Ukulele

[Ein Heldenleben]

That's exactly what I meant!

Wonder if the effect has ever been captured in a composition ? Sounds a bit like that pitch bending lever you sometimes have on electric guitars that your Clapton imitating friends used to endlessly annoy listeners …

[RichardB]

Wonder if the effect has ever been captured in a composition ? Sounds a bit like that pitch bending lever you sometimes have on electric guitars that your Clapton imitating friends used to endlessly annoy listeners …

- the difference being whether or not you can choose to play in tune if you so wish...

[ardcarp]

Wonder if the effect has ever been captured in a composition ? Sounds a bit like that pitch bending lever you sometimes have on electric guitar...

Not quite the same, but pitch bending can be done deliberately on a recorder...in fact I think you can bend the pitch of a note more on a recorder than any orchestral woodwind instrument (though I stand to be corrected). Their tuning is very susceptible to breath pressure. The EMS show two Sundays ago had some (rather off-piste) contemporary compositions which included that and other techniques*.


* Played by the Palisander Ensemble

[Ein Heldenleben]

- the difference being whether or not you can choose to play in tune if you so wish...

The other difference I guess is the guitar lever bends the strings uniformly whereas ,if I understand Ardcap , an open strummed string will be in tune but a vigorously depressed fretted string strummed with it will be sharp. Not an enticing prospect …

[ardcarp]

Exactly.

[ardcarp]

in fact I think you can bend the pitch of a note more on a recorder than any orchestral woodwind instrument (though I stand to be corrected).

I'm just correcting myself having just thought of the opening to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. How do clarinet players do it? Is is something to do with half-covering the keyed holes?

[RichardB]

The other difference I guess is the guitar lever bends the strings uniformly whereas ,if I understand Ardcap , an open strummed string will be in tune but a vigorously depressed fretted string strummed with it will be sharp. Not an enticing prospect …

Indeed. (I was including that in my comment about choosing to play in tune!)

Regarding recorders and clarinets: because a recorder only has holes and not keys, it can make a glissando over almost its entire range, with a break between the first and second octaves. You'll notice at the beginning of Rhapsody in Blue that the actual glissando begins only at the C an octave above middle C, at which point it becomes a glissando, produced by a combination of altering the shape of the mouth and gradually opening holes. You won't find that glissando in the score though. Gershwin wrote it as a diatonic scale, but the clarinettist who first performed it (Ross Gorman of Paul Whiteman's orchestra) played it as a chromatic scale followed by the famous glissando, which subsequently has become the way everyone does it. (The kind of glissando played by Gorman has been written into numerous clarinet parts since then.)

[ardcarp]

Thanks for that info, Richard. I just looked at the score (online) and it is indeed notated as a diatonic scale and with the instruction gliss, a slur and 17 written over it. A bit precise!

[RichardB]

Thanks for that info, Richard. I just looked at the score (online) and it is indeed notated as a diatonic scale and with the instruction gliss, a slur and 17 written over it. A bit precise!

I don't think the indication "gliss" is in the original score though - unlike in Franco Donatoni's Clair for solo clarinet where the "Gershwin glissando" occurs four times near the opening...

Not much to do with ukuleles though.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Letter in the Times today saying that Jimi Hendrix’s started on the guitar after finding a ukulele with just one string remaining in the garage….

[Suen]

I don't think the indication "gliss" is in the original score though - unlike in Franco Donatoni's Clair for solo clarinet where the "Gershwin glissando" occurs four times near the opening...

Not much to do with ukuleles though.

Hello,

I would like to know how to read ukulele tabs..

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Hello,

I would like to know how to read ukulele tabs..

http://ukulelehunt.com/tab-chords/

[ardcarp]

but given the dire state of music provision in schools I think it would be better to applaud and support those who manage against the odds to get pupils and instruments together.

Agree sadly with the bit in bold. However we have just had a visit from my youngest daughter and grandson (aged 7) and he brought a spanking new, full-size trombone. He attends a state priamry school in Leicester where 21 (out of 350) pupils are learning the trombone all on loan from the school....and one-to-one lessons are free. There is also a 'trombone choir' which most of those kids belong to. This is surely the exception; but Leicestershire has always had a pretty strong hand in school music. I think that has waned somewhat since its heyday, but is obviously better than most other regions. I'd add that the primary school in question is not in an especially 'nice middle-class area' and is quite racially mixed. So good for them.

[Bryn]

Agree sadly with the bit in bold. However we have just had a visit from my youngest daughter and grandson (aged 7) and he brought a spanking new, full-size trombone. He attends a state priamry school in Leicester where 21 (out of 350) pupils are learning the trombone all on loan from the school....and one-to-one lessons are free. There is also a 'trombone choir' which most of those kids belong to. This is surely the exception; but Leicestershire has always had a pretty strong hand in school music. I think that has waned somewhat since its heyday, but is obviously better than most other regions. I'd add that the primary school in question is not in an especially 'nice middle-class area' and is quite racially mixed. So good for them.

Let's face it, Leicester has long been a rather special case, where music education in state schools is concerned. A beacon to the rest of the UK, indeed.

[Suen]

http://ukulelehunt.com/tab-chords/

Thank you but I already use ukulele-tabs.com

I mean if you know a good tutoriel (videos, blogs..)