Woodwinds! (Split from Avatars thread)

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Woodwinds question: If you can play one woodwind well, e.g., the clarinet, can you fairly easily make the transition to the oboe or English horn, or some other woodwind?

[Recusant]

I hope Harmonie stops by again and gives you an expert answer. My personal experience with woodwinds is limited to playing a bagpipe practice chanter, but I've been a musician since childhood, so I'll weigh in . . . 

There is a fairly important distinction between for instance a clarinet and an oboe. The clarinet is a single-reed woodwind while the oboe is double-reed. It gives a notably different sound, and I've heard that double-reed woodwinds are more difficult to master. The fingering positions vary from woodwind to woodwind as well, but somebody who's familiar with one woodwind would generally have an advantage over a complete novice in learning how to get music out of an instrument they've never played before.

Maybe not in my case though. The bagpipe chanter doesn't have keys, unlike most woodwinds. Keys being the metal parts that are used to produce different notes.

[Dark Lightning]

Funny story. My wife's mother had an alto sax gotten in high school. It was in the attic at their house, and when my eldest son expressed an interest in music, we let him look at it. With a little fiddling, he played, "Happy Birthday", first try. It came out pretty well, even with all the dried up valves. We bought him a viola, and he got good enough to play in the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic. He's in the USAF, and recently returned from deployment in Japan. Glad he's not in the ME with all the stupidity that's going on there. Last deployment, he was in the ME. He currently works on drones, having been pulled off of KC-135 tankers.

[billy rubin]

KC-135.

i saw one of those burst into flames once, then crash into a prison courtyard. mid air collision.

i found it on the net just now

The USAF KC-135 was on an IFR flight plan and executing a TACAN 03L approach to Luke AFB. The AA-1 had departed Sky Harbour Airport and had been released by phoenix TRSA. The AA-1 was heading westerly in airspace designated as a special traffic area and was required to have been at or below 2,000 ft msl. A pilot of another aircraft who was trailing the AA-1 stated that a low broken cloud cover was encountered and he had to descend to about 2,000 ft to remain 500 ft below the bases. He stated the pilot of the AA-1 did not descend but appeared to be skimming along in and out of the bases of the clouds. He noticed the KC-135 descending through the cloud deck followed immediately by the collision. The collision occurred about 5 mi south of Luke AFB at an altitude of 2,500 ft msl. The logbook of the AA-1 pilot indicated this was his first trip to the phoenix area. Luke AFB was depicted on the north side of the sectional chart only. VOR airway #16 was split along an e-w line with the northern and southern halves being depicted on each side of the chart.

[Icarus]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for your son DL.  He sure as hell does not need to be involved in the madmans ME war.

[Dark Lightning]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for your son DL.  He sure as hell does not need to be involved in the madmans ME war.

Thanks! He was deployed to Japan this time. If he had been in the Middles East, he likely would have been hurt in the attack on the tankers and drones. He used to work on tankers and now works on drones.

[billy rubin]

i hope he stays out of it. theres no telling what our president may decide to do with the people over there.

[Dark Lightning]

I hope that they all get out of there, tbh. This was precisely the wrong hornet's nest to swing a bat at.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

I hope Harmonie stops by again and gives you an expert answer. My personal experience with woodwinds is limited to playing a bagpipe practice chanter, but I've been a musician since childhood, so I'll weigh in . . . 

There is a fairly important distinction between for instance a clarinet and an oboe. The clarinet is a single-reed woodwind while the oboe is double-reed. It gives a notably different sound, and I've heard that double-reed woodwinds are more difficult to master. The fingering positions vary from woodwind to woodwind as well, but somebody who's familiar with one woodwind would generally have an advantage over a complete novice in learning how to get music out of an instrument they've never played before.

Maybe not in my case though. The bagpipe chanter doesn't have keys, unlike most woodwinds. Keys being the metal parts that are used to produce different notes.

The keys are my main inquiry. All woodwinds have complex key arrangements. I am wondering how similar they are, or if there is sufficient similarity to allow easy transfer.

Recusant, send us a video of you playing the bagpipe!

[Recusant]

The keys are my main inquiry. All woodwinds have complex key arrangements. I am wondering how similar they are, or if there is sufficient similarity to allow easy transfer.

Recusant, send us a video of you playing the bagpipe!

Again, hoping that Harmonie is willing to educate us all a bit on this topic. I can tell you that the clarinet is more complex to play than the saxophone, for instance. As I understand it you have to learn two modes of fingering with the clarinet because it plays in an upper and a lower register with alternate fingering for the registers. 

As for videos, I'm sadly going to disappoint you--I don't have a set of bagpipes, just a practice chanter. As much as I love the sound of the pipes, I decided that if I ever manage to invest in a real woodwind it'll be a tenor sax. An inexpensive practice chanter like I have doesn't produce a great sound.

[Firebird]

Woodwinds question: If you can play one woodwind well, e.g., the clarinet, can you fairly easily make the transition to the oboe or English horn, or some other woodwind?

As a former woodwind player, it depends. Not clarinet to oboe, as clarinet is single reed and oboe is double reed. Double reed instruments are famously harder to deal with. The fingerings are also very different. I started on clarinet and picked up the saxophone on the way, and while the embouchures and fingerings differed a bit, it wasn't a huge leap. Probably could have picked up flute fairly easily too had I kept playing, supposedly those fingerings are similar too.

[Harmonie]

When I call myself "Crazy Woodwind Lady", I mean it. lol. My first woodwind (aside from recorder - which I wouldn't respect until later) was clarinet. My second was bassoon and then oboe (with a little saxophone).

It's not "easy" to go from clarinet to bassoon, I guess, but I didn't think or care of that as I was very passionate about learning it.

It's been forever since I played the clarinet, but the bassoon and oboe have entirely different fingerings.

Side note: the funniest thing for me was years ago in college when I got the opportunity to play around with a crumhorn (a Renaissance woodwind) and the fingerings had similarities to the oboe. I picked the instrument up faster than the bassoon player. lol

Anyway... The reason why I didn't respond until now and don't know why I did in the end is because I didn't want to make this topic off-topic.

[Recusant]

When I call myself "Crazy Woodwind Lady", I mean it. lol. My first woodwind (aside from recorder - which I wouldn't respect until later) was clarinet. My second was bassoon and then oboe (with a little saxophone).

It's not "easy" to go from clarinet to bassoon, I guess, but I didn't think or care of that as I was very passionate about learning it.

It's been forever since I played the clarinet, but the bassoon and oboe have entirely different fingerings.

Side note: the funniest thing for me was years ago in college when I got the opportunity to play around with a crumhorn (a Renaissance woodwind) and the fingerings had similarities to the oboe. I picked the instrument up faster than the bassoon player. lol

Anyway... The reason why I didn't respond until now and don't know why I did in the end is because I didn't want to make this topic off-topic.

We've never been particular about off-topic detours here! Though I suppose we've got enough on woodwinds to split into another thread.  Thank you for your expert information. 

Thank you for the subtle correction as well. Instead of "most woodwinds" having keys, it should be "most modern woodwinds".  The bagpipe practice chanter is really just a relatively modern incarnation of historical woodwinds that lacked keys. I think keys aren't particularly new though, either, correct?

I certainly understand going with the bassoon; they have a really splendid sound.

A link to the "parent" Avatars thread, to acknowledge this thread's origin.