Frank Tichelli - Blue Shades
Video
Tichelli's 1996 Band composition Blue Shades is on nearly every Military Band audition in the US. Tichelli says Blue Shades is New Orleans style jazz, blues, and Big Band sounds, and that "many 'shades of blue' are depicted, from bright blue, to dark,
to dirty, to hot blue." About the lengthy clarinet solo near the end of the piece, Tichelli says "recalls Benny Goodman's hot playing style." It's good to re-familiarize yourself with this style before preparing this piece.
The big clarinet solo starts at measure 322. While you can be freer in a performance, in an audition, part of what the committee is looking for is perfect rhythm as you navigate the shifting meters of the music vs. the meter of the notation -
it stays in 3/4 but breaks each bar into two, three, or four beats per measure. To play this style correctly, you must portray the meter of the music, while being in perfect time to the meter of the notation. Also - do NOT swing the eighth-notes -
all the jazz inflection is notated. Vibrato is encouraged. Pay strict attention to all dynamics and accents!
Begin with a slightly stretched first note, to establish the run, and get some style injected right away. The first of many portamentos, or "bends," happens right away. I believe all these bends are better executed if you don't go below the
pitch indicated. This makes them tougher, and will require more finger bending than embouchure bending, but I think it's a better style. For example, this first bend is not about arriving on a B-flat, but arriving to a C which you bend to for
the last bit. Careful to only play f - we have a long way to go. The dotted-eighth-note fours should all be played legato, and the grace-note in 334 is more fun if you do it as a slide. Don't go too crazy or vulgar - it's a grace-note, not an
event. I like to do many of the grace notes in this solo as slides by bending my embouchure.
At 339, the "wail"ing will be helped by embouchure bends for the grace-notes. 351's bend is easy if you use side high G. It's easy to lose the high Gs in 354 if you only embouchure bend them, so you can do a combination of fingering F-sharp to
G while doing a little embouchure bending. Some of the monotony of high fff can be alleviated and thereby made more exciting if you play fp and crescendo through measure 358 into the accent in the next measure. 364 is back to only f, cool and
nonchalant. Though not marked, an additional slide is often played between the final two notes, with a finger slide. I like this, and don't think you'll get any points off at an audition for doing it.
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