Yes, discussing MUSIC has a place on this list. The subject breached was ELLIOT CARTER! Reminds me of a story about Sir Thomas Beecham. He was being interviewed by the BBC. The interviewer asked "Sir Thomas, do you ever perform the music of Arnold Schoenberg?" He replied "No. But I stepped in some, once." As to high f above high c, the only time I've ever played them in public was during performances of the Schultz Concerto Ex Dis. Several of them. Didn't miss any. Had a lot of 16th notes, so I oiled my valves really well, too. Ended the cadenza with a lip trill on a high c. Got paid a nice fee for the gig. Wouldn't have done the piece for free, even at home, alone. I was lucky that the piece was all in Eb and had very few rests, unlike Rigoletto. Also lucky that the most bars rest after the opening tutti was only four, so no problem counting those on one hand. Continuo player brought me in the first time by yelling "Now" really loud at the appropriate moment since the tutti was 32 bars long and I had run out of digits. Since I was a 1st horn player at the time, I was use to having an asst. count for me and bring me in. I prepared by lifting weights with my chops for months ahead of time. Also took my teacher's advice as he states in his treatise, "Hooked on Hornonics." I practiced Kopprasch No. 1 up an octave in Eb horn. That way I played high g's routinely, and loud! The f's in mf felt like third space c in comparison. Also got my front crowns re-cemented in with Crazy Glue. Delta Dental did not honor the claim. Like I said earlier, insurance is a racket I got the idea from that commercial on TV with the guy hanging from the steel beam by his hard hat. The reviewer for the paper accused me of using steroids in order to enhance my performance. He retracted the statement and apologized publicly later after I explained in a letter to the editor that Kopprasch was not a steroid, just good healthy exercise. Sorry to stray from music to discuss adhesives, steroids and critics. KB PS: If you receive a horn by UPS with loose braces because they dropped it or whatever, file the claim, collect the money and then fix them yourself with Crazy Glue thus pocketing the insurance money. You can really scam them if you buy an old junker on eBay, unsolder the braces and add a few dents, ship it to a trusted friend insured for $25,000 making sure they write "High Value Item: $25,000" in magic marker on the box, bang up the box when it arrives just in case they didn't, file the claim for a totaled horn, collect the money, let UPS keep the horn, have a big party, take a vacation to Hawaii or Las Vegas, whatever. This works good with cars, also, but don't try shipping a car UPS as they will make you double box it and you will spend more on bubble wrap and packing peanuts than the car is worth, unless it is an old Jugo or Ford Pinto. If you ship a Pinto, make sure you write "FLAMMABLE" on the box in big red letters. In a message dated 11/19/2007 1:00:42 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Richard of Seattle writes: Chacun a son gout...I guess. Nevertheless, I thought the whole point of blowing the horn was to make music, so doesn't talking about music have a place on this list? Comparing the various attributes of valve oil makes for interesting chit-chat, now and then, but I don't think that it's an end in itself, do you? What's the point of playing that high f above c without a musical context? Might as well take up weight lifting.
I'm an old reprobate. I didn't like Schoenberg until the first time I played a Schoenberg composition. Ditto Webern and Petrassi. I didn't think much of Berio until a trombonist friend of mine, Stu Dempster, performed---and I do mean "performed"---a Berio piece. While I still would rather play anything by Brahms or Mozart or [insert name of favorite composer here] in comparison to some contemporary composers, the fact remains that our instrument is being presented with new challenges that are certainly worth discussing. Richard in Seattle Susan Thompson wrote: > I agree that valve oil is more interesting...even when I'm playing natural > horn. > > --Susan Thompson > > Kendall Betts wrote: > > Personally, I don't care much for Elliot Carter's music. Valve oil and > it's related subjects are more interesting. Anybody agree? > > KB ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
