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03-04-2002, 12:43 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Ridgewood, NJ | | Quote: Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
Don - (or any other orchestral players reading!) how do you think this compares for difficulty with some of the great 20th Century orchestral showcases - like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" or Messiaen's "Turangalila Symphonie" ? | I don't have enough experience to validate an opinion. This should go to someone with a real job, like kpo
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03-04-2002, 01:03 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Feb 2000 Location: The State Where Nothing is Allowed | | | We are playing Rachmaninoffs' Symphony No.2. There are passages that sound like an organized train crash when you are playing it but to listen to it on a CD it is a beautiful piece.
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03-04-2002, 02:00 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: San Antonio, Texas, USA | | Quote: Originally posted by Don Higdon
Beethoven's 9th | I've heard that is just nonsensically, ridiculously difficult to play. A former teacher of mine (Roger Fratena - assistant pricipal of the Dallas SO) responded to the same question with Sir Michael Tippitt's Symphony No. 4. Based on his ridiculous playing and reading abilities, that must be the proverbial Black Page.
Speaking of which, I hear that Zappa's "Black Page" isn't exactly a cinch, either.
As for myself, Thad Jones' "Cherry Juice" was pretty hairy, some Corigliano piece I played in Wind Symphony was quite painful, and I've always had trouble with the changes to "Seven Steps to Heaven"
As far as f***ed up charts to read, anything by Joseph Schwantner - harmonics & whistling, whispering, rubbing glasses filled with water, etc. Despite all this, his "... and the mountains rising nowhere" gives me serious goosebumps every time. |
03-04-2002, 02:53 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Ridgewood, NJ | | | Taking A Dare:
Composer Ron Nelson has had some stuff recorded by Dallas W S, I think. Does the name ring a bell?
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03-04-2002, 03:10 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: San Antonio, Texas, USA | | Quote: Originally posted by Don Higdon
Taking A Dare:
Composer Ron Nelson has had some stuff recorded by Dallas W S, I think. Does the name ring a bell? | Well, Don .... Don ..... dammit! Your sly name games have me bamboozled! I swear I play DB! I play jazz 2-4 nights a week! I pine away for one-trip status! Why the hell can't I unlock the mysteries of this cheeky change-everyone's-name game! AAAAAGGGHHHH!
Where was I?
OH YEAH - Ron Nelson. It seems that Mr. Nelson has had a pretty strong relationship with the Dallas Wind Symphony over the years. I've played a few of his works in my high school and North Texas wind symphony days - very nice stuff. |
03-05-2002, 03:03 AM
|  | Unprofessional TalkBass Contributor | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Brighton, England, UK, Europe | | Quote: Originally posted by Danny Adair
As far as f***ed up charts to read, anything by Joseph Schwantner - harmonics & whistling, whispering, rubbing glasses filled with water, etc. Despite all this, his "... and the mountains rising nowhere" gives me serious goosebumps every time. | I have a CD of Schwantner's music - Evelyn Glennie, Leonard Slatkin and National Symphony Orchestra - great stuff! I really like the Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra.
In the UK, they have a competition for "Young Musician of the Year" and the latter stages are televised on the BBC - so one of the recent winners was a percussionist who played this piece in the final and won - competing against pianists, string players etc.playing other, more famous concertos!
It was great to see that contemporary music like this is being taken up and played by young people and that it can be so "vital".
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03-05-2002, 05:39 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Ridgewood, NJ | | | Any arid Dan:
I studied theory of harmony with Ron Nelson. He equated it with 2 years at Eastman. He is the single most profound musical influence in my life. I could go on for hours about how many ways he helped make me a better musician. Friendly, witty, challenging.
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Last edited by Don Higdon : 03-05-2002 at 09:14 AM.
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03-05-2002, 10:18 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Maui | | | The most literally f***ed up charts I've encountered was the book for the 5th Dimension. It was one of those "cold reading" gigs where the band was intact except for the bass chair; they flew me in for the evening. The book was about three inches thick and meant to be read front to back, no worries. They problem was, the charts were so "well used" that there were actually big gaping holes in the paper every 3-4 pages. I believe I got drunk afterwards. Those guys need to hire a librarian. |
03-06-2002, 08:03 AM
| | Unprofessional TalkBass Contributor | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Brighton, England, UK, Europe | | | I was just looking a back at some of the huge number of scrappy bits of paper with Jazz charts, I 've managed to collect and found one with a hole in the middle - but managed to patch it up.
So it reminded me of another category - charts that look fairly simple but are deceptively hard to play! So this one was :
"In the Land of Ephesus" by Joe Lovano.
I just found it really hard to keep that ostinato bass line going in the head and when it is played as a "tag" - something "odd" about the blowing sequence as well....anybody else played this tune?
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“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
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03-06-2002, 08:44 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: San Antonio, Texas, USA | | Quote: Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
I have a CD of Schwantner's music - Evelyn Glennie, Leonard Slatkin and National Symphony Orchestra - great stuff! I really like the Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra. | I have that disc, too. The music seems pretty cool, but I'm usually not much of a fan of narration, and (to my ears) that disc sounds horribly edited. Maybe I'm mistaking or misinterpreting sound events, but it sounds like sections were spliced together very poorly.
I do love Slatkin's work with the St. Louis SO, though - his Barber, Copeland, and Corigliano recordings are phenomenal. |
03-06-2002, 10:46 AM
| | Unprofessional TalkBass Contributor | | Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Brighton, England, UK, Europe | | | Well the disc was nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra)", but it was certainly better seeing the concerto performed on TV with a top London orchestra and the "Young Musician of the year" - I think my enthusiasm stems from that performance more than anything else.
I don't usually listen to the spoken word piece though!
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“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
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Last edited by Bruce Lindfield : 03-06-2002 at 10:54 AM.
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03-06-2002, 05:57 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Tracy CA | | | Hard to play scores
Shostakovich 5th or Tchaikovsky 4th hardest lots of thumb position
Most boring Green Onions 10,000 measures of thump thump thump then one measure of thump thump a fourth higher yuck!
Most difficult to play musical scores in a dark pit when you stand light goes out
Most hosed up gig marching orchestra at a football HS home comming game. Marching bass' and Marching Cellos a real brain storm to say the least
and most anything if you don't practice
Joe
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