Manny Laureano

No, my other pal, Chuck!

We were at the the airport awaiting to board the flight home to Minneapolis. I was having a nice conversation with one of our development types when Ellen Smith, our third horn player, comes up to me and says, "Chuck (Lazarus) is stuck here, in NYC, and can't get a flight home. He is supposed to play a gig tomorrow for brass quintet and band. Can you play it instead?"

It was a piece called "Tangents" for quintet and concert band and was to be a featured piece at the MMEA with one of the better high school bands in the metro area.

I've never heard of it.

"I can e-mail you a PDF of it and a recording by the Dallas Brass. it was written for them".

"What time's the gig?"

"9:00 am tommorow. Can you do it?"

So, I said yes but not after calling Chuck and giving him endless grief about being a bigshot and not traveling with the orchestra. I got to the Convention Center to warm up about 8 am and had downloaded the files so I'd have an idea of what the piece was about. We met early enough to run through about 10% of the piece and in a little while later, we were off and running. Chuck told me it was flashy but readable and that proved to be the case.

Some of you younger folk might still be wondering why put in all that time with scales and arpeggios. This is why: most pieces with runs and things are based on scales and arpeggios. Get to know those and you can read well in situations that come up at the last minute.

They introduced the quintet and told a Reader's Digest version of the story and the audience showed their appreciation warmly. it made me feel good. It's a nice piece, actually. It's by John Wasson. It's about 10 minutes or so long and has doubling work for flugelhorn in the slow movement. I played in on C though it's written for Bb. Scattered high D's and E's. So there you go, youngsters: sightreading and transposition together. We, your teachers, are not joking when we encourage the in-depth study of both.

It went very well and I had fun. The best part is that Chuck owes me big time and I can lord this over him for at least another good half a year! It's funny because he was horribly sick last Christmas and called me begging me to play a performance for him of Christmas Oratorio at a local church. I played it and it went fine. I must say it's fun not having to rehearse stuff and just play the show. In England this happens all the time. That's why many of the Brits are such ferocious readers.

This must be the month for it. I've been asked to play a concert without rehearsal in Mankato later this month that will be broadcast for our troopers in Iraq. It's an all Shostakovitch concert with Festive Overture and the 5th symphony. They're going to videotape it and play it for them sometime later. It's going to be at the armory there on the 26th of this month. I'm looking forward to it very much.

Keep your sightreading chops up!

ML

tpter1

What a world, eh, Manny? That Shostakovitch, a Russian composer, can be played for our American troops? Would that have happened 25 years ago in the height of the cold war?

Great story. More scales and transposition!

WildTrumpet

Manny,

This really must be the month for sightreading! So when I read your post yesterday, I thought..."you know, I should keep up my transposition a little more than I do". I also must admit that I didn't think I would really find myself in your position anytime soon with the gigs I have here in the Twin Cities.

Then, tonight I show up to play the show I'm playing at the Bloomington Civic Theater and when our horn player wasn't there at 2 minutes 'till downbeat, we figured out wires had been crossed and the sub wasn't called for today.

The director (Anita Ruth) asked if anyone knew a horn player who could get there in time, but we couldn't get ahold of one. I took a big chance and told her I could transpose and play the essential parts on my flugel. So, that's what I did. There were 5 or so places in the show (it's actually a revue) where the horn part was essential. So, I played those and played my trumpet part for the rest of the show. I hadn't sightread a performance since college orchestra and I hadn't had to transpose on sight for a performance ever - much less read 2 books at once.

When the show was over, I was given a big "thank you". That's not why I did it - I stepped up to make the show sound as good as possible. But, like you stated, you never know when you'll need to use those sightreading and transposing skills. And yes - a lot of the time, it was a scale or arpeggio and I only had to think about transposing the key and the starting note rather than thinking about transposing each note in the phrase. I have always been a really good sightreader, but most of the transposition I've done for performance has been C and A with only a couple time in F. I will defnitely practice ALL of my transpostions more often!!

camelbrass

Great story Manny. It's amazing how many pieces you sight read and half way through the lick you think 'Clarke 2'..I know this.

I'm your typical amateur Bb player that until the last couple of years didn't see the need to transpose. Then I joined the local chamber orchestra and, although the first couple of pieces were gentle (Mozart and Beethoven), decided to start working on transpositions (at 49!!). I've just built them into my daily practice...I pick a piece, doesn't need to be anything special, and read it in a different key. Started out with easy melodic pieces up a tone and progressed from there.

It's now becoming much more comfortable. In fact I recently had to do a Bernstein evening and one of the scores (Trouble in Tahiti) was written for C. We had 3 rehearsals and was confident enough to do on Bb..even though I had a C with me. Similarly I have Carmina Burana next month and doing it all on Bb (not a difficult transposition though it's a tough blow..on anything!! One of the most confusing pieces I've ever had to read, very conductor centric). My C gets regular work in the chamber orchestra regardless of the key...it just sounds better.

Thanks for those stories.


Regards,


Trevor

Eclipsehornplayer

Great story Manny!

Thanks for sharing it with us.

Alex Yates

Way to go Manny MO!

Mikey

Be sure to let us know when Chuck pays you back, and how he does it.

Manny Laureano

Well, obviously, I got his fee for it BUT I think there's a good meal in it somewhere for me. He's got great taste in restaurants, I'll say that and fairly eclectic, too. He introduced me to a soul food place near the Hall called Big E's. I met E; his name is Eric and he's uh... BIG. But the man can cook, I'll tell you that.

ML

Mikey

Thanks for the tip. I've heard of that place, but never been there. We are always looking for new restaurants to check out, and that sounds like a good one. I'll let you know how it goes. (Maybe this coming weekend.)

M.

trumpetmike

Is this the end of rehearsals then?
They have discovered that you obviously don't need to spend so much time rehearsing, so they will be cut

It is certainly one way to save money - why do you think we are all taught that sight-reading is a major fundamental over here?