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Posts Tagged ‘Cello’
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Thursday, April 23rd, 2009on singing while playing the cello…
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009I had wanted to talk about this topic for some time now as I realize my ability (and willingness) to sing while playing the cello puts me in the minority of instrumentalists of many if not most genres–and especially with the minority of instrumentalists who play bowed stringed instruments.
Singing isn’t the issue here, we’ve probably all sung privately (in the shower?) if not publicly (for good or ill). But a particular thread at the Cello Chat forum (as well as a number of the comments really hit home how, um, “unorthodox” it is for cellists to sing while playing.
I know that some of this goes back to some of the things I talked about regarding the role of the performer (for the numerous facebook comments on that post, go here) and that generally people have a relatively narrowly defined and arbitrary notion of what it means for them to be a musician.
As far the difficulty level–well, the most difficult thing about doing it is just getting over the inhibition that’s keeping you from doing it. There’s really nothing to it and once you get the hang of singing while playing it, like everything, starts to come more naturally.
Sure, there are some things that are more difficult to do–playing a particularly difficult passage or singing a particularly demanding vocal line-but what I’ve found the most tricky is playing sustained melody on the cello, while singing a sustained melody or counter-melody (or vice versa). It’s an issue of keeping track of completely different lines that really divides the attention thus preventing you from focusing on one or the other more fully. In other words, what works well, is being able to put one or the other (either playing the cello or singing) in “automatic mode” so that you can focus your attention on the [usually] mre demanding line.
I’m sure singer-songwriter types already know some of this and have tons of experience with the techniques that bowed string players have to struggle a bit with, but it’s not something cellists can take for granted. And personally, I think singing while playing should become a part of the pedagogical process for any instrumentalist for which it is even possible (wind players excluded, for obvious reasons).
tentative solo cello recital program
Sunday, March 15th, 2009So I’ve taken a bit of an unintentional break from blogging. I’m trying to post at least once a day for my own benefit (I’d like to get used to writing again–more as a way to develop how I organize thoughts on the page than for anything else).
But back to the Solo cello recital issue, here are the current definite picks and picks that are in the immediate queue for inclusion on a program.
Definite picks:
Narong Prangcharoen’s “Far from Home”
Jeff Harrington’s “The Empty Fist”
Jacob Gotlib’s as yet to be named [and composed] piece for cello and electronics
Jeffrey Radcliffe’s “Postbactum”
Jon Silpayamanant as yet to be determined (probably one of my “Improvisation” scores)
in the queue:
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz’s “Windows on the Moon”
Michael Gordon’s “Industry”
Chinary Ung’s “Khse Buon”
Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s “Partita”
Toshiro Mayuzumi’s “Bunraku”
Cassadó suite
Kodály solo sonata
Obviously, the very recently composed works are at the top of my list–and I’m really tempted to drop doing the Kodály and Cassadó altogether as there’s no lack of cellists performing those works. Any thoughts, comments, and/or suggestions (not just from the repertoire listed above) are very welcome.
Popper rawks…
Thursday, February 26th, 2009So is it so strange that I get a kick out of practicing/playing Popper Etudes?
I feel even more strongly that these little gems should be performed publicly more often. A number of them are great little show pieces–and let’s be frank, pieces like “Dance of the Elves” or “Spinning Song” are nothing more than Popper Etudes with piano accompaniment, right?
update on solo cello repertoire bibliography
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009So after finding another one of my composer friends, Steve Layton, on facebook (this site has got to be one of the best networking tools I’ve come across) he directed me to the new netnewmusic ning website.
I put out a call for solo cello repertoire there and have gotten quite a number of responses onsite and through private messages.
As is often the case when I’m researching music of any sort, genre, style, I am overwhelmed by the wealth of what’s available. I remember, during my college days, reading a number of articles bemoaning the dearth of cello repertoire, but I think so much of that has as much to do with how accessible scores are. The net has made finding a number of things so incredibly easy – at the same time, as I said, it can be overwhelming.
Anyway, as you folks can see from the link above (unless viewing the site requires registration) there are a few scores available for download from composers’ sites. Otherwise you may join the site and get in touch with the other composers for questions about their solo cello works.
In the meantime, I will keep chugging away with the tedious task of compiling a bibliography: and really–it’s not as bad as it sounds–it’s actually a bit exciting!
Raks Makam
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Raks Makam
Glossary of non-Western cello techniques?
Monday, February 23rd, 2009I remember reading about a book years ago that cellist, Frances-Marie Uitti (she invented a playing technique using two bows so that she could play four part polyphonic music on the cello), that would be a technical manual on alternative 20th century cello techniques. What she ended up publishing was a chapter in the Cambridge Companion to the Cello titled “The Frontiers of Technique” which:
In it the development of cello techniques is traced through the Darmstadt experimental era covering the uses of different bows and preparations, new repertoire, percussives, use of the voice and new uses of both hands.
I would still love to read a book length (or maybe dissertation length?) treatment of the subject, but as I was walking into the office debating whether to practice or do a little more organizing I had a tiny revelation that I should be documenting non-Western cello techniques in some form or another. I immediately told the wife of my plan to compile a glossary of world music terms that are relevant to the techniques and skills I’ve had to learn outside of orthodox music instruction channels.
Basically, the idea would be to have a place I can direct people to online (or in handout form for classes and workshops) to terminology from specific cultures so that I don’t have to continually define each and every term whenever I might write or talk about it. Ideally it would also give a description of how it can be done on the cello as well, and eventually might have audio if I get adventurous enough.
The biggest obstacle, is that I just do not know what all these ornaments, or techniques are called in the various countries. When I talk to Wendi (il Troubadore’s clarinetist) about some of the issues of translating non-Western folk music techniques to modern Western instruments we might refer to things like “that weird Bulgarian trill” (which I actually do know the name for: “tresene“) or what have you.
Knowing the terminology will just ease the issue of presentation, or even communication, but most importantly will also give some indication of the culture’s music of the technique from which it is being borrowed.
I realize that I haven’t gotten to blogging about the meat of anything here yet. Mostly I’m letting people smell the meal before it’s cooked, or maybe these posts are appetizers? Either way, keep reading folks, I’m sure I’ll have something with more substance here soon.
Microtones
Thursday, February 19th, 2009Calling a music microtonal is really such an unfortunate and misleading thing and belies alot of the assumptions that we make (in the world of Western Music) about how another culture’s music is organized.
Basically we take as a standard Western diatonicism and when discussing other culture’s scale systems (the idea of a “scale” is also problematic for similar reasons) we reference some normative idea of what an interval between two tones or notes means. So if we have a normative tonal system, with half steps being the smallest distance between two tones, then technically, if we have a scale system with intervals smaller than a half step that would be “microtonal” scale system (and vice versa for a “macrotonal” scale system).
This works fine for scale systems by a number of avant garde composers in the Western Art Music tradition (e.g. Harry Partch, Lejaren Hiller, Glenn Branca) who have worked out scales with intervals that are smaller than a half step. But this really makes no sense when applied to, say, Arabic Music.
Sure, in the history of Arabic Music we have theorists that have attempted to reconstruct a theory of scales using a 24-note per octave quarter tone scale as the basis for Arabic Music (and Persian, Turkish, Azeri Musics) but there are technically no scales that use a quarter tone in between two intervals. There are any number of tones that fall in between the notes of a Western Scale (often called “neutral tones” to contrast with “sharp tones,” “flat tones,” and “natural tones”) but the stepwise motion to those neutral tones and from those neutral tones usually consist of an interval that falls somewhere in between a half step and a whole step.
So with no intervals smaller than the smallest interval in a Western scale, what exactly do we mean by Arabic Music being “microtonal” anyway?
I’m sure I’ll have more to post about this later, but felt the need to ponder this as I’m learning a number of new Arabic tunes for an upcoming performance–and realizing that the Western tuning of Cellos isn’t really optimal for playing and I might have to adopt an Arabic or Middle Eastern tuning or settle with using fingerings that are terribly unidiomatic for cello playing (which won’t be the first time for me).
Practice [B]log
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009In the interest of charting my new found obsession with practicing, I’ve decided to start a “Practice [B]log.” Basically after each practice session I will take notes on repertoire or techniques worked on as well as my thoughts about the practicing process or the music itself.
I haven’t decided whether I want it public or not–not that I care so much who sees how much I practice–but I’m not sure I’ll even have coherent sentences (or even phrases, for that matter) about my thoughts. I have so many idiomatic ways about talking about music in my head that I’m not sure much of what I post would make any sense to anyone other than me.
For now, I’ll keep it private though maybe in the future it will go public. I don’t think I’ve quite come across anything like this (as far as the full content of blogs go; individual blog posts, maybe) so I might look around to see what might be out there just to see how other people are presenting things.
It’d kinda weird getting a little upset if it’s been more than a few hours since I’ve last touched the cello and I really don’t know exactly what the motivation is so maybe some thoughts about that will go in the Practice [B]log, or maybe even in this one.
Non-Western Cello Techniques
Friday, February 13th, 2009Eventually I will blog more about using non-Western cello playing techniques. There’s a whole world of music out there and finding ways to adapt those styles to the cello isn’t without some precedent, but obviously it’s not something that’s easy to find. Until then I leave the reader with a few videos and links.
A cello (Turkish) taksim:
If you like the above, then visit Uğur Işık’s MySpace page (I especially love his Alamanti–I’ve already downloaded it from Amazon.com and have started learning it).
Shubhendra Rao and cellist, Saskia Rao-de Haas, playing (Indian) Hindustani music:
Visit Saskia’s website and check out her really cool modified cello
Nancy Kulkarni playing (Indian) Dhrupad:
Enjoy!