Date: 15 May 95 18:29:31 EDT From: Douglas Tate <100576.32~ompuserve.com> Subject: Classical harmonica music
15/05/95 (that'll confuse some of you!) Thomas Colvin wrote:
>>Doug Tate makes a tantalizing allusion about classical music that sounds better on the harmonica than it does on the original instrument.
When I did my audition for playing on Radio 3 (BBC classical station), I played a sonatina by Lennox Berkely. I didn't know it, but he was on the judging panel. Got a letter from him a few days later saying he liked it better on the harmonica than treble recorder for which he wrote it. That sort of thing has happened quite a bit, but only because I only believe in putting forward our instrument with STANDARD repetoire pieces when I judge there is no contest. I don't want to give people the chance to say ' Yes, but it sounds better in the original' ... and no, I don't consider this a cop out but a positive step to gain acceptance in a field where there are still people who don't want to know.
>> searching for just the kind of music Doug is talking about. It's almost impossible for a novice with still limited reading capability to find. I've been very frustrated in my search
Oh how true, not only for the 'novice' (What's with the novice bit? You've started and are on the route, you've got the attitude etc ... you're a player) Unless you have a really good eye and ear it is very difficult to hear in your head just how a piece is going to sound in a shop where they have pop music at 110DB. I've got about 15 foot of music (vertical in piles!) of this about 1 foot is playable in public to my rather quirky 'standards' Stuff which looks dead interesting turns out to be dry as dust and vice versa.
Sting in tail time. >> Doug, you might be able to do those like me a great service by compiling of list of such music, graded by level of difficulty.
i.e. shut up and put your money where your mouth is .... 8-) (joking) Give me time, give me time. At the moment I indulge myself with Harp_L for half an hour late at night. The rest of the time is marking darlin' pupils Exam projects. This ends in a week. I will do it then.
This varying difficulty bit. It's funny, it is sometimes easier to get away with a technical piece where you are tearing around, like a cat who has just had her temperature taken the hard way, than in a slow emotional piece where total listening is involved. I remember seeing Segovia at the Festival Hall in London. I say seeing because you couldn't hear him. At first. The audience got quieter and quieter and soon you could hear everything, then HE got quieter. It was a marvellous lesson in teaching an audience to listen. By the end of his recital he appeared to be thundering ... he wasn't, we were listening.
You are right that there is a lot of flute music which 'works' on the harmonica, but I feel that oboe music feels better and frequently works better. The oboe relies less on flights of brilliance and more on 'detail', the sound is more akin to the harmonica as well. Treble recorder music is good although some of the stuff written in the 60's - 70's was pretty naff.
If there is anyone else out there who is interested in repetoire, let me know. I will divide it into two parts ... things which you can play TO people and material which is great to play to yourself to improve your technique, musicality and all the other 'in' words for doing you good. (but fun to do)
Foyles of London, Cambridge Music Shop, Cambridge (UK), I could go on. There are a lot of very good music shops which do great 'foreign' business. You ought to be easy to please Thomas. They would just shove the stuff in a manilla envelope!
Late breaking Mike Curtis writes about list of pieces, especially classical for diatonic. That could prove a little difficult as there are few pieces which don't have accidentals knocking about ... I'll think about it. I've got a rotten difficult piece I wrote when I went in for the World Diatonic championships in about 1832, quite fun but difficult. If you would like a copy, send me an address privately. One thing which springs to mind is the Irish music which could very well lend itself to the classical approach which Levy type notes adding the essence of Ireland. Listen to the Brendan Power CD (PMCD002) available from Norman and Dave and absolutely superb. There is some stuff on there which has the crossover between the two disciplines.
Back to the marking. ||8-( Nil carborundum illegitimae
