Clarinet & Saxophone Supergroup

Now that the Clueless in Competition is over some musicians have reluctantly handed back their instruments, others have gladly handed them back, some have put it in the cupboard/under the bed/on top of the wardrobe (for now at least) while the rest continue to play as they work on their three pieces, scales, sight-reading and aural for their next exam. I should be with the last group but as this is a short half term with many concerts in it I spent most of the week back on my clarinets and was out nearly every night doing something or other.

Several schools have their annual concerts before Easter so require planning to allow students enough time to learn and practise parts. Friday's school is a large village college with a lot of music going on and last year clarinettist turned double bassist Trevor put together a single reed choir (single reeds are clarinet and saxes) from all of the players in the school. Several staff lent their rarer instruments (alto and bass clarinet, soprano and baritone sax) for pupils to try and I let one of my pupils play my contrabass clarinet, the biggest of them all! The result was quite a spectacular sound and generated a lot of interest from the audience. This year it is my turn to sort music and get them into shape. However when I saw the note that had gone out to pupils it didn't read Clarinet & Saxophone 'Choir', or 'Ensemble', or even 'Orchestra' but head of dept. Janet had coined the term 'Super Group'. I like this as it is comparable to the astronomical Supernova which Wikipedia describes as "a stellar explosion that briefly outshines an entire galaxy, radiating as much energy as the Sun or any ordinary star is expected to emit over its entire life span, before fading from view over several weeks or months." I think we had around 25 players and we did an arrangement of Radetsky March (Jan had to inform the drama teacher that this had nothing to do with Canadian-turned-British tennis player Greg Radetsky) which was starting to sound pretty impressive even after the first rehearsal. It is not quite ready yet but really promising and will hopefully give the students as much of a buzz as it did for me at th end of the rehearsal. Musical aims are to encourage players to keep their own independent line going and to come in at the right time even if no one else is playing, as happens as few times. And do the dynamics... such an easy way to make a big musical difference but such a hard way to get them to do without shouting "FORTE" every time the f sign appears on the page.

I have a queue of generous sponsors so my practise will begin again over the weekend as I have plenty of free time!