I've fell in love with the Saint-Saens Sonata

that's one piece, well, part of one, I have yet to try.....

Mozart was on the menu again last night, think I've got the twiddly bars sorted now and quite looking forward to playing it to teacher

Me too.

Not much practice today () as both clarinets are in for servicing before orchestra tomorrow( ).

Played a bit of Sax and had ago at some Bass Clarinet exersises - quite happy with going over the break 8/10 times now which is a good improvement!

Out of interest has anybody played the Mendelssohn Concert Piece No. 2, the duet for clarinets and piano? Just wondering what the music was like and if it might be worth purchasing for a pre-Grade 8 playing?

Had a fab time at band last night, new piece - Memory, and best of Buddy Holly etc. Was really enjoyable

Am working on the Sparke concerto at the moment...

Aw it's not that bad b-c, the arrangement we have is quite nice (and I can play it )

How's the Sparke coming on?

Have had a play with some band stuff and a run through of the Mozart twiddly bits to make sure fingers still know what they're doing! That might have to do for today.

Had a go at some of the tricky orchestra bits.
Really need to get the clari out again and have at least a brief look at what I'm meant to sort for lesson in the morning.

Planned all day rehearsal was cancelled due to snow. Managed a couple of sessions on piano as well as one on clari.

I'm not at all a fan of Memory...



Not too badly, thanks! Got movement one under the fingers reasonably now

Did the clari appear today?




excellent

Twice.

Really need to get some practice done tonight, playdays and band practices have somewhat disrupted my practising recently

So do I. Got a session with my accompanist on Thursday.
My day has already been rearranged twice, neither in favour of the practice plans I had.

Bashing through a new piece for fun (procrastinating over the difficult stuff!)

Got my practice done the Mozart is definitely recognisable now

May I ask what piece, Nicki?

I really like the sound of Fresham Pond in the Grade 5 blue book...

Did some work on the pieces I'll be working on with my accompanist tomorrow morning.
This has included listening to the 1st movement of the Mendelssohn Sonata a few times with score in hand to try and get the placement of the clarinet entries in my head. I've previously referred to the score to get an idea of how things fit together but listening helps too.

One recording I have misses huge chunks out!!...and I don't particularly like the recording either... too rushed and the clarinet sound has an edge to it...

I have a CD with the Khatchaturian flute concerto on and it also has the Barber violin concerto, transcribed for flute and orchestra, so I got the Barber. It's beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2ifFuF3FoQ

I've heard Frensham Pond played but not actually tried it, maybe that's one to have a look at as well....




Have fun sbhoa

I know the Barber in violin form, and it is lovely, yes : as is much of his output

Today's list:

scales etc
long tones
The Victorian Kitchen Garden
Saint Saens Sonata

scales etc
long tones
The Victorian Kitchen Garden / /
Saint Saens Sonata (not played any of it yet )

...a feast of gorgous gorgeousness. I'm struggling to get the final movement up to tempo (up to a reasonable tempo) but I love playing this music.

My clarinet practice for the day has been an hour with my accompanist.
That was hard work!
Left the Weber until last as I'm playing it at the Egham concert next week and thought that getting through it at the end of a hard session would be good practice. There were a few good squeaks!

I've just had a revelation
There is a passage in the piece I'm learning which was stubbornly refusing to turn itself into music. We worked on it in my lesson last week but even by the end of my lesson, I was not convinced by the way I was playing it. My teacher told me to stop trying to count it, not to play it with a metronome and to sing it instead. So that's what I've been doing all week - it was marginally better but I still wasn't satisfied.

I've got my lesson tomorrow so I thought I would make sure that it was at least still in time, even if it still wasn't music . To my initial horror, I discovered that I could no longer fit my playing of it to the metronome at all. I then realised that, although it is written in 3/4, if I played it in 6/8 it probably would fit a metronome beat. I slowed the metronome a bit and not only did it fit but it also suddenly sounded like *real* music

I'm just wondering why my teacher didn't tell me to think of those bars in 2 last week and hoping that I'm not completely mistaken

How about opening with 'Why didn't you point out the use of Hemiola?'

Mozart Andante in C
Taffanel Andantino
Saint-Saens Reverie du Soir
....and two really fiendish studies (Telemann / Drouet)


(.....and not one single scale!)

I could, but he'll probably just say he did it deliberately because he is trying to get me out of the habit of over-analysing everything

Either that or he can remember the first time he talked about a "hemiola." I didn't recognise the word pronounced with a French accent (eemeole) and the sentence was along the lines of "you need to think of it as ..." so it wasn't immediately clear that he was talking about rhythm and I decided it was to do with the character of the music I spent the week trying various spellings of the word I thought I'd heard (all without an "h" at the beginning) to no avail The following week I asked him to write the word down and of course once I saw "hemiole", I recognised the word and knew what it meant.

My favourite part is the 3rd movement, with all the deep low notes. The forth movement is a bit of a finger exercise!

I think this may have to come out at tonights lesson...

Today I'm going to practice spelling gorgeous.

Get the first third up to speed and accurate and you'll have cracked most of the technical difficulty in this. Expression is a different beast altogether - in many ways, the third movement is very tricky to make it sound effective.

yes, sometimes I play the third mvt very boringly. My final movement is coming slowly but I want to ensure I keep hold of the accuracy so Im speeding up imperceptibly slowly. Still it doesn't matter how long I take because I love playing such gorgeous music however slowly.

Reading all that makes it so tempting to have a look at it.... However, I'm going to be good and practice what I need to practice

So practice today - couple of bits of the Mozart that I didn't get right yesterday and a bar from a band piece that I've practiced over and over and over again and can play, until it came to playing it solo on Thursday night.... This evening will be spent scouring books for exercises in the higher register.

Had a really good session with my teacher this morning. 2 hours of playing the duet we're playing in March and my diploma pieces. I actually got through a whole piece without her stopping me (which is a miracle as she's so picky!). Just did some flute practice where I was trying to get used to the altissimo fingerings for the dreaded B/Bb major and minor scales and training my brain not to revert to clarinet fingering

Really need to do some before lesson...

Me too. Practice has been shockingly sparse since my last lesson, and next lesson tomorrow.....

Really must polish up Andante in C!

Today I will be trying to coordinate tongue and fingers.
Some metronome practice is indicated I think.

I appears to be the fingers that can't keep up....

have been playing about with parts of the Mozart, done some work on the higher register, didn't sound very good, and looked at some stuff for band tomorrow.

We can compare high notes tomorrow.
Some of mine are a bit hit and miss.

You have understanding neighbours then do you, or are they out tomorrow

P.S. does teacher know about the furry/feathered/scaled/ shelled creatures being delivered tomorrow?

Oh yes. They were her idea in the first place.
She lent me hers to play with a couple of months ago and I liked them so much I decided to adopt some for myself.

Oh good

I'd love to know how this comparison goes

I'm sure one/both of us will inform you of how it goes b-c

not too much of the high notes, learnt a thing or two today though

practice wise, I haven't done anything but I've been to band tonight and played through Symphonic Beatles, Buddy Holly, Send in the Clowns and Memory (sorry b-c )

back to the hard work tomorrow

You did some sight reading.... Of the gift wrapped variety.

I managed a half respectable G more than once.

ugh

Nothing. Again.