Tape, shmape. Trumpet soloist Sergei Nakarjakov puts some amazing circular breathing in fast passages in his performances of his transcription of the Mendelssohn D Minor Violin Concerto. He did it with us last year, and has recorded it. In his performance, during extended slurred rapid 16th note runs, the breathing nearly always seemed to come during descending 16ths at the end of a phrase (still played seamless to the next phrase). The passages went on forever with no fatigue.
Also, I have a tape someone gave me of an old 78 RPM recording of a cornetist playing the Moto Perpetuo with expert circular breathing. The entire work is played with no interruption. The technique has been around for thousands of years in the Australian Outback, after all. I use it fairly often, but I am no virtuoso with it - I generally just use it in the middle of long notes. I practiced it on didgeridoo first. Famous avant-garde trombonist Stuart Dempster studied didgeridoo for several months with native Australians. (He got a grant, of course!) They will play for five hours or more at a time without stopping for a normal breath. Stuart, who is a pretty normal guy, considering all the weird music he plays, says mysteriously "You play one of these things for five hours without stopping, you really start to figure things out." I haven't tried it yet. Ray Horton Bass Trombonist, Louisville Orchestra ----- Original Message ----- From: "David H. Bailey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Aaron Sherber" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 8:24 AM Subject: Re: [Finale] circular breathing expression > ... So unless the liner notes state specifically that Marsalis did it with > circular breathing, or you have seen him perform that work in public and > actually saw him use circular breathing, I would remain skeptical about it. > > I'm not saying that he didn't use circular breathing, only that it is > entirely possible to create a recording that is so flawless that it > seems it could only be done with circular breathing, while actually > being done in short sections with lots of breathing room between. > > Aaron Sherber wrote: > > > Darcy James Argue wrote: > > > ...it is considerably more difficult to do on brass > > > instruments, especially trumpet. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard > > > anyone circular breathe on trumpet. > > > > Wynton Marsalis, in his excellent CD of cornet and wind band music > > called Carnival, does circular breathing all the way through the > > uninterrupted melodic line of Moto Perpetuo. It's the sort of thing you > > don't realize right off the bat, until you get to the end of the track > > and wonder why *you* feel slightly out of breath. > > > > Aaron. > > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
