The timbre of the cornet lies somewhere between that of the horn and the (natural) trumpet, having the blaring, penetrating quality of the latter without its brilliant noble sonorousness. The great favour with which the cornet meets is due to the facility with which it speaks, to the little fatigue it causes, and to the simplicity of its mechanism. We must, however, regret from the point of view of art that its success has been so great, and that it has ended in usurping in brass bands the place of the bugles, the tone colour of which is infinitely preferable as a foundation for an ensemble composed entirely of brass instruments. Even the symphonic orchestra has not been secure from its intrusion, and the growing tendency in some orchestras, notably in France to allow the cornet to supersede the trumpet, to the great detriment of tone colour, is to be deplored.
Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing (@)
1. Listen to the birds That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.
2. Your guitar is not really a guitar, your guitar is a divining rod Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.
3. Practice in front of a bush Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush dosen't shake, eat another piece of bread.
4. Walk with the devil Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
5. If you're guilty of thinking, you're out If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.
6. Never point your guitar at anyone Your instrument has more clout than lightning. Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.
7. Always carry a church key That's your key-man clause. Like One String Sam. He's one. He was a Detroit street musician who played in the fifties on a homemade instrument. His song "I Need a Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another key to the church is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty-making you want to look up her dress the whole time to see how he's doing it.
8. Don't wipe the sweat off your instrument You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.
9. Keep your guitar in a dark place When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure you put a saucer of water in with it.
10. You gotta have a hood for your engine Keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper around it to make it grow.
"Louis Licks" and XIXth century Cornet Etudes: The Roots of Melodic Improvisation as Seen in the Jazz Style of Louis Armstrong, by Peter Ecklund (PDF). A great article on the connections between the early jazz vocabulary and the "parlor music" of the time.
My practice time is very limited, what with the work, the family, and the commute. I am always trying to squeeze the most out of my daily 40 minutes. The right balance is not easy to find. If I don't play something fun every day, I lose my motivation fast. If I don't work on technique (i.e. scales/arpeggios = boring shit), I don't get better, so I end up playing the same stuff over and over and lose my motivation slowly. Seems like Catch-22.
I did a few transcriptions this year. It started with Badinerie - I wanted to try it and could not find a trumpet adaptation. Then a few more Bach pieces. Then I read somewhere that Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz played Bach's Inventions for Two Voices as duets for alto/tenor saxes; in fact, No.13 in Am is on their London Concert LP, here is is below.
So I tried the Inventions and got hooked. I never thought it possible to pack so much musical education into so few bars of music. Bach himself subtitled his work as follows: "Honest method, by which the amateurs of the keyboard – especially, however, those desirous of learning – are shown a clear way not only (1) to learn to play cleanly in two parts, but also, after further progress, (2) to handle three obligate parts correctly and well; and along with this not only to obtain good inventions (ideas) but to develop the same well; above all, however, to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition." Let me proceed in order: - "to obtain good inventions [...] to develop the same well" These pieces are based on simple short phrases - bits of scales, arpeggios - that are stretched, compressed, inverted, and finally woven into rich tapestries. Each piece is a lesson on thematic development - something every jazz improviser aspires to learn but so few master. It is amazing how much mileage can Bach get out of an eight-note sequence - see, for instance No.1 in C. - "acquire a strong foretaste of composition" I would recommend the Buzoni edition of Inventions, available for free at IMSLP. Each one concludes with a discussion of the form. There is also a book called "An Analytical Survey of the Fifteen Two-Part Inventions by J.S.Bach," I actually have it but have not read much of it. - "to learn to play cleanly in two parts" Of course a monophonic instrument cannot play solo in two parts, but all horns have to be able to play with others - a skill that Arban and other brass instructors address with duets. Bach's Inventions can and should be played as duets. I typed them into Finale and generated audio files every which way - slow, medium, fast; both voices audible or top voice removed - and then used them as a play-along. They are quite challenging to play that way. A lot of Arban duets have voices play similar figures. Here the voices are complementary and opposite: one is fast, the other is slow; one is busy, the other lays out; contrary motion all over the place... I found canons to be the most difficult - when the other voice plays something you played two bars ago, it can really throw you off. These pieces are great for developing the ear and ability to hear counterpoint. - The brass players may not have the technical challenges that the pianists have, but there are definitely a few of our own. These lines were not written with a horn in mind. Bach loves long, flowing phrases with three, four, five bars of consecutive sixteenths and for me, every time it feels like a drowning accident - by the third bar I would turn blue and dizzy and then gulp air like a fish, trying to steady my breath. It does get better with practice, though. - There are also range considerations. Fortunately, Bach's keyboard did not go much beyond C above the staff, and most of the time right hand stays within two-and-a-half octaves. In some pieces, top line can be played right off the score; in others, I transposed it a step down. Even the transposed ones have a few high notes in them - A, always; Bb, often; B, sometimes; C, occasionally. Playing the inventions integrates the high-note practice in a very natural way and since last spring my register expanded and got much stronger at the top. Another aspect is that there are plenty of runs from one extreme to the other and sudden jumps of an octave or even more. These things are avoided in the beginner's studies because they are difficult - not a consideration for Bach, obviously. Here they are naturally integrated into a bigger piece, which makes them easier to practice - at least the point of doing it is obvious; the jumps are there because of the inner logic of the line. - Another challenge for me is the aural training. I am trying to memorize them and sing them along with the bass line. Of course, this is not specific to Bach. I find the Inventions to be very different in difficulty - some get imprinted in my mind very quickly, others I keep struggling with. Interestingly, the ones I find more attractive - and easier - are the minor inventions: Em, Cm, Am are the ones I learned already. Many of the major ones seem like a jumble of notes; I am now wrestling with No.3 in D. - Not a challenge, but a side benefit for someone learning the inventions is that, unlike the trumpet etudes etc., these can be heard. There is a multitude of recordings out there that can be played over and over for fine details of interpretation and articulation. I heard several and my favorites are Gould and Peter Serkin.
This all sounds rather difficult, and it is. When I first looked at No.1 in C, or, worse yet, a beautiful but very hard No.13 in Am, I was really intimidated. However, the challenges are varied enough to stay interesting: once I get tired of trying to hit that high C at tempo, I can focus on breathing, or try to sing along with the bass line, or simply listen to Gould ripping through them. And the lines themselves are really beautiful.
Derek Bailey speaking on the same topic as Glenn Gould in Improvisation, Its Nature and Practice in Music - great book, BTW (long quote behind the jump)
There seem to be two main attitudes to the instrument among improvisors. One is that an instrument is man’s best friend, both a tool and a helper; a collaborator. The other attitude is that an instrument is unnecessary, at worst a liability, intruding between the player and his music.
There is a multitude of lists compiling top ten trumpeters; who is the fastest, highest, most soulful, underappreciated, overrated, this, that, and the other... But I am yet to see a a list of the favorite brass bands. Let me step up with my nominations.
Fanfare Ciocarlia - Gili Garabdi Subtitled "Ancient Secrets of Gypsy Brass," this album brings the Balkan brass tradition to the new century. A few recognizable covers - James Bond Theme, Caravan - are thoroughly balkan-ized, while even the most traditional of Horas and Sirbas have unexpected quotes bubbling to the surface (e.g. a glimpse of Pink Panther Theme in Hora Evreiasca). There are Balkan bands that are more authentic, playing more odd-metered dances and less pop fare (Slonovski Bal), there are some with a more virtuosic playing (Boban Markovic Orkestar), featuring a fiery frontman - but there are none that can compare with Fanfare Ciocarlia in their single-minded pursuit of getting people to dance.
Брасс Белые Ночи - Ретро в Советах (White Nights Brass - Soviet Retro) Here's an obscure one. I love it not for being groundbreaking and revelatory, but for faithfully and lovingly recreating a dying - or, rather, stone-cold dead - tradition of Russian brass bands of the early XXth century. I believe they play not just the right tunes - waltzes, marches, tangos - but the original charts. There are no attempts to modernize the sound in any way except for the modern recording quality. Each voice comes through clear and strong, the fine dynamic shadings are not buried under scratches, boxy sound, and poor remastering. Extra points for the prominent use of baritone - used not just for oom-pah-pah, but as a leading voice. Grab it if you can find it.
Bollywood Brass Band - Bollywood Brass Band I don't think I can give the background to this any better than the article East Meets West Meets East Meet... I'd like to include it in my list for a few reasons. This album is one of many that led me to picking up trumpet. It was not necessarily a major life-changing influence, but at some point I realized that most of the music I listen to have a brass section, and this disc was definitely on the horizon. Secondly, like Fanfare Ciocarlia above, it has the same fine balance between being reasonably authentic yet palatable to Western ears. Thirdly, it is really as good as much of the conventional brass band music, yet different and unique. I guess it can be interpreted as "my music taste is hipper than yours" selection :)
Honorable mention: The Brass Company - Colors [1974] 36 years old; also, not really from a brass band tradition but more of an overgrown modern jazz combo. From the fact that it came out on Strata-East and from the affiliations of the players, some classify it as "spiritual/deep jazz." Anyway, great music, very adventurous harmonically, and also features my new favorite player Charles Tolliver. Great stuff!
We were at our friends the other day and got to flip through a reproduction of a 1900 Sears Roebuck catalog, full of puzzling and amusing retro marvels. The fashion section all bristling with mustaches, the medical pages with a $0.75 "Reliable Cure For the Opium And Morphia Habit" and "vegetable cure for female weakness," livestock section with unspeakable contraptions for embryotomy (real word) and deballment etc.etc. And then I got to the musical instruments, which had me completely mystified. The picture above (from Horn-u-copia) is not from the 1900 catalog, but has most of the items. What a marvel of variety! Eb cornet, Bb cornet, C cornet, solo Eb alto, circular alto, bell-up alto, Bb tenor, Bb baritone, Bb bass, Eb bass, Eb contrabass, and any number of trombones.
Now, it took me forever to figure out the brass nomenclature, but I thought I had it sorted: Bb piccolo and a variety of high trumpets in D, Eb, F, A - Bb cornet or trumpet - Eb alto/tenor/mellophone (UK vs US terminology) - Bb baritone/euphonium (one octave below trumpet) - Bb tuba (two octaves below trumpet) - Eb tuba. Now the catalog is messing it up. What the hell is a Bb tenor? Is it the same Bb as baritone, but smaller bore? then why is it grouped with alto? Or is it an octave below trumpet and baritone yet another octave lower? That seems unlikely, given there is is also a bass (another octave lower) and a contrabass, which should boldly cross the lower human perception limits and also be pretty damn hard to play.
Another mystery is - why did all they all go extinct? They used to be common enough to be put in a catalog with bicycles and women's fashions. Now, I doubt one in a thousand even knows the word mellophone or can identify a baritone by name; not even musicians recognize it in my hands. Horn-u-copia also has a pdf with Sears catalog scans spanning 1897-1963, and you can clearly trace the rise and fall of brass. 1908 page has the most variety. Several trumpet models appear in 1927, but alto, baritone and bass are now confined to a footnote and "are unmailable", there is no tenor, solo alto, or contrabass. In 1937 there is but one trumpet, one cornet, and one trombone, ditto 1956 and 1963. What a loss!
PS: A mystery revealed! From Bob Beecher site: The tenor and the baritone horn were both pitched in Bb (B-flat). Studying illustrations from early makers' catalogs, they also appear about the same size, except that the tenor horn has slightly narrow tubing - or a smaller bore - and a quicker flare at the bell. These differences affect the timbre of the instrument, giving the tenor horn a brighter sound. So, although it may play in the same range as the baritone, the tenor horn will not sound quite the same. Somewhere along the way, the names Tenor and Baritone Horn evolved into Baritone and Euphonium, respectively.
I don't want to turn this blog into a freak show, but this is too good to pass up:
A carved wooden French horn:
The inquiring minds want to know - how does it play? The maker speaks: not very good to tell you the truth. It marginally worked, and the valves do register different notes. As I build more instruments and experiment with different woods, I imagine I will eventually discover a combination that makes it sound better. But just refining my technique so I can build them with thinner tubes makes a big difference on sound. He also made a semi-playable wooden trombone and plans for a tuba and a trumpet.
Now, a real instrument - a borosilicate glass trombone:
I think this horn ended up costing me at least three times its real price, and probably more. It was an impulse eBay buy, and then "just needs a little oil" turned into a $200 valve repair. On top of that it has a European-size lead pipe, needing a special mouthpiece - trumpet shank, but shorter (of course it came with a wrong one). So, custom-cut conical Parduba mouthpiece (6½ double-cup) = more money. I actually sold my guitar to cover the repairs. Even then it's not perfect - the intonation is uneven, I have to keep the third slide pulled halfway out.
Nonetheless, I am not bitter. I had it since May and I still cannot get over just how cool this thing is. It used to be lacquered, but now it's all raw brass except inside the bell; large, heavy, awkward, totally steampunk thing - look at the the valves in the last pic. Sometimes I feel like just sitting and quietly holding it in my arms. I used to think I have an incomplete Y chromosome, missing the gene that confers the ability to tell front- from rear-wheel drive... but I guess my gear obsession gene is still expressed, just in a different way. Good people at Oakland's A&G Repair, namely Brian, replaced the valve springs, cleaned and lubed the whole assembly, so the valves are superfast and supersmooth. I find it easier to play throughout the entire register on this thing than on my trumpet, and I expected it to be the opposite - flugels are notoriously hard to control above the high G. I think it might be the mouthpiece. I read about double cup before and thought it was a gimmick, but maybe not... And, of course, the sound, the sound! deep V mp + extra-wide conical bore = deep, dark, mellow.
A thread on Lidl Flugels on the TrumpetMaster board - people mostly say good things. Not everyone is happy with Lidls, though: Of course, there are good rotary trumpets and bad ones, just like with piston trumpets. I've bought a number of poor ones on eBay, all antiques, mostly from Czechoslovakia. - from Youtube comments
Monday, August 16, 2010
Canon 1 à 2 from J. S. Bach's Musical Offering (1747) being turned into a Moebius strip, then played in two directions at the same time.
By the way, I looked through Russo's Composing - A New Approach; many of the exercises deal with resource limitation - i.e. a cell, a row (using only certain notes of the scale and/or in a certain order), composing with only a certain rhythm etc. I was playing Bach's Bourrée in E minor the other day and realized the whole thing is written with a single simple rhythm throughout (quarter-eighth-eighth-quarter-eighth-eighth). He probably wasn't doing a "resource limitation exercise", just writing a tune with the bourree dance rhythm, but it came out as a perfect example of how much you can accomplish with extremely limited means.
There is much confusion as to nomenclature of the various instruments in different languages. ...most instruments referred to today as flügelhorns are actually soprano saxhorns. @ In truth, the flugelhorn has been extinct for some time. @
...we long ago let the "real" trumpet (the natural trumpet as used in the Baroque Period) be replaced by a soprano valve trombone, and that today's orchestras and bands are missing what could be a gorgeous additional voice, the true trumpet. @
The modern Bb trumpet is not a trumpet... The real Bb trumpet, in fact, is and always has been the Eb contra-alto trumpet whose useable range is identical to the Bb cornet. @
Torricelli’s trumpet is obviously not a ‘real’ trumpet, it is a 2D surface which is described by the equation x2(y2+z2)-1 = 0, x belongs to [1,∞) and can be formed by rotating the curve xy=1 around the x axis by 2π. @
By the way, a bazooka is not only a weapon, but also a wind instrument!
While a trumpet is not only an instrument, but sometimes a weapon: Musical Instrument Adapted to Emit a Controlled Flame
This trumpet includes a gas cartridge and spark mechanism triggered by the musician. The gas is routed so that a flame is emitted from the bell of the instrument. @@
Fortunately, a few people listed their choices for the most underrated players; two I will have to check out are Carmel Jones and Dizzy Reece; honorable mention for Claudio Roditi and Don Ellis, whom I know and like.
P.S. My favorite trumpet players would be Clifford Brown, Fats Navarro, Armstrong, Buck Clayton, and possibly Art Farmer. I like Don Ellis' recordings and Mulligan/Baker Quartet, but not necessarily for the trumpet playing; ditto Jazz Messengers.
My main horn as of right now. I think is is the "original" Collegiate from '62, and not the later T602 model. Repeatedly named as a sleeper on the trumpet discussion boards, so I figured I should check it out. This was an eBay buy of $130 including shipping - all oxidized, missing two finger buttons, broken case etc.etc. I gave it a CLR bath and good cleaning, got the replacement buttons from an online shop that should remain unnamed (took me a month of emails and phone calls to get them to ship it), replaced the spit valve corks and the felt/cork rings, and under the grime and rust it was a sleeper indeed. Great valves, great response. Raw brass; looks like the lacquer was stripped. Switching from an Olds Ambassador, it felt like my range immediately expanded by a minor third. Later I came to suspect that the top notes on the Olds were so unsteady because I was using a Bach 7C, not the original Olds mouthpiece, which makes it much nicer to play. With this one I tried a few mouthpieces and settled on a Holton 24 with a deep V cup. It's a mystery gadget I bought by accident, unlisted anywhere and unlike any other trumpet mouthpiece I ever seen. In fact, it looks the most like a vintage cornet mouthpiece; when they talk about getting "the true dark and mellow cornet sound", deep V is usually suggested. I have a Holton 1 mp with the same cup design - a short-shank cornet piece I got with a 1918 Conn that would be a subject of a future posting. It is said that deep V makes the top notes more difficult to control; that is certainly true with some trumpets, but not so much on this one. The high notes may indeed be a little bit harder to control, but the rest of the register gains so much stability and richness of sound, that it's a perfectly worthy trade-off.
I am using an Olds case for the Holton, BTW. They are the same dimensions, but the valves are almost an inch closer to the player on the Holton. I think I want to try a Holton Collegiate cornet, too.
A collection of the compositions by Ornette Coleman, edited and transcribed by Gunther Schuller. Includes Bird Food, Chronology, Congeniality (with a transcribed solo), Face of the Bass, Focus on Sanity, Forerunner, Free, Lonely Woman, Peace, Una Muy Bonita. These are off of The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) or Change of the Century (1960) LPs.
A great little book from the leading British exponent of HIP. About half of it is on trumpet history, with chapters on natural trumpet, slide trumpet, keyed bugle, cornetto, valve development etc.etc. - everything but vuvuzela. Great reading for a gear buff. The author performs on them all and even restores and makes replicas of historical instruments.
In chapter 15, "Detailed Preparations", he describes the process of recording Haydn and Hummel trumpet concertos on the keyed trumpet: six months of constant gear tweaking and technique polishing to achieve modern precision and evenness of tone across the register on a baroque instrument. Reading it made me question the whole "authentic performance" concept. I very much doubt that back in 1800s Weidinger or any other contemporary would go through all this trouble; rather, a true authentic performance would have the sour notes, funky intonation, warts and all - especially since there were no microphones to pick up the fine nuances of tone and no recordings for repeated close listening.
Another interesting point: ...the author is anxious to encourage aspiring recitalists to master the techniques of various members of the trumpet family and to alternate between them both in practice and performance so that their audience may enjoy a varied repertoire from different historical periods, and may also appreciate the spectacle as much as the different sounds experienced. (pg.123)
This runs contrary to a lot of folk wisdom I come across - see, for instance, a discussion on hornplayer.net about horn chops ruined by doubling on trombone or trumpet or this entry on the Horn Matters blog. I like playing different instruments and was a little worried about "ruining the embouchure". It definitely feels funny switching from baritone to trumpet directly... I guess the word on the long-term effects of doubling is still out.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Yesterday I went to the cemetery, visiting my grandparents before the Father's Day etc. Afterwards I wandered around a bit, looking at the gravestones, and came across one with this:
My first reaction: haha, that's clever! Upon some reflection: Do I want to use my gravestone for inside jokes? Do I want people to say "haha that's clever" when they look on my grave? I am not entirely sure... But I still think it is quite clever indeed.
In addition to obvious designs like shewhorn's bell-on-the-side and Marco Blaauw's trumpet with an extra Dizzy-style upturned bell, there is also Courtois "bell-over-bell" system (not sure how it works, though). Ben Neill has a three-bell "mutantrumpet" stuffed with electronics.
Here's a second invention from Bach's 15 Two-Part Inventions. For trumpet and baritone, i.e. left hand written in treble clef an octave up. Transposed to B minor - it defeats Bach's instructional purpose of a musical piece for every key, but since I am not doing all of them, it does not matter. Voices together or separate. The last five bars of left hand (the baritone part) are also transposed an octave up, as they were out of range.
Here's a brass quartet arrangement of Bach's Durch Adam's Fall ist ganz verderbt for two trumpets, Eb mellophone (sheet music says "horn in F", but it's an artifact of Finale), and baritone, separate parts. Horn and baritone parts are written in treble clef an octave up. TTC's lectures on Bach specifically mentioned this chorale, a dissonant, chromatic work. According to the lectures, "the sinuous, winding tenor line represents the serpent" etc.
A piano transcription, played by Markus Becker and also a string quartet arrangement by Quartetto Italiano di Viole da Gamba:
I took my kids to Musee Mechanique today, "one of the world’s largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines". Jukeboxes are cool! Also, they have dioramas in a range of sizes and degrees of complexity - some really crude and some rather fancy and elaborate, with many characters and scenes. There was a diorama of a fair, with shooting gallery, an acrobat, concession stands, freak show, Ferris wheel, and a brass band. I snapped it with my phone.
The quality is regrettable, but still you can see: four clarinetists on the left of the conductor, four trumpets - notably, not cornets - on the right (only three are visible in the pic), then in the back row - flute, snare drum, bass drum, sousaphone, euphonium, tuba, two trombones, and in the middle no less than three mellophone players! These are not French horns, since they are played with right hand and the left one is not in the bell.
Last year I wanted to get me a new instrument. Window-shopping for trumpets is no fun - they all look the same. But then I came across one that is different: a Couturier Conical Bore Bb/A Trumpet. I was really fascinated: conical bore, takes a cornet mouthpiece, and especially the Bb-to-A switch valve... But when it came, somehow we did not click. I cannot explain it well, I just did not like it enough (maybe just not enough to pay $700) - so it went back. Around that time I put in an eBay search filter for "Couturier," and one day a mellophone in Eb came up. Now if the trumpet is unusual, this thing's freak factor is off the scale. I could not resist. It cost me $100 including shipping, and I spent 75 more fixing it: frozen slide, broken water key, mouthpiece replating. I think the repair people were rather puzzled as to who would want an instrument like that and why. One thing with the Couturier instruments - conical bore means none but the tuning slide are removable. OTOH, the inclined design means all the oil, spit, and grease goes directly into the slides and accumulates there. I had to soak and clean it out three times before it lost that godawful smell; the cleaning was rather tricky too - getting the snake into the slides from inside the pistons etc. Now it's perfectly playable and indeed rather nice. The only problem is it's missing a case. My wife tossed out the original case for it stank out the house and was really beyond salvaging. The french horn cases are expensive and don't fit too well.
So, how does it play? I think it plays great. It does sound like a horn - maybe not exactly, but much more like a horn than an oversized Eb trumpet. It could be the overall "horn" shape and the conical bore, but also the mouthpiece, which is a lot closer to the horn V-shape than to a regular trumpet mouthpiece. Above the staff the notes get rather tricky - G is OK, A is difficult. I wasn't sure what to play on it, though. I did a two trumpets/mellophone/baritone arrangement of Bach's Durch Adam's Fall and practiced the horn line for a bit. Now I am thinking it will work great with the real horn repertoire; I think I'll try Mozart's horn concertos. Mozart's manuscript contains bizarre scatological comments addressed to the horn player - can you beat that?
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
I did no new transcriptions lately. Maybe I'll use this space for gear talk. I'll write about my own instruments, but for starters here's something I was watching on eBay just now. "Vintage Rotary Valve Cornet". I came across it looking at various rotary valved brass and thought it looked cute. Made by Hail & Quiney in Boston; the internets know not of them. The starting price was $9.99, which is, you know, a fair price for a piece of no-name scrap metal. I figured I'll grab it if there would be no takers - would make a nice wall hanger. I saved the pics, here are a few:
Anyway, 15 minutes ago the bidding closed at $2,550.00. I guess quite a few people thought it was cute and would make a good wall hanger. Granted, it's in remarkably good shape for an antique, but two and a half grand! WTF? Who are these Hail and Quiney? Some legendary instrument makers? I think I will go into an antique instrument forgery business.
I was reading about Lennie Tristano the other day. His students/bandmembers Warne March and Lee Konitz sometimes opened the gigs by playing Bach's two-part inventions arranged for two saxes. I tried to do a brass arrangement; unfortunately, it's impossible to do for two trumpets, as the pieces span a range over an octave greater than trumpet's range. However, the first one works nicely for trumpet and baritone/euphonium (I choose from the instruments I have and can play). Only the last D of bar 6 is out of range; I transposed the whole phrase (last two beats of bar 6, b-c-d-D) as I wanted to preserve that octave leap. I guess it can also work for trumpet/trombone or various saxophone combinations. Here it is: both voices together or separate voices. Note they are written in C, so if played by a Bb trumpet, they would sound in concert Bb.
A stock show-off piece for flautists. It's catchy, fast, and high, and so is also a favorite for trumpet players. I have versions by Alison Balsom, Ole Edvard Antonsen, and Maurice André, who all seem to compete as to who can play it the fastest and the highest. I transcribed it for trumpet from the full score, moving it down from Bmin to Gmin. Transcription
I will include an Alison Balsom version, which I really like, and also a version by Altamiro Carrilho, who plays it as a choro, dramatically slower and groovier; an approach opposite from everyone else, but I think it works great.
This is from Chorinhos Didaticos para Flauta, a collection of etudes in the choro style by Altamiro Carrilho, a notable Brazilian flutist. Chorinho No.1, trumpet transcription (i.e. transposed down a fifth). I hope to do more as I make my way through the book; might add a backing track in the future.
An obscure choro piece, works nicely as an etude. This transcription is in concert pitch, but for trumpet it might be easier to play the notes as written. Transcription
Jay Lichtmann's most excelent site with a wealth of sheet music for trumpet, trombone, and brass ensembles, including trumpet transcriptions of Bach's first three Unaccompanied Cello Suites @. There's also a full transcription for trombone with a very thorough commentary article at Doug Yeo's site. I am not nearly advanced enough to play the Cello Suite transcriptions, so instead I am listening to as many versions as I can. So far the interpretation I like the most are Edgar Meyer's double bass transcriptions. He treats the dances as dances, with a steady pulse underneath. Most of the trad cellists play them rubato, one phrase at a time, which makes it difficult for me to follow. Pablo Casals, the presumably greatest-of-them-all godfather of Bach's Cello Suites, really goes overboard with this approach, so it sounds more like a free jazz solo than anything else - try dancing a menuet or allemande to Casals and you'll break your legs. I also got a pile of other cello versions as well as a transcription for guitar and another one for flute (only the first three, though). Alison Balsom does Sarabande and Gigue from the second suite on her Bach For Trumpet album, and they are OK - she arpeggiates the chords, which must be crazy difficult to play and doesn't sound so good, IMHO. Now I want to hear the suites on marimba!
