MC blog: It's a beautiful day!

Saturday, September 25, 2004 1:00 PM It's a beautiful day! Time to get away from the computer, go outside, and PLAY! A lovely Saturday morning it is, here in Minnesota. I've just been working on my MC Web site. There's an attempt at explanation on the "Why Bass Clarinet?" page (see "The Low Spark..." below). I've addressed the Who, What, Where, and When questions, under the "Gigs" page. That's the quickest way to let you know what I was up to this past summer, busking- and blowing-wise. More musings about some of these events are on the way... There's also a handful of hyperlinks on the "Links" page. So if you feel like cruising around, check it out! I think I'll do some work on recording a demo CD, perhaps out in the garage. Or maybe I'll work on my BuskMobile out there... The Low Spark... of Unbridled Joy

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Why BC? I'm glad you asked that question... I'm a member of a self-accompanied solo bass clarinet band, Bruce Has the Talking Stick. (Renamed Deep Burble in 2005 -- see my Gallery photo of the same name for a partial explanation.)  I play jazz, ballads, classic rock, a bit of classical, and a show tune or two, accompanied by either A) me on a recorded bass clarinet bass line, or B) a recording of my computer simulating (nicely!) a piano accompaniment. (NO, my accompaniment is NOT a pair of cymbals between my knees, or a bicycle horn in my armpit -- but maybe I'll work up to them someday!) Why THAT instrument on THOSE tunes, you ask? 'Cuz it's music I love, and an instrument I know how to play, one that burbles along, sweetly and resonantly, in the lower register of a man's voice. The BC is typically a low-register support instrument in a band or orchestra. I've done that, still do, and enjoy it, but I've been wanting to take me and that horn to unexpected places, and work with some of the music I've loved listening to. My musical bona fides: seven years of recreational bass clarinet, in junior/senior high and college concert bands, followed by 27 years of intensive album and CD playing (where I refined (?) my eclectic tastes). Then came five years of on-and off tenor sax lessons and community band work. (Tenor sax seemed much more sympatico with my musical tastes than did bass clarinet.) Then, I decided to try BC again, researched and bought one (using my trusty factotum the World Wide Web), and fell in love. See, the upper and lower registers of clarinets are a twelfth apart, so the same note an octave up is fingered totally differently. On a sax, the register key is a true octave key, so the fingerings are the same for two octaves. (Never mind the altissimo, for now.) And the upper register of a tenor sax and a bass clarinet, both B-flat instruments, are fingered very nearly identically. So it should have been easy to move from clarinet to sax, never mind the 27-year grand pause. But, but, but... when I got that BC in the mail, and tried it out, I felt like I'd come home. My fingers and their kinesthetic memories naturally sought out the right notes. And those delicious low tones! The BC's range extends from the bottom of the baritone sax range to the top of the tenor sax range. And I'm having lots of fun nudging my BC repertoire out of traditional band and orchestra tunes and into jazz, and classic rock, and more. I've been playing for two years now, and I just can't stop. Oh, and what the hell is "Bruce Has the Talking Stick" all about? If you'd like some background on that band name, and a brief glimpse into my head, check out my 1/23/04 blog at Obsessions and Eccentricities. Enter at your own risk. Gotta go now. My BC is beckoning!