Can winds player play endless long tone?

I believe all wind players always envy about strings players that they can play AND breathe at the same time. We always struggle to find a good spot to breathe-in, and trying hard to train up our support in order to maintain a long phrase with good tone quality.

Of course, as a wind player, it is important for us to keep practicing and improves our lung capacity, nonetheless, sometimes we might find a phrase that is out of our limits. So what can we do?

Circular breathing, to define, is a technique that helps you to prolong a sound, or a phrase for a long time, by inhaling air through your nose while you are still exhaling air from your month. Some think that it's a contemporary technique, but actually it appeared early since there's winds instruments. Unfortunately, because pieces in classical and romantic period didn't contain a lot unreasonably long phrases, this technique was once disappeared and very few people knew it.

Later, a group of well-known winds players, including Charles Neidich, determined to redevelop this technique, and share it to the world. Nowadays, more people know how to use circular breathing in their playing, but of course, you still need good air support before practicing this technique.

*Though the basic of circular breathing among ALL winds instruments are the same, due to different system and different embouchure(the way of circular breathing between single and double reeds are a bit different), it might be varied among winds instruments. So before start practicing it, it would be better to consult your teacher.
*(And try not to choke up when practicing it.)

Bass clarinet in orchestra

Bass clarinet is from the family of clarinets, also in Bb but one octave lower. It is around a meter tall and with keys almost half a meter in length. Many people (including me) are fascinated by the beautiful low sound by the bass clarinet. But when was it appeared. and when it started being popular? 

At first, In Paris in 1772 Gilles Lot created a clarinet with several keys and a compass of more than three octaves, which he called a ”basse-tube”. At first, there were bass clarinet in the pitch of A and Bb, but later on, bass clarinet in Bb was more commonly used in orchestra, wind band, and even military band.

It was first being used by Giacomo Meyerbeer scored for a bass clarinet in his opera Les Huguenots, and even included various solo parts. Since then, bass clarinet is more widely used in orchestra.....though sometimes bass clarinet players count a lot empty bars before their entries.

Some might think that there's very limited range for bass clarinet to play, and almost difficult to play fast. However, with a lot practice and wisely use of alternative fingerings, there are a lot possibilities and color tone made by bass clarinet! 

Flight of the Bumblebee on Bass Clarinet. Boom.

I hope you all find out the potential and beautiful sound of bass clarinet in this article.

Ping Pong and Orchestra??

Nowadays, there are numerous possibilities in contemporary music, crossover with dace, drama, or even Cantonese Opera is not very special already. But how about with sports?

As we all know, it is difficult to control the speed, and even when the ball drops even when we are playing it. But in this piece, "Ricochet" • Concerto for Ping Pong, Violin, Percussion & Orchestra, show that it might be possible to make this happen.

Being an orchestral player, I found that it's difficult to play contemporary music, especially those orchestral works, as it's technically challenging and also difficult to understand. Nonetheless, when listening this piece, I guess it could be fun to play this.

Hopefully in next year's composition workshop, our classmates would bring out some new elements for their works. 

Development of the Orchestra

Nowadays, the number of full-time players in an orchestra is almost standardised in most places around the world. And we audience are only able to see the conductors back. 
Look at how the orchestra evolved!

Moreover, orchestral size has always been subject to variation. The gradual increase was initially connected to the transfer of the orchestra from royal courts to the public domain.
In 1782, the permanent staff of the Mannheim Orchestra included 33 stings players and 21 winds players. At the time of Berlioz, his symphonie fantastique demanded more than 50 strings players. At the time of Mahler, the number of orchestra players went up to 120 for his 8th symphony.

Settings of a Baroque orchestra

A modern full-scale symphony orchestra consists of approximately one hundred permanent musicians, most often distributed as follows: 16–18 1st violins, 16 2nd violins, 12 violas, 12 cellos, 8 double basses, 4 flutes (one with piccolo as a specialty), 4 oboes (one with English horn as a specialty), 4 clarinets (one with bass clarinet as a specialty, another specializing in high clarinets), 4 bassoons (one with double bassoon as a specialty). In theory, all woodwind players are expected to be able to play all auxiliary instruments in addition to their main instrument. Furthermore 5–8 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones (one with bass trombone as a specialty), 1 tuba, 1 kettledrum player, 3–4 percussionists (of whom at least one must also play kettledrum), 1–2 harps and a keyboard player (piano, celesta, harpsichord, etc.).



And check out what Berlioz says about the orchestra and instrumentations!
http://www.hberlioz.com/Scores/BerliozTreatise.html