At 2:40 PM -0400 8/25/07, Andrew Stiller wrote:
On Aug 24, 2007, at 10:29 PM, John Howell wrote:
It's considered prestigious to be the person selected to play the
Eb soprano. Same thing is true for the alto, bass, and lower
clarinets.
When I was in bands (admittedly a long time ago now) it was
definitely *not* prestigious to play the alto clarinet,
Sorry, out of context. The second sentence was intended to refer to
an earlier sentence. But you're quite right about the alto.
Directors assign less competent players to the instrument, and then
complain that nobody plays alto well. Self-fulfilling prophesy!
In my own case, for reasons known only to the gods of statistics, we
always have one, often two, and occasionally three alto clarinets in
our Community Band, and the ladies who play them are quite competent,
so I do write real parts for them and don't just double 3rd clarinet
or alto sax.
John
--
John R. Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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