusic to assign and grade technical exercises, how to create custom metronomes with Pro Tools, and talked about iOS music apps like Notion (a version of Finale) and Pianist Pro. </div>
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Ballif's lecture was a great complement to ours, as we each investigated different technologies and techniques for incorporating them into clarinet pedagogy. Our presentation, "Pedagogy 2.0: An Exploration of 21st-Century Innovations in Clarinet Teaching," centered on online resources we've discovered in the course of writing the Clarinet Cache column, as well as mobile applications. We spent a lot of time demonstrating how to teach using the TonalEnergy app for iOS -- many thanks to Lucas Willsie for serving as our guinea pig! Look for our full presentation and handout to be posted here soon.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XHo1n1YN_kc/UCfflPj-pMI/AAAAAAAAAjI/BrWubJKTf4k/s1600/Rach+&+Kellie+lect..JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XHo1n1YN_kc/UCfflPj-pMI/AAAAAAAAAjI/BrWubJKTf4k/s320/Rach+&+Kellie+lect..JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kellie and Rachel demonstrating TonalEnergy with Lucas Willsie</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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We had an enjoyable lunch at the Embassy Hotel restaurant with our teacher, Dr. James Gillespie, and former UNT students Malena McLaren and Chastine Hofmeister. One of the best things about ClarinetFest is that each time we go, we have more friends and colleagues to catch up with.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jDmwE5JzlJA/UCK340mmIAI/AAAAAAAAAhU/j71PmsaEsLA/s1600/DSCN0841.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jDmwE5JzlJA/UCK340mmIAI/AAAAAAAAAhU/j71PmsaEsLA/s320/DSCN0841.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lunch with Dr. Gillespie and UNT alumni</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Interesting sculptures on UNLV campus</td></tr>
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After lunch, it was time to warm up the contras! The warm-up room was filled with contras of all shapes and sizes, being played by everyone from undergraduate students to current and past presidents of the I.C.A.!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dueling contras</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Scott, Gary Whitman, and Keith Koons preparing with intensity!</td></tr>
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The contra ensemble (dubbed "A Legal Contraband" by Mary Alice Druhan) then took the stage to perform Ben Stonaker's piece <i>44 Contras</i>. From our point of view, it was an interesting and memorable performance. Stonaker used the full range of the contrabass and contraalto clarinets, from altissimo into the extended low range, to create an unforgettable aleatoric sound sculpture. One section sounded, in Stonaker's words, like "a flock of angry geese," while another consisted of a swelling, undulating 44-note cluster. Audience reactions ranged from glee to complete disgust - always the sign of a good piece!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Legal Contraband</td></tr>
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Finally, it was time to pack up all the contras and head home. We got to chat with conference organizer Diane Barger one last time on our way out. She seemed happy and relieved -- as she should be after putting in so much work to make ClarinetFest 2012 a great success! Thanks Diane!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diane Barger</td></tr>
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</div>ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7608099653373577760.post-87063105856949287372012-08-11T17:52:00.000-05:002012-08-12T20:29:03.189-05:00ClarinetFest Day 4<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
At this point in the festival it becomes harder to wake up early to make it to the first concert of the day. Taking the morning off from recitals, I (Kellie) went to visit the exhibitions to peruse some of the vendors selling sheet music. Then we spent some time working on our presentation for Sunday - more info coming about that in the Day 5 recap!</div>
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Many clarinetists are familiar with the music of Scott McAllister, so there was a good turnout for the performance of his new seven-movement <i>Epic Concerto,</i> played by three different artists. The piece began with SSgt Timothy Sutfin performing the first three movements: "Warm-up," "Walking with Benny," and "Prodigy." The first movement incorporated warm-up materials and patterns from the Klose book; however, the tempos were definitely faster than the typical warm-up speeds! McAllister was inspired by the Copland and Benny Goodman, and the second movement reflects a slow walk with the great composer and player, evoking the beautiful opening of the Copland Concerto. The next movement was inspired by past and present prodigies, including the music of Michael Jackson, where Sutfin's clarinet playing emulated the spirit and energy of the late pop star. </div>
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Switching artists, the fourth movement was performed by Peggy Dees Moseley, who was also the commission coordinator of the work. This movement, "Epic," is the longest movement in the piece and McAllister dedicated it to his mentor Frank Kowalsky and his wife Helen Earl. </div>
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Rounding out the last portion of this 45-minute concerto, Kimberly Cole Luevano played the last three movements: "Schizo Scherzo," "Gone," and "High Flyin' Bird." With a big bright sound, Luevano jumped right into "Schizo Scherzo," one of the more effective movements of the piece. This movement was dedicated to the memory of Robert Marcellus, one of the three teachers and pedagogues to whom the festival paid tribute this year. Similar to Berio's Mahler "remix" in the third movement of his <i>Sinfonia</i>, McAllister made a rousing scherzo out of a mashup of the third movement of Brahms' Sonata in F Minor together with several of the most famous orchestral excerpts for clarinet (Daphnis, Mendelssohn, Gershwin, etc.). </div>
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The penultimate movement "Gone" centers on McAllister's emotional response to the loss of his playing career after a car accident. The long, static sotto voce tones placed under the sound of the piano must have been difficult to pull off, especially after such an energetic movement, but Luevano's stamina and control allowed her to reflect the composer's process of healing after such a life-changing event. The final movement called "High Flyin' Bird" was inspired by a song by Richie Havens and it energetically closed the entire composition. After all three clarinetist returned to the stage for another round of applause, McAllister joined the trio of performers in acknowledgment of superbly performance of his epic piece.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kimberly Cole Luevano, Peggy Dees Moseley, SSgt Timothy Sutfin, and Scott McAllister</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Those familiar with McAllister's music will find in the <i>Epic Concerto</i> elements familiar from his other works: floating upper clarion notes, extreme altissimo, angular leaps, glissando, rips up and down the instrument, and syncopated rhythms. What sets <i>Epic Concerto</i> apart is that it is such an intensely personal tour of McAllister's own life as a clarinetist, making this work above all the others a "clarinetist's" clarinet piece. Its "epic" nature and technical demands make it difficult to program on a recital, but each movement is self-contained enough to stand on its own if taken out of context. <br />
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I (Rachel) came in late to the I.C.A. Competition Winner's Recital on Saturday afternoon but managed to hear most of Paul Cantrell's beautiful work <i>The Broken Mirror of Memory</i>, for bass clarinet and piano. The committed performance by Pat O'Keefe should inspire others to check out this winning piece from the Composition Competition. </div>
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I had a special interest in the next piece, the winning work from the Joint Wind Quintet Project, as I performed in the first two premieres of the piece with the <a href="http://www.maderawindquintet.com/">Madera Wind Quintet</a> at the conferences of the International Horn Society and International Double Reed Society. Lansing McLoskey was awarded the commission from the group, and composed <i>Hardwood</i> with inspiration from hardwood trees, leaves and branches he came across in the woods of New Hampshire. With my extensive knowledge of the score, I can safely state that clarinetist Tod Kerstetter and the Konza Wind Quintet did a fine job of navigating the difficult rhythmic terrain and infusing the piece with lots of musicality.</div>
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The evening concert on Saturday was much more polished than Friday's concert of duos with wind ensemble, but it was still a bit underwhelming. Greg Smith's performance of the <i>Première Rhapsodie </i>by Debussy was refined and light on its feet, but his delicate tone was completely overpowered by the orchestra at times. We started wondering if the clarinetists were in a dead spot onstage when Jessica Phillips Rieske had similar problems being heard in the Mozart Concerto. She made some interesting choices about octave transpositions from the basset clarinet original, but the performance overall seemed a bit "safe" -- perhaps owing to the fact that the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra conductor didn't seem to be paying much attention to his soloists. </div>
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Eddy Vanoosthuyse gave a rousing performance of McAllister's <i>X </i>with a powerful sound compared to the other two performers, perhaps owing in part to standing at a different angle onstage. Capturing the spirit of the piece, the orchestra was alternately brooding and explosive. With the exception of a little bit of reed trouble, Vanoosthuyse's performance was effective and engaging.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scott McAllister and Eddy Vanoosthuyse</td></tr>
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<br />ClarinetCachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14495739174332944374noreply@blogger.com0