Helen Bledsoe

Category: instrumentation

  • Extended techniques: Do We Need a Pan-Woodwind View?

    Since the 1967 publication of Bruno Bartolozzi’s New Sounds for Woodwind, there have been many books published for new sounds, or extended techniques, for the individual woodwind instruments. (Read here about some thoughts about the term “extended techniques”.) However, to my knowledge, since then, there has been no book that addresses the emerging uses of extended sounds for the woodwinds as a whole. This has become a problem for composers whose main focus is orchestral and ensemble writing.

    I do not intend to disparage the hard work that has gone into the existing books for single instrumental techniques (for example, the Bärenreiter series). However, reading each individual book is not entirely helpful (or cheap) for a composer who wants to write an orchestral score with these techniques – a score that graphically reflects the Geist of the sounds (open note heads for air sounds, for example) and is consistent in its notation throughout the staves. These aspects are very important for juries, funding committees, conductors, and other people whose job it is to peruse scores. Then there are the players, for whom the score also needs to give clear information as to what to play and how to play it.

    Take air (aeolian) sounds, for example. It’s a very different production technique for flute, single reed, or double reed, and they produce different sound results. However, a composer will want a unified notation and a conductor will expect a balanced sound from this notation (which usually doesn’t result!). A similar situation with percussive techniques. Different methods of production are even reflected in our terminology (slap tongue for reeds, pizzicato for flutes). And unpitched material? Ideally a composer might want to reflect it by a clef change (using a precussion clef), but for winds, often our “unpitchted” material needs a fingering, therefore five lines and a treble or bass clef (think tongue ram or jet whistle).

    In spite of my love for continuing the flute traditions of notation, and my pedantic writings on “Lumping and Splitting” notations, I do agree that some things could be improved by re-thinking the notational traditions that came out of solo works that flourished in the 1980’s and 1990’s in order to make a more comprehensive, woodwind-wide system that makes a composer’s life easier. Any thoughts?

  • Ligeti Hamburg Concerto (Horn Concerto)

    I thought it would be a nice segue from my last post on the True Range of the Flute to a work that, great as it is, has serious issues regarding range. Composers, if you have overstepped the bounds of the flute’s range, you are in good company.

    Gyorgi Ligeti is just about my favorite composer. However, the fourth movement of his Hamburg Concerto poses serious problems. The first flute, playing flute, not piccolo, has to contend with this, at tempo dotted-quarter = 120:

    Hamburgisches Konzert - Flöte 1-24B

    I have heard this played on flute, the 1st player just ignoring the octave indication. If I’m not mistaken, this was the solution on the recording that was made with Ligeti. I did not work with Ligeti on this piece, but have played under conductors who have experience with the piece. What I did was play this passage on piccolo, but that poses another problem later on since there is no time to change back to flute. Our solution was this: 1st player plays piccolo until “l”, leaving out low D-flats and E-flats (they are doubled anyway). Have the 2nd flute play “l” through “m” while 1st changes to flute, then 1st resumes playing at “m”.

    Earlier on in this movement, the 1st player has the following passage. The Notes after “V” are possible, but when played on flute, it throws the dynamic balance of the ensemble totally off:

    Hamburgisches Konzert - Flöte 1-2(1)3A

    I solved it by changing to piccolo at “U”. The last time I played it, I thought “what the hey”, and just played from the beginning of the movement on piccolo (transposing the written part down an octave, of course). It makes for better dynamics at “T” (not that it is impossible on flute). The only note you have to leave out is the B in the third bar of “T”. I don’t present this as an authentic or brilliant solution, it was just a whim and the conductor went with it.

    I hope this helps future flutists working on this cool piece (including myself, just so I remember what we did)! If you know of other solutions, I am all ears.

  • The True Range of the C Flute

    The True Range of the C Flute

    Back in the USSR, when information was really suppressed, many people were hungry for the truth. Now governments hide the truth from us under a deluge of information. I think composers suffer from this deluge, but it is not a government conspiracy.

    The true range of the concert C flute is a matter of public domain, published in text books, on the internet, and God knows where else as a cold, hard fact. It is neither a state secret nor rocket science. Yet why is it ignored?

    Sometimes I can understand why. We often work with composers of electronic music who transfer their sound world into “scores” and leave the instrumentation up to us. There are also arrangers who don’t sweat the details of register, and tell me up-front that I am free to choose which size flute I want to use when. That’s cool.

    But when that’s not the case, how to bring this issue out from under the deluge information? I considered several options. Swear words, Russell Brand revolutionary rhetoric, sexing-up – what can I do to get your attention?

    Here is my first attempt. Download it here as a PDF, or view it here. Suggestions are welcome, but please keep it family-friendly. [later edit: Here you can find a detailed presentation about the range of the flute. Here you can find a graphic of piccolo vs. flute ranges.]

    True_Range

  • Pet Peeves for composers

    This is going to be a work in progress.

    To all composers – here is one musician’s (of the flutist persuasion) list of pet peeves:
    There is a compositional tradition which I would like to ask composers to please avoid, especially when writing for wind players. This is using a comma (which looks to a wind player like a breath mark) at the end of a note to indicate that the player should maintain the intensity of the dynamic and end the note abruptly, without tapering:



    A wind player’s instinct on seeing this mark is to make a quick inhalation – not the effect desired. A preferable solution would be to make a stylistic indication at the beginning of the work, or to indicate the dynamic graphically:

    A short list of other pet peeves:

    • Using empty note heads to indicate air or aeolian sounds. Please see my tips on this subject.
    • Bass flute together with bass clarinet. Neither their ranges nor sonorities match. IMO the bass flute is better paired with the A-clarinet. The bass clarinet is a different animal altogether, with a much broader range, more scope for dynamics, than the bass flute. Just because they are both labeled “bass” (incorrectly, as it turns out for the bass flute, but that’s another story altogether) doesn’t mean they belong together.
    • piccolo and E-flat clarinet ditto. Cliche. Why bother? Unless you want to sound like a screeching street band. Maurico Kagel was able to get away with it.
    • Fluttertongue. It’s also cliche. Give it a rest please. (And it’s not a given that every flutist can do it – Asian flutists have a more difficult time. I myself cannot do the forward version, but have to resort to the Parisian Gargle) And it’s often imprecisely notated, esp. when it comes to mixing the flute and voice. When written together, why are they sometimes written differently? If one does a fluttertongue, the other will automatically do it too – it would be nice to have it reflected in the notation.
    • Extended techniques stacked up on top of one another. This is something some resort to thinking that it will make the sound more interesting and intense. Well, some techniques cancel each other out and just muddy the waters. Better to pick a few that work acoustically well together.
    • Difficulty for difficulty’s sake. OK, Ferneyhough made it part of the esthetic of Cassandra’s Dream Song – to make the struggle an intrinsic part of the music. But this is a rare case of it actually working (IMHO), I do love this piece but I haven’t come across another that successfully uses this scheme.