Instrument Players - Come and chat (Part III)

[CoteDAzur]

We continue our musical journey on the 3rd thread for amateur adult instrument players

Here is our 1st thread and
here's the 2nd one.

Tintini yes, a digital organ, not a gigantic pipe organ! One with 2 or 3 manuals and pedals.

I know what you mean about Lisitsa's wavy hands vio. I like her when she plays fast and furious pieces.

I finally dug out my audition rep pieces! 😂 Just going to go for it. I think I might sneakily timetable practise in to my teaching timetables or something. Btw, anyone who is hankering after a harpsichord, have you thought about a spinet instead? Smaller and cheaper. You can stick it in the corner and pretend it's an elaborate plant pot stand or something. Great for practising Bach etc. I had one as a teenager (think my mum's given it away now though...)

Vio - I found the spinet a frustrating experience, but I would LOVE a virginal! They are also relatively small, but their sound is amazing.

Hello all, I'm on the 50 Bookers thread with Cote who suggested I come and join you here.

I adore baroque music and this year decided I wanted to re-learn the alto recorder with the aim of being able to play Bach's Badinerie. I am reasonably proficient on the descant and tenor recorders but am finding the transition to alto fingering quite tricky!

I played trumpet, flute and clarinet as a child, took a few ABRSM exams but stopped after A-Levels kicked in.

And can I admit to loving scales?! Minors and chromatics especially...

Hello MogTheSleepyCat!

I know someone who plays the recorder and she goes around with a huge bag full of recorders of all sizes. It's amazing!

Hi Mog. Welcome

The baroque recorder has such an amazing sound! I don't think I'd be good at it but it's such a pleasure to listen to.

Hello Mog

I like recorders and have a few. I find it very hard to get my head around the alto (that's the same as treble - right?) after so many years of descant and flute fingering. It's so hard to re-train my brain. When I was in a recorder group at school I used to play treble but cheat and write all the music out for descant fingering. I wonder why the notes are always written as they sound, unlike for transposing instruments like saxophone? Why is it made so hard for recorder players?!?

Hello, please may I join? I play double bass, piano and recorder, trying to keep up my skills and orchestral playing with life in the way!
Mog - yes the treble/ alto is so confusing! I remember I was taught descant, then expected to just pick up treble. I can play from the music, but if you said "play an E" I'd be stuck as I only ever learnt symbol on page - > fingering, not symbol - >note - > fingering

Welcome to our merry band of amateur musicians

I had a lovely piano lesson yesterday (they're always lovely actually, I really enjoy my lessons). My teacher suggested some very effective articulation for the Handel gigue I'm learning, and it's really made the piece come alive. I love that I'm at the level now where we can properly discuss things like interpretation and expression, rather than him just telling me what to do. Obviously he has vastly more experience than me, but he humours me....

Bakedpotatoandgin hello - i bought a double bass off a friend when her daughter gave up and am trying to teach myself a bit (can’t find a teacher). I love it!

Oh and congratulations fluke - just seen you got a merit

Fluke - Which Handel Gigue are you working on?

I'd love to hear what your teacher said re interpretation.

Cote it's the fifth mvt of the suite no8 in F minor, hwv 433. He suggested staccato on the anacrusis, then for each bar slur the first and second quaver, staccato the third, slur fourth and fifth, staccato sixth. Continue that pattern with the lh when the rh had Erin's of semi quavers. Does that make sense? Makes it lovely and light.

Runs, not Erin's!

Hopefully you can make out the pencil markings in this

Fluke - Pencil markings are good - slur for two first notes and then staccato for the last in every 3-note group, as is usual in a Gigue, which is a fast dance in 2 beats.

I have other concerns about those first few bars, though:

• Tempo: One can't set the beat to Crochets in Ternary music! The normal tempo for a Gigue is Dotted Crochet = 100 to 120.

• Ornaments in Baroque are very strict and the explanation of a Trill (tr.) in your sheet music is wrong. That is how you would play a Cadence (see photo). Trolls alternate only 2 notes, starting from the note above the one that's written, and continue for the duration of the note (Crochet in this case) (again, see photo).

Oops I just saw that there's a tiny dot after the crochet in your photo, so it's indeed setting the tempo to dotted crochet

However in that case, the indicated tempo is too slow. You can't play a Gigue at 76/beat. That's nearly as slow as an Allemande, which is one of the slowest Baroque dances! Here is the page on Gigue tempo from my book of "Rules of Musical Interpretation in the Baroque Era", which says the slowest a Gigue is played has to be at Dotted Crochet = 100.

And for reference, here is that Gigue in my Barënreiter Urtext (historically informed, original) edition.

Courderoy - that's brilliant! I love it so much, it has given me so many social opportunities (and the odd professional one as female bassists are very rare and occasionally needed). The Yorke minibass books are really good, even though they're designed for kids. They have diagrams for posture etc and introduce the techniques really well

Ps if you use a stool, please make it one where both feet touch the floor or you could mess your back up like I did

Hi everyone. My teacher's suggested doing an exam so I'm all in a quandary. I feel like I've done enough exams in my life and when I did music exams as a teenager they were the worst! And beyond that I sort of feel a bit aggrieved about exams because I missed a lot things that I now regard as important - ie all the aspects of music that weren't examined!

But maybe if I did it I would feel confident that I'd reached a certain level and it would be nice? Or be able to rid myself of my 'music exam baggage'?

If you do exams, do you like them and what do you get out of them?

I do exams every year. I dislike them like I dislike taking part in concerts, but see it all as the price I have to pay for being a Conservatoire student.