Fantasia for Clarinet

Contemporary unaccompanied clarinet solo. The type of clarinet is not specific, and as such, can be played by any clarinet (Bb, A, C, Bass, etc.), depending on the performer's discretion (as is the whole piece). The style of the piece requires the performer to be well versed in such glisses (chromatic and diatonic), scoops, growling, and vibrato. 2nd upload: I've taken out the tempo markings and increased the "furious" section tempos. History of the piece: I actually composed it for an instrumental audition in 2008. It is vaguely modeled after Wilson Osborne's "Rhapsody" for Bassoon/Clarinet. It has been a pet project of mine and gets updated every now and then. Working on getting a legitimate mp3 up here.Fantasia for Clarinet info and mp3Fantasia for Clarinet score

Fantasia for Clarinet

This piece is pretty cool, but I'm not sure what the point of the piece is. It has a lot of different types of material for being so short a piece. Sometimes it's hard to tell why something follows linearly from another thing. Maybe if you explain how you created it a bit more, I'll be able to make more sense of it.

If you play this, it would be much better if you upload a recording of you playing it, as the midi sounds pretty bad. Even if you just record it with a default computer mic, OR ANYTHING, it would be better than this. That way we could hear all the effects too (which might tie it together a little more).

Despite all that, there were definitely cool ideas, and few exciting moments, although with a piece like this, midi really kills it.

Agreed. I'm actually working on getting a recording up of me playing it. Probably be up sometime this week. Look for it.

Sixteenths at 120...isn't very furious. I know you don't want it to be TERRIBLY difficult, but I personally was wanting much more schizophrenia than you have here. And a tempo cap of 120 diminished that a lot, IMO.

Be that as it may, cool stuff. A performer can always take the angry parts faster. I think that would help the tune make more sense.

I agree with Peter, it doesn't seem that furious.

But I do like it. It has a nice color and tone, actually, it's pretty cool!

A few things tho:

1. The changes are a bit abrupt, and I felt a bit of a jolt with the changes. I'm glad you went for the change of stuff, because often people don't change enough. Just keep it to a limited change, allright?

2. What do you mean when you say "Face to air"? That doesn't even make sense!

Keep working though. I hope to hear more soon!

Heklaphone

Peter: For the furious thing, it's more about the intensity than the tempo necessarily...but seeing as how everything is ad lib, it is the player's decision.

Heklaphone: It says "fade to air." And also, I suppose the changes are abrupt, but that was part of the idea of the piece. It was also an experimentation/exploration for me as a composer/performer. I might make some changes to it in the future. We'll see. I'll keep it in mind for future compositions.

AND THERE WILL BE A REAL RECORDING SOON, I promise! Take care.

Not a bad miniature. A few things sort of struck out to me about it. First, I'm not exactly sure what you meant with all the time signature changes. I understood the need for 5/8 but the 3/4, 5/4, 2/4, and 6/8 didn't really seem to serve any real rhythmic purpose - instead, it just seemed like you used those for grouping your notes. Is there an underlying syncopation i'm missing here? Also, I second what was stated above by lastlife, you have a lot of material here. The ending seemed a bit rushed as well. I hope that helps. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to hearing your revision. I also agree with Peter in regards to the con fuoco section... however, I don't think the tempi is the issue but instead feel its the slurring... do those all need to be slurred?

Hey, thanks for the input. You are correct about the time changes. It was more for grouping than rhythm, but did serve a purpose nonetheless. I'm currently working on a revised version, so look for it in the near future. I'm going to try a couple different things based on the input given. Thanks again, all!

I really enjoyed this, particularly those florid runs of triplets, quintuplets and sextuplets. It strikes me as the sort of thing a clarinetist would pull out of the hat as a solo encore for a bit of showboating after playing through a concerto or something like that, though maybe a melodic motif wouldn't go amiss, just to help cement it to the tasteful side of technically impressive?

Sometimes the metronome markings don't seem necessary to me, as the required tempos are kind of implied by the boxed instructions. Looking forward to hearing an actual recording of this!