[JPSaxMan]

I'm playing two excerpts from the Concertino da Camera. I've only had the piece for about a week, and I think I've made some good progress but I'm performing bits and pieces (not exactly the two in this recording) for my juries.

Take it easy; I'm only a freshman in college and as I stated, I've had the piece only a week; plus it's not all that easy to play along with SmartMusic all the time LOL.

http://download.yousendit.com/18DF2C377C8F25D8

 

[Kevin]

There is actually a thread specifically setup to post clips of your playing.

That being said, one comment I will make is a stylistic one. In the tradition of Western art music, the beginnings of notes are generally the most important part of the note. Be careful not to swell your notes. That is more of a jazz convention.

 

[JPSaxMan]

The only place I found to post a clip of recordings was in the huge, black hole "Post a Clip of Yourself" thread that exists mostly of jazz guys. If you could perhaps direct me to another one, I'd appreciate it. And where specifically would you be talking about the swelling of notes?

 

[harmonizerNJ]

Very nice articulation. It seems like in the recording that sometimes there is some kind of vibration or other noise that makes it hard to hear you better. Are you recording this in a very live room - maybe make your next recording in a living room or some other place with more sound deadening. It seems like you have a nice tone, but the combination of the swelling Kevin referred to and the noise (whatever it is) are preventing me from really hearing how good you are.

My thought upon hearing your recording is that you probably have really good tone, but I would like you to "show it off" more by resolving the noise problem on your recording, and by simplifying your delivery. There's nothing like playing long notes of a melody with minimum adornment to really show off a good tone (in my opinion).

 

[fadedsignal]

Your articulation, vibrato, and technique sound great. My only qualm was with the swelling as mentioned above, and some seemingly jazz inflected upper range.

I found myself laughing a bit because I remember when I was in college and playing this same concerto, I did the same thing! My teacher was a very staunchly conservative legit player, and corrected that very quickly.

Keep it up!

 

[JPSaxMan]

Thanks HNJ. I'm recording on a very shoddy microphone that the school has for the computer. When I go home in a week, I plan on bringing my own dynamic mic and preamp to try recording. As a matter of fact, the room is very live...a large rehearsal room but to my standards the acoustics are very good. I'm not sure if I can really change rooms because the computer in this room is one of the few on campus with SmartMusic that has the library with accompaniment.

 

[JPSaxMan]

Thanks FS, guess I'm going to have to pay more attention to my playing.

 

[jmm1713]

You have a nice sound in the upper register --

 

[Kevin]

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?t=14748&page=13

Here's the link to the "clips" page. It's just a few threads down here in the classical section.

Almost all of your longer notes were swelled. That's a common thing to do when you have a jazz background, but in classical music you want to approach it with the notion that a long note by itself will have the very beginning the loudest and you then diminuendo from there. In cases where you move from a long note to an agogic accent, you of course will want to crescendo to the agogic accent (in a manner of speaking). Very rarely will you want to actually swell the note so that the loudest part of the note is somewhere in the middle.

 

[JPSaxMan]

I think I sort of hear what you mean...although I thought I heard Marcel Mule doing this a lot on his recording of the Ibert...though I could very well be wrong. I'll make another attempt at recording this with that in mind. Thanks for the help.

 

[hakukani]

The cellist Paul Tortellier called what you are doing 'sausages'. He meant that each note is linked, but smaller on the ends and fat in the middle.

It kind of sound like each note has a weight on it, like bwuh, bwuh, bwuh. It should be the same are through a phrase like lahhhhhh. The breath should be constant.If you sing the line you'll see.

Also, don't forget to articulate (you need to on the descending line)

Good work on the piece. It'll ge there...keep working.

There is also a thread that's something like 'post a piece of your classical playing'.