Weissenborn Study #36
Weissenborn Opus 8/2, Study #36 for advanced bassoon
Comments
Weissenborn Opus 8/2, Study #36 for advanced bassoon students. Shaping the phrase through tongued notes. My encounter with God, part A. By Terry B. Ewell, Bassoon Digital Professor. BDP #144.
The original transcript is available here.
Videos
Captions are unavailable. The complete transcript follows.
Chapters
Transcript
0:18Dotted Eighth and Sixteenth Note Rhythm
Welcome, this is Terry Ewell. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of study #36 is keeping the dotted eighth and sixteenth note rhythm. It is very easy to create triplets like this:
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0:43Correct Sixteenth Note Placement
Instead the sixteenth notes need to be one fourth of each beat.
0:56French C# and Alternate G#3 Fingerings
In the third complete measure of line 1 I like to use the French C# fingering so I will use the alternate fingering for G#3 to avoid shifting my right hand little finger.
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1:11Shaping Articulated Phrases
Let's work on shaping articulated phrases. Many students have no difficulty making musical expression with slurred phrases. I will play this without the mordent and here with slurs.
1:33Maintaining Air through Tongued Phrases
However, when you introduce the tongue (component 4) all of a sudden component 1 (the air) no longer works independently! Here is the phrase slurred first and then tongued. I will use the same air when phrasing both.
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Maintaining Air through Tongued Phrases, continued
------------------------------------------------------------------------ # REFLECTION
1:59Reflection: Music and Encountering God
Music has been a part of my life since a very young age. In kindergarten, teachers discovered some musical talent in me and I started study on the piano sometime in the first grade. Later I started the bassoon in the 4th grade. In the midst of all that musical training I never guessed that I would discover God. I thought that you found God in a church. But that isn't where my life was touched by Him.
2:34Marrowstone Music Festival
I attended a music camp (Marrowstone Music Festival) in the Pacific Northwest at the age of 15. It was a three-week camp and I think it was the second summer I attended. A friend of mine had been to a church camp the prior month and his life was dramatically altered through an experience there. When he accepted Jesus into his life he felt a dramatic change. He told me that he now prayed on his paper route for dogs not to bite him and for God's help in all his other duties. He said that God did indeed help him and life was different. Now, he even read the Bible enthusiastically every day.
3:21Familiarity with the Bible
I was familiar with the Bible since I had attended a church for several years with my family. However, I didn't understand much about Jesus's life, how a person could communicate with God, and on the whole I didn't see any relevancy to any of it. However, as we talked more and more it started to make sense. It was a Thursday evening and it was now time to go to our evening orchestra rehearsal. We arrived at the hall only to see a sign posted that the rehearsal was canceled. All the years I attended the camp as a student and later as a teacher (8 years in all) a rehearsal has been canceled only once: that very evening. We went back to our dormitory and talked some more. He lent me his Bible to read that evening. I don't remember the exact moment of the change but sometime that evening I knew that I connected with God; I had found God. I had asked God to change my life and I yielded myself to Him. I distinctly remember the way in which my mind changed. It was as if a fog had been lifted from my brain. Colors seemed brighter, I began to understand spiritual things in a different way, and for the first time I felt peace in my life. This was a tremendous transformation for me: the greatest I have ever experienced in my life. If you are interested in making this choice in your life please see the following. God bless you: http://www.2reed.net/choice/
Credits
- author Terry B. Ewell
- composer Julius Weissenborn