Sheet music

I've been selling some of my sheet music on Sheetmusicplus.com, both arrangements and original compositions. Maybe when I have a few more pieces of music there, I'll organize it all on a website with links to the sheet music. In the meantime, you can have a look here.

Confessions of an alto clarinetist

During my first year at McGill, I joined the McGill Clarinet Choir, in which I played the contra-alto clarinet, an instrument that I loved. It seemed that nobody in the group wanted to play the alto clarinet. People saw it as a nasty, out-of-tune, bad-sounding instrument that was unforgiving and difficult to play. Someone would always get stuck with the instrument, and they wouldn't be happy about it.

In my second year at McGill, I was at a wind symphony rehearsal. We were going to play Ingolf Dahl's "Sinfonietta", which has an alto clarinet solo in the second movement. The conductor asked me if I wanted to play the alto clarinet in that piece. I wasn't entirely sure why he'd asked me - perhaps he'd heard that I played the contra-alto clarinet, and thought it would be a good idea to ask me if I wanted to play the alto. I was aware of the instrument's bad reputation, but I agreed to play the alto clarinet - I figured that maybe if I devoted some time to the instrument, I might be able to play it somewhat well. Besides, I'd get to play a solo in wind symphony, which I wouldn't get to do if I just stuck to the B-flat clarinet.

I rented the school's alto clarinet, and started to get to know the instrument. It was indeed difficult to play in tune. But I kept working on it. I played the solo in the Dahl piece. After that concert, I continued playing the alto clarinet in the wind symphony. Occasionally I'd get other solos. One time, I had an unaccompanied quarter-tone glissando solo in a piece by Husa. That piece was broadcast on the radio.

I came to love playing the alto clarinet. I found opportunities to play it outside of the wind symphony. I played in a trio made up of two B-flat clarinets and alto. I sometimes played alto clarinet in an orchestra, substituting for bass clarinet or saxophone parts. I found that the alto clarinet could be useful for bass lines, kind of like a bass clarinet, but more portable.

I came to love the sound of the alto clarinet. I found that it could sound almost like a cross between a clarinet and a saxophone. I found that the alto clarinet could be a very expressive instrument.

In one of my later years in the clarinet choir, I was planning to play the contra-alto clarinet, as I always had in clarinet choir. The usual start-of-year argument was going on, the argument over who had to get stuck with the alto clarinet. Feeling sorry for the instrument, and getting tired of people berating an instrument that I had grown to love, I gave up my contra-alto clarinet position and offered to play the alto.

There haven't been many pieces of music written for solo alto clarinet. For some time, I worked on a concerto for solo alto clarinet, with clarinet choir accompaniment. In the piece, I tried to show the different moods that the alto was capable of expressing. When the piece of music was finished, I performed it with the McGill Clarinet Choir. Here is a recording of the performance.

The alto clarinet is a much-disliked instrument, but I think that a lot of this animosity is unjustified. I think that more people - both listeners and clarinetists - should give the alto clarinet more of a chance.

Walk Off The Earth!

Earlier on this year, I found this video. It's a video of five people playing the same guitar at the same time! The video was made by the band Walk Off The Earth. I checked out a few of their other covers of songs, and I enjoyed them very much. I checked out the band's website, and I found out that they were coming to Montreal in September! I ordered a ticket, and the ticket came in the mail.

The Walk Off The Earth concert was September 14. What a concert!

The band played some cover songs - an up-tempo version of Adele's "Someone Like You", "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles, and, of course, the five-people-on-one-guitar song that I linked earlier in this entry. They also played many of their original songs. A few of their songs had catchy choruses that the audience could sing along to.

Most of the band members could (and did!) play multiple different instruments. When a band member was finished playing an instrument, and ready to switch to another instrument, they would toss the old instrument behind them, and a stagehand or other band member would catch it. Some unusual instruments that were played included ukulele, cigar-box guitar, and vibraslap. Also, at one point a band member played a guitar with drumsticks, and at another point in the concert, two band members played one drumset. During this song, a bunch of absolutely enormous balloons, bigger balloons than I had ever seen before, were released into the audience from the ceiling, and everyone had an amusing time batting them around. :)

Throughout the whole concert, it was very evident that both the band members and all of the audience members were having a huge amount of fun!! It was absolutely the craziest concert I have ever been to!! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Classical music in the summer

There are only a few things I don't like about Montreal. One of them is the dearth of classical music in the summer.

In winter, spring, and fall, there are many classical music concerts on the island of Montreal. In the summer, many Montreal ensembles and musicians play at summer festivals. These festivals take place in various places that are anything up to a two hours' drive from Montreal.

For classical music fans like me, who don't have cars, these festivals are impossible to get to (unless you know someone who is going to one of these festivals who does have a car.) Or maybe these festivals are for well-off people who are lucky enough to have cottages in Lanaudiere or the Eastern Townships.

I have been to concerts in the summer in Montreal which feature types of music other than classical. But you'd think that for such a world-class city, they'd be able to have at least some classical music in the summer.

That crazy modern music...

A line from Wah Keung Chan's Montreal Gazette music review of a Renee Fleming concert: "...the Mehldau songs were plagued by the sameness of most 20th-and 21st-century compositions -lacking rhyme, rhythm, melody, and ultimately reason." Seriously? Most 20th and 21st century classical music lacks rhythm, melody, and reason?
I guess many 20th/21st century composers wanted to turn away from melody. But many "modern" pieces do have melodies, maybe just not ones that every music reviewer enjoys or recognizes. And certainly, most 20th/21st century music has rhythm! And I'll bet that if music lacked reason, it wouldn't be composed.
And I don't think most recent music sounds the same, not at all.

Of course, this is the same reviewer who thought "crescendo" meant "climax."

Master debaters

(In spite of the dirty-sounding entry title, this entry is perfectly clean. )

Yesterday I went to a taping of the CBC radio show The Debaters. I’d been to the show last year, and I enjoyed it so much that I came back this year. It was part of the Just for Laughs festival here in Montreal.

In The Debaters, comedians debate various topics. In the first round, each debater presents their argument. Then, in the next round (called the Bare Knuckle Round), they argue with each other. The next round, The Firing Line, is where the host asks both debaters a series of questions on the topic being debated. Finally, each debater gives a summary of their argument. The audience then applauds for the comedian that they think had the better (or funnier) argument, and the winner of the debate is decided by applause.

The topics debated this time were: Vampires or Zombies, which are the greatest cinematic undead? Are the big oil companies really so bad? Is the moustache one of man's greatest inventions? Has Hollywood been good for Europe? Has stand-up comedy become a joke? And is everything (movies, TV) better in 3D?

The host of the show had a little hammer that he’d hit on his desk if the debaters talked on for too long. During one of the debates, one of the debaters went on talking for too long, and so the host hit the hammer on his desk. When the debater still wouldn't shut up, the host went over to him and hit him with the hammer.

Another time when someone talked too long, the host went over to a couch that was in the background and started to lie down on it.

During the debate about moustaches, the debater in favour of them was wearing a fake moustache. At the end of the debate, he took the fake moustache off, revealing…another fake moustache underneath it.

They had an Irish guy and a German guy debating whether Hollywood has been good for Europe. Before the debate, the two debaters danced for quite a long time. The debate itself was completely chaotic from start to finish, and honestly I never even knew who was on which side of that debate!

It was a very enjoyable afternoon!

The joys of Savoy

Last weekend and the weekend before, the McGill Savoy Society performed The Pirates of Penzance. I had such a good time! I played the viola part on clarinet in the orchestra.
The shows went really well. On each performance night, I gave cookies to my fellow Savoyards.
After the last night was the cast party. Cast parties are always fun, and this one was one of the better cast parties that I'd been to.