-Definitely evocative of fanfare
-Unaccompanied
-Single Movement
- I believe about five minutes
How about the first movement of the Gregson Concerto?
Very "heroic" piece, almost fanfare-ish in in spots. Goes high, goes low. Very lively, but won't kill your chops. Even quotes the Vaughan Williams you are doing later.
-Definitely evocative of fanfare
-Unaccompanied
-Single Movement
- I believe about five minutes
How about the first movement of the Gregson Concerto?
Very "heroic" piece, almost fanfare-ish in in spots. Goes high, goes low. Very lively, but won't kill your chops. Even quotes the Vaughan Williams you are doing later.
I agree with this! It'd be a great way to open up the recital.
I was kidding with my previous post. In reality I like to go out and start off with something that I know I can nail the snot out of, starts big and lets me take control of the stage and relax all the big muscles in the body by requiring me to breathe big.
I often use the Barat Introduction and Dance (high version) as it is fun, exciting and I feel it gets the audience into a mind set where “this is not just another boring recital”.
I don’t like a piece with a long introduction to start a program. I made this mistake once and was playing a piece that only required me to start on an F in the staff. But it had a longish piano introduction and while that was going on I started looking at my first note and thinking “piece of cake. I can play that note in my sleep”. Then I looked at it again and thought “you know that’s not that low a note and it might be a problem”. Then it turned into “You know? That note's pretty hard and I’ve missed it a few times lately”. And finally to “You know? That’s a really hard note and I bet I’m going to miss it!” (Do you sense the panic setting in?). Well I missed it. Then I kicked myself in the butt for literally TALKING MYSELF INTO MISSING A NOTE simply because I had too much time to think about it.
Something I coach my students on is: What happens physically when you walk out on stage or into a jury? You’re nervous, even possibly afraid. With this emotion come a number of physical and mental aspects that, unless you are performing all the time, come into play that you don’t deal with on a regular basis.
1. Your senses are heightened. Your hearing becomes more acute, so your first note sounds louder than it did in the practice room and you pull back – but it was just like in the practice room but you were just hearing it louder. Now you’ve backed off more than you are used to and the potential for missing becomes greater because you’ve never done it that way before and you are very likely not using enough support. (Load gun).
2. The tension tightens the breathing muscles and your first breath is most likely choked and you only get perhaps half the air that you would normally get. Now you HAVE to play softer to make that whole first phrase, again with less support. (Chamber a round into the gun).
3. Now you miss a note and time STOPS. You are playing on in the music but your thinking has stopped at the missed note. “What the heck happened?” “Now what do I do?” “I’ve completely screwed up the whole opening”! You’re still playing the music but your thinking is frozen in time. (Point gun at foot).
4. Now begins what I call “The Performance Death Spiral”. You are so busy thinking about the past that you miss another note – freeze again, miss another note, etc. Meltdown occurs. (Pull trigger).
This is all “self inflicted” – because you didn’t expect this to happen, you didn’t plan for it and you didn’t rehearse it under pressure to see how you would respond. It’s not just about playing the piece it’s about understanding what is going to happen to you once you’re out there.
The stage is a foreign place – it’s not YOUR place. You don’t get enough time out there to get to know it and get to be comfortable being there. In fact many younger players, in spite of their talent, don’t feel they deserve to be out there. You have visions of the lights falling off the ceiling and crashing onto the stage, or the chair collapsing under you, the piano catching fire, your accompanist falling asleep at the most crucial part of a piece……all of these completely fantastical things can be running through your head – everything but the music. If you can get the time, late at night if necessary, to spend more time on the recital stage – learning where your sound reflects best, where not to put a chair because of the glare from a specific light, how best to set the chair for a view of your pianist, all these sorts of little details, the stage starts to become a friendlier place.
Now go out and have some fun.
Roger
"The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Hunter S Thompson
You can find many of my mental ramblings on a site that WWBW set-up for me (warning - it's a work in progress) called http://www.tubasale.com" target="_blank" target="_blank. I try to do two or three articles a week for it and it can serve as an archive of the BS that I sling around from time-to-time. You can post back to me through the site as well. Right now I have My Fundamentals, The Spit Valve Drill, Metals Through The Ages, The "Closet" and The Tuba - IT'S A HORN! up there for your review.
This OP started me thinking that it might be good to just let people know how I perceive it.
Two things that I make my students do to get more comfortable:
Take ACTING LESSONS - learn how to ACT like a tuba musician (and it's a great way to meet young ladies). At Mannes I studied acting with Angela Lansbury - heh, me and 11 lovely ladies.
Snare drum lessons - learn to count without having to worry about embouchure, fingerings, sound quality, breathing and blowing, attacks - all that good stuff that we have to do. It also helps develop hand/eye coordination.
All the best to you all.
Roger
"The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Hunter S Thompson
