Tag Archives: contemporary music

… on bass clarinet preparations

I started thinking more seriously about preparing the bass clarinet after Aaron Einbond used it in his (awesome) piece, Resistance, for prepared bass clarinet and live electronics. I originally assumed that it wouldn’t be so useful: one can only prepare the … Continue reading

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…on soprano clarinet glissandi

Clarinet glissandi are fun. But they’re quite hard to understand for composers, because they aren’t easy in all registers and what individual performers can or can not do affects a lot. This post won’t necessarily be comprehensive, but as with … Continue reading

Posted in bending, clarinet techniques, glissandi, on composing for the clarinet, performance, singing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

…on writing air sounds for clarinets

Video introduction to this blogpost (see below for the rest of the post):   Update (Feb 15, 2017): It’s the three year anniversary of this post this week, so I’ve updated it with some contrabass clarinet air sounds and a … Continue reading

Posted in air sounds, articulation, collaboration, flute embouchure, flutter tongue, on composing for the clarinet, performance, slap tongue, spectral multiphonic | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 30 Comments

on chamber music

A few weeks ago, as part of a week long residency at Bangor University (specifically to play a rockin’ concert with Xenia Pestova and Carla Rees), I was asked to lead a workshop on chamber music performance. I don’t teach … Continue reading

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the kölner musiknacht: another performance paradigm

Some time ago, I wrote at length about my ensemble‘s last experiment with the audience-performer relationship through an alternative concert situation, our Unter Vier Ohren project. As I’ve been so focused on developing audience-performer/ensemble relationships, the Kölner Musiknacht seemed the … Continue reading

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