At 12:09 AM -0400 5/14/11, timothy.price wrote:
The difference between "intermediate" and
"advanced" became a bit restrictive, most
notably with the f french horns. The lowest
written note permitted was a
F in the base clef below middle C when I would
like to take it down to the B. Actual pitch
lowest sound would be, in "intermediate" , C
... but the advanced setting allows another full
octave bellow to the low B.
So, as the horns are important here... the
trombones have other business, I would like to
keep the lower range in the french horns, but I
do
not want to make the music too difficult to
produce a good tone with a community orchestra.
I have heard them play the overture to Candide,
but I have no idea of their range in that piece.
OK, first off, range does not depend on the
technical level of the player (with the obvious
exception of the upper range on brass
instruments. I was playing horn notes down into
the pedal range and up to Dvorsák's high C when I
was in junior high school! So "community
orchestra" is not a useful description of
competence level. Around here there are some
awfully good community orchestra players, many of
them with professional training and experience
who might actually be earning a living at
something else or raising a family.
But the repertoire the orchestra plays IS an
indicator of how competent the players are.
"Candide" is challenging music, both technically
and musically, so if they can handle that they
should be able to handle any reasonable demands.
In other words, don't worry about it, just write
the notes you want! But what you MIGHT find is a
dropoff between first chair and 4th chair players
that's greater than in a professional orchestra,
so you might want to think carefully before
writing any exposed 4th horn solos. And do
remember that there's still a feeling in the horn
world that a player might be a high horn player
(1st or 3rd) or a low horn player (2nd or 4th)
going back to the days when horns were written
for in pairs in different keys.
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[email protected])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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