I had a concert with my youth symphony last Saturday. I am in the trombone section. At the concert we noticed something very interesting. More about that later.
Now, playing trombone in an orchestra is slightly different from playing in a band. First, You have to be able to play dynamic extremes. This means being able to play very loud as well as very soft. Coming from a small band, this was a bit of a challenge for me at first. I had the soft playing down but the loud took some getting used to. My first year, I could not believe how loud that I had to play. If I played with the same volume I do in orchestra back in band I would be murdered. Second, you have to play much higher and much lower than you do in band. On the low extreme, I have had parts that go down to a pedal A. I have seen a high e flat as well. Both of these extremes were in one piece. The low extreme was in the 2nd trombone part for Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. The high extreme was in the 1st trombone part of the same piece. Third knowledge of clefs is also very important. I have had music in bass, tenor, alto, and treble clef. Knowledge of tenor and bass clef is required. You will find that you will not be able to get away from alto and maybe treble clef. In Dvorák's eighth symphony, he writes both tenor trombone parts in alto clef. Flor Peters will occasionally go to treble clef in some of his chamber music. However, I think that might just be Flor. Lastly, time is a major issue in an orchestra. This is the interesting thing that I hinted about at the beginning. Sunday afternoon, the orchestra played a very difficult piece. It almost fell apart several times but the conductor got us through it. In the rehearsal before the concert the conductor told us that we were dragging. To our ears it sounded like we weren't. We soon discovered that the more we listened and tried to stay with the orchestra the worse the problem got. It finally came down to not trusting our ears and watching the conductor. We had to stay way on the front side of the beat in order to stay in time. We were not very successful at doing this. When we felt the orchestra begin to fall apart we listened more and stopped watching. This only exacerbated the problem. The moral of the story is, if you sit on the back of the stage you will have time problems. my next entries will go into each of the aspects of orchestral playing that I talked about.
Now, playing trombone in an orchestra is slightly different from playing in a band. First, You have to be able to play dynamic extremes. This means being able to play very loud as well as very soft. Coming from a small band, this was a bit of a challenge for me at first. I had the soft playing down but the loud took some getting used to. My first year, I could not believe how loud that I had to play. If I played with the same volume I do in orchestra back in band I would be murdered. Second, you have to play much higher and much lower than you do in band. On the low extreme, I have had parts that go down to a pedal A. I have seen a high e flat as well. Both of these extremes were in one piece. The low extreme was in the 2nd trombone part for Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. The high extreme was in the 1st trombone part of the same piece. Third knowledge of clefs is also very important. I have had music in bass, tenor, alto, and treble clef. Knowledge of tenor and bass clef is required. You will find that you will not be able to get away from alto and maybe treble clef. In Dvorák's eighth symphony, he writes both tenor trombone parts in alto clef. Flor Peters will occasionally go to treble clef in some of his chamber music. However, I think that might just be Flor. Lastly, time is a major issue in an orchestra. This is the interesting thing that I hinted about at the beginning. Sunday afternoon, the orchestra played a very difficult piece. It almost fell apart several times but the conductor got us through it. In the rehearsal before the concert the conductor told us that we were dragging. To our ears it sounded like we weren't. We soon discovered that the more we listened and tried to stay with the orchestra the worse the problem got. It finally came down to not trusting our ears and watching the conductor. We had to stay way on the front side of the beat in order to stay in time. We were not very successful at doing this. When we felt the orchestra begin to fall apart we listened more and stopped watching. This only exacerbated the problem. The moral of the story is, if you sit on the back of the stage you will have time problems. my next entries will go into each of the aspects of orchestral playing that I talked about.
No comments:
Post a Comment