Hi Everyone... I am doing my presentation on Thursday on Extended Vocal Techniques. What I would like everyone to do (except vocalists) is to consider for their own instrument what extended techniques are. Thinking about the versitility as well as the limitations of their instrument. Feel free to post some on here! Vocalists, please do not do this for the voice (thats what I am going to cover) but feel free to look at another instrument. In class I would like everyone to be prepared to try some of these (we will all sound goofy together)! So come ready to make some interesting sounds and have fun!
Oh if in doubt wikipedia seems to be a good place to start!
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Well here are a few extended techniques for the clarinet. If I miss a few, I'm sure the guys can fill in the rest!
ReplyDeleteDouble tonguing: although fairly common on brass instruments, double tonging is not often required for clarinet players. There are a few keys pieces, the scherzo from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, that require it, but you'd be surprised how few clarinetists can double tongue.
flutter tonguing- roll your R's and stick a horn in your face. That's about all there is to it.
quarter tones/ microtones- pitches that occur between half steps. They're usually achieved with some special fingerings
glissandi or smears (schmears?)- bending the pitch during a large leap in order to play all microtones in between. That description doesn't really work. See Rhapsody in Blue
Circular breathing- the player inhales through his nose while pushing air using his face muscles and then continues to exhale normally after grabbing a breath. It's great for perpetual motion moments in music where pausing for a breath is impossible
nultiphonics- altering the embouchure and tongue position so that the overtones speak more clearly, and one can essentially play multiple notes at once. You won't get a major triad, but you get some interesting results.
sung multiphonics- singing or humming into the instrument while playing can produce this kind of growling multiphonic.
key clicks- kinda what it sounds like. You "click" the keys. Yeah it's that exciting.
That's all I can think of, but I hope that's informative and interesting. Did I miss any?
slap tongue- I see this more commonly with saxophone players, but I've met a few clarinetists who can pull it off. you release the suction in your mouth, and the sound is the result of the reed popping off the mouthpiece.
Finally, a topic with which I am actually very familiar with, as my focus in my Performance Masters degree was in extended techniques for tuba.
ReplyDeleteClaire covered almost the entirety of the extended techniques with the exception of a few:
mouthpiece slaps - tonguing without the use of the embouchure
air noise - very effective when used in mass ensembles to depict the wind or feeling of eeryness. Especially effective on larger instruments like the tuba
bangs - hitting either the instrument or mouthpiece with the hand
clacks - this can also be performed with the valves half depressed while clacking into the mouthpiece
Triple tonguing - du-du-ku (tu-tu-ku if you're a trumpeter)
There are some phenomenal works for tuba (and other brass) that utilize these innovative timbrel accents. The nice thing about a lot of these techniques is that you do not necessarily have to be a master at your instrument to use them effectively. Composers have written for various levels of performance abilities. Included in my 'favorites list' of tuba works with extended techniques are: Marta Pitazynska, Robert Chamberlin, Neal Corwell.
A couple of days ago, Brad and I were discussing the notion that just about everything we do could be considered an "extended technique." Nonetheless, here are a few of my favorites for percussion:
ReplyDelete-Vibraphone mouth vibrato. strike a note, bend over so that your face is just above the bar, and go "wah-wah-wah" with your mouth. It's a neat effect when you have a long note that needs vibrato when the motor is off, but it's hardly ever specifically called for by a composer.
-Bowing. Find a resonant (usually metal) object. Now locate a bass bow--the cheaper and crappier, the better. Bow said resonant object along its thinnest edge. This is a fun one to do with music stands.
-The mandolin roll. When playing four-mallet marimba, turn your hand so that one mallet is directly over the top of the other. Place the mallets on top and beneath the toe of one of the "white notes" on the marimba. Move your hand rapidly up and down. Ta-da! an easy way to pull off a one-handed roll on a single note.
-The silent tambourine flip. Some tambourine techniques require the instrument to be played head side up, others head down. Unfortunately, it is difficult to flip the tambourine over without making extraneous noise. The simple solution? Pretend to sneeze loudly as you flip. (Come on, I had to have a little fun with this!)
The infamous "timpani wind machine." Place a cymbal upside down on a timpano--preferably a large one. Now, roll with soft mallets on the cymbal while moving the pedal up and down. The resulting sound is nothing like wind, despite the insistence of composers on scoring this effect. Enjoy.
I'm really glad that Ben put up the percussion extended techniques.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing about percussion extended technique, is that they're really not an extension of percussion. Now-a-days, you can bow pretty much anything and it's acceptable, you can hit anything with anything and it's acceptable.
I've even heard of a piece where you suspend a very specific model of television (it's a 1960's model I believe, so they're very hard to come by) above a pool or body of water. The performer takes a baseball bat and smashes the TV and then the TV is supposed to drop into the water. This is probably a La Monte Young piece (even though I've never looked it up), but it just goes to show you that pretty much anything goes in this day and age.
I'm also wondering if all the other instrumentalists/vocalists feel the same way? Do you feel like multiphonics, key slapping, etc. is almost over used?
In response to Brad's question, it would seem to me that is a repertoire with extended techniques and one without and rarely do they meet. For the clarinet, at least, 90% of everything you will ever play requires no extended techniques. Sure, as Claire pointed out, the Mendelssohn Scherzo from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is easier with double tonguing and "Rhapsody in Blue" requires an enormous glissando but that is almost it in the standard literature. Circular breathing makes all long passages easier too, of course, unless your audience wouldn't appreciate Mozart with some strange noises as you inhale through your nose while keeping the air going with your cheeks.
ReplyDeleteThe other category consists of almost all extended techniques. Eric Mandat, a clarinetist and composer whom Dennis will talk about later in the semester, utilizes the whole range of quarter tones, multiphonics, glissandi, circular breathing, etc. to perform his pieces. Ronald Caravan, another clarinetist-composer, wrote multiple pieces specifically to introduce and explore extended techniques. I played two of them on my recital as a total contrast to more traditional fare.
So, for clarinet players at least, the divide seems pretty clear. So is the frequency of hearing extended techniques on a recital or concert (though it does seem to be getting more popular in recent years.)