Classes have met

And they all seem to be pretty good.

Cornetto technique with Stephen Escher

We did a lot of talking and not much playing yesterday, but the talking was to the point. We went around the room and talked about how and why we got into cornetto playing, and each played single notes and talked about them and what to do to improve them. In my case hardware is part of the answer. Steve loaned me his 465 cornetto, which is just enough smaller than a 415 instrument that I can play it, although not easily. And he has a jar full of mouthpieces that we're going to see if we can find something that works better on the cornettino.

He pointed out that once we get a sound we like and are really listening to, there isn't that much difference between us and Bruce Dickey -- he just gets to that sound immediately and keeps it up to the end of the note and we don't.

Mass

That's what they call the mixed choral and instrumental performance at the end of the week that everybody can do. This year it's the polyphonic church music of the French Calvinists, who weren't allowed to play polyphony in Church, so they did it at home.

It's all good music for serpent. There's a bunch of settings of Psalm CXXXVII, and a large Te Deum by Claude LeJeune.

Wim Becu

I think the class is called "Josquin and Goudimel" or something like that, but people signed up for it because they want to work with Wim. There are 8 of us, but mostly trombone and bass curtal players, so they're in need of instruments that can play top lines. I was surprised that anyone would rather listen to me on cornetto than on serpent, but I did in fact end up playing cornetto all class. We're doing two choir music, and I got the lower of the two top lines (the other cornetto player in the class is much better than I am).

The music is wonderful, and two choirs full of people who can sightread it isn't something I get anywhere else, and Wim is a really good coach, who can make a piece sound like you aren't sightreading in a very short time.

Steve Escher again

I forget what this one is called, but there are 5 loud wind players playing what Steve brings. In this case, I'm playing low to middle lines. I started out playing the second from the bottom line (there's a good bass curtal player on the bottom), but I turned out to have more serpent high notes left than the trombone player had trombone high notes, so I switched to middle lines.

People were pretty zonked by then, so some of theh sightreading wasn't as good as the same people had been doing only an hour before, but I'm sure it will but a good class.

Related posts:

1. CCAE Renaissance Ensemble March concert
2. Too good to be true
3. Going to Amherst