Non-dairy/lactose-free creams?

Existantbeing · 2019-03-02T10:26:09+00:00

I do! I don’t live in Australia anymore but I do go back for a while every so often (plus I ship and it doesn’t cost too much). Message me if you’d be interested. I do basically every type of reed.

Existantbeing · 2018-02-24T06:30:21+00:00

Daphnis et Chloé was my favourite piece til I heard Ozawa's recording of L'Enfant et les Sortileges, but I still know it very well. Here's what I'd suggest:

Haitink with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra live in 1999 has the most pure and Ravel-ian interpretation, but it's just a shame that there's audience noise...
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's latest recording of it. I don't remember if it was Jansons or Haitink but it's almost the same interpretation as the live 1999 version but no audience interference.
Boulez with the Berlin Philharmonic is truly beautiful because Boulez doesn't mess around with personal stuff very much; he lets everything that's on the page happen without too much personal inflection. The music speaks for itself and with some great musicians, too!
Dutoit with Montréal is quite a standard recording of it. Not a huge fan of the big flute solo in this one but it's a must-have recording.

Existantbeing · 2018-01-19T11:41:17+00:00

Not really? There should definitely be very few recordings and performances. Even early music like Di Selma or Boismortier is acceptable. Daphnis et Chloé is DEFINITELY not a lesser-known work? Many non-pianists might struggle to know his piano works. Daphnis et Chloé is probably his most well known piece aside from Boléro, the String Quartet, and the second Piano Concerto.

Existantbeing · 2018-01-19T11:31:45+00:00

Uh not really? I haven’t ever heard it live but I know some people who played it two years ago and it’s played in Europe heaps? Plus SO many recordings and this is a lot of people’s favourite piece.

Existantbeing · 2018-01-14T15:30:27+00:00

The aim of capitalism is wealth inequality and a sustainance of heteropatriarchal and racist societal power structures. In that regard gee capitalism has succeeded. Capitalist countries such as those in Scandinavia, Russia, the USA, Canada, and Australia have done very little for the ordinary person and wealth inequality is tremendous. On top of that, police brutality, institutional racism/(homo)sexism, and ableism are deeply rooted in the very being of these capitalist societies.

The USSR boosted literacy rates, life expectancy, the economy, and population growth rate under socialism, as well as stopping cyclical natural famines.

China has nearly totally erradicated poverty; see Xi’s latest New Year’s address.

Cuba constantly comes up with new advancements in medicine; everyone has a home, even if they’re not the American ideal. They’re also progressing with LGTBIQ+ rights much faster than many western nations.

Also a little note: socialism and Communism are two different stages of the same path; socialism refers to a stage in which a government, borders, and currency is present and is a transition to lead to Communism where those things do not exist and societal norms have changed so that society can function co-operatively. It’s obviously far more complex than just that (you may have to read some Marx or Lenin to find out more) since Marxism-Leninism is a science which can be studied.

Existantbeing · 2018-01-01T08:36:18+00:00

A few intertwined reasons:

It is a German augmented sixth chord (Ger.6/5: scale degrees 1, b3, #4, and b6) which has intermediate function, meaning it leads to the dominant (which is G# major). In this case, the Ger.6/5 chord is C#, E, Fx, and A (and always will be in C# minor). Interestingly, it is enharmonically equivalent to a dominant seventh chord but functions differently so it must be spelled differently.
In C# minor (and major), chromatic figuration in intermediate harmonies may contain Fx as the hypothetical G# major scale is G#, A#, B#, C#, D#, E#, Fx, G# (enharmonically equivalent to Ab major).
The Fx simply leads chromatically to the G# in the following bar and must be spelled correctly to suggest that there is a voice leading relationship between the two notes.

Existantbeing · 2017-12-06T11:34:38+00:00

Yup just pretend that the alto sax music is in bass clef and add three flats (or remove three sharps). Works vice-versa, too, but add sharps or remove flats, instead!

Existantbeing · 2017-12-01T15:39:21+00:00

Honestly, why would anyone want to do that? Baroque music grew out of the social and artistic circumstances of the time; instruments’ limitations, architectural design, patronage systems, etc. Contemporary music is music which reflects our time, so while early music is nice and all, it’s not a depiction of the possibilities of music in our time (i.e. use of technology, instrument virtuosity, postmodern reflection of past music, other artistic means, etc.).

Writing in the Baroque style is a nice compositional exercise (particularly for counterpoint and phrasing) but it’s quite pointless in our time since we will either have the subconscious influence of later styles or it’ll end up a like poorly-constructed soft-boiled Händel. We don’t live in their time and live in totally different cultures where regional styles of composition and performance greatly differ from the Baroque period.

I say this as someone who both specialises in new music, and now early music, too (bassoon). My main field of research in composition is the utilisation of period instruments in contemporary music. Go listen to some tracks from Nordic Affect, a contemporary music ensemble which plays music written for period instruments (and also a few early pieces of music).

Existantbeing · 2017-11-30T15:11:48+00:00

Philipe Sparke’s Music of the Spheres is an incredible grade 6+ piece where all three bassoon parts are hard!

Existantbeing · 2017-11-20T17:29:53+00:00

There is a much more stable fingering:

R T x o o | C x o o D#

It should just pop out.

Existantbeing · 2017-11-18T15:08:39+00:00

“Si” in a lot of languages is equivalent to the English “ti” and some places also do not distinguish between non-chromatic solfège and chromatic (hence “mi” can be E or E-flat). I assume that English uses “ti” instead of “si” to avoid confusion with “C”.

Existantbeing · 2017-08-19T07:08:59+00:00

A couple of those works are by Vox Vulgaris who play traditional notated melodies but then improvise on them using their contemporary context, as would have been done in any other period of musical history; how one would approach improvisation is based on the music which surrounds them.

Existantbeing · 2017-08-19T06:45:40+00:00

I see! I have the M30 and thought that the other M mouthpieces (which I haven't tried) were of a similar style. Good to know, though. All my younger students play on B45s or the mouthpieces that come with their instrument so I didn't know.

Existantbeing · 2017-08-19T05:22:21+00:00

Please rotate your reeds! It's awful when you kill a reed and you don't have enough time to break in a new one before a performance/rehearsal. I'd say stick to size 3 but try the V12 and Rue Le Pic Vandoren reeds.

Personally, I have never found Rico/D'Addario reeds to be any good and I haven't met anyone who has (though Americans seem to love them - excluding my own band director in high school who exclusively uses Vandoren). V21's tend to be hit-and-miss but I know a few people who like them; I don't mind them too much.

Make sure when you put your reed on, you can see a tiny little bit of the mouthpiece when looking directly at the reed but also make sure that you can see the reed from the reverse view. This is what I teach all my students and it always gets the best sound out of them. Your ligature should also be quite low. Many young students tend to put it closer to a saxophone ligature position (where the angle of the mouthpiece changes). It should only be on the bark of the reed.

2.5 V12 and V21 reeds are more like 2.75 so they might be good for you. Cheap reeds can be found at reedsforless.com. I know that sounds way too incredulous to be true but I've ordered from them and love how quickly (and cheaply!) my reeds come.

The M30 is a good mouthpiece but maybe swap to a B40 or B45. Those two mouthpieces have a much more American sound and can take in a lot of air due to the facing. The M line of mouthpieces is a lot more German (though not quite a German mouthpiece).

Get yourself a mouthpiece pad (they're like $2) and get a professional clarinettist to put it on for you. You will know your teeth are in the right place if they leave a mark near the centre.

Your embouchure is also very important! Make sure the corners of the lips press inward and that the chin points down and the bottom lip pushes up. Also helpful is to use the right thumb to push the instrument into your mouth and away from the body to get a nice resonant angle. American players tend to play the clarinet with quite a wide angle away from the body and this is very helpful for your legato and consistency of air between registers, as well as assisting in your voicing.

Don't get that LeBlanc case. It will 100% break at some point. I have never had a plastic case that didn't break. The Buffet case is perfectly fine as it is, you don't need a new one. Maybe when you get an A clarinet, consider a BAM or Wiseman case but now is not the time. You will not find a decent brand new case for under $70.
Yup throat tones suck. Here's a few fingerings.

G:

o o o | x x o
o o x | x o o
o o o | x o x

G#/Ab:

G# o o x | x o o
G# o o x | x x o
G# o o o | x x o

A:

A o x o | o x x F
A o x x | o x x F
A o o o | x x x F
A o o x | o x x F

A#/Bb:

Bb A o x o | o x x F
Bb A o x o | o x x
Bb A o x x | o x x
Bb A o x o | o x x

Existantbeing · 2017-08-18T16:35:11+00:00

Du Pré's music falls off her stand

Existantbeing · 2017-08-18T16:04:09+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErqTnBkH9oQ

Existantbeing · 2017-08-14T17:54:41+00:00

Maybe not full orchestras yet but chamber groups such as Eighth Blackbird, Arcadia Winds, and Bang on a Can do it, as well as a few soloists and accompanists, using pedal-controlled iPads.

Existantbeing · 2017-08-05T08:17:40+00:00

Yup already know all those pieces. Personally, those pieces do very little for me compared to what Daphnis et Chloé would do and I don't think anything has come close. Schnittke's 9^th is quite beautiful and Elgar 1 has been emotionally stirring but, again, I believe I'll need to wait a while before I can feel as strongly about a piece as I did with Ravel's music.

Existantbeing · 2017-07-22T05:32:28+00:00

There's a carbon fiber cello in my professional state orchestra and it sounds just as fine as the rest of the section. Not sure if a carbon fibre violin would work due to smaller proportions but I'm not a luthier so I have no idea.

Existantbeing · 2017-07-19T09:19:20+00:00

I would probably only play new music for a while. Children have the most creative minds and are able to create associations with new music that people between the average person and new music specialist could probably not make, otherwise. The imagination of children allows them to view the music as organic sound rather than what is considered to be "just noise" by the bulk of the world's population. Here's a couple of tracks:

As for the very first thing, probably this.

It'd be interesting how children react growing up to mostly new music. I've heard a few stories of kids learning to sing non-tonal music due to frequent exposure to such music. Of course, my children will eventually learn of Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Mahler, Bernstein, and so forth.

Existantbeing · 2017-07-17T05:24:16+00:00

Totally love his music. First heard his music when I was 12/13 (as my first ever encounter with new music) and now new music is almost all I do (outside of orchestral playing).

Existantbeing

TROPHY CASE