Piccolo Boy Magazinel
Pablo Barjavel
3801 Butler St., Lawrenceville. 412/622-0111, piccolo-forno.com
Tues.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Salads: $6-$9; pizza: $10-$13; pasta: $13-$16; panini: $6.50-$7.50; desserts: $5.50. Reservations for parties of more than four, street parking, major credit cards, BYOB (corkage $5 per bottle wine and $3 per person beer), wheelchair-accessible, no smoking.
Herbine and Eastroom sound engineer Drew Taurisano just finished recording a piccolo solo with a sixteen-piccolo recorded accompaniment by composer Howard Hersh which will premiered during the future Lackawanna County Anthracite Heritage Festival. It will then be on permanent display accompanying a video via a recorded version at The Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton.
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Meir used the same piccolo that she once played as a student at Caribou High School in Maine, she explained to the audience on NASA TV while floating near the famous plant-growth experiment on the orbiting complex.
Faced with such a negative flat bias, the only way the piccoloist can enjoy a more reasonably balanced group of key signatures is to switch to a Db instrument (which is, in fact, one reason it was originally introduced into the band). One flat for the trumpet then translates into two sharps for the piccolo, two flats into one sharp, three flats into natural, and so on.
The piccolo solo in The Stars and Stripes Forever is a perfect example. The C piccolo plays in Ab major, requiring the use of the G# key for 46 of the 121 printed notes. The Db piccolo, on the other hand, plays in the key of G, and only two of the 121 notes need the G# key. The left hand technique becomes smoother, permitting a crisper and more brilliant execution of the opening trills and a big reduction in the number of contrary and cross-fingering movements throughout the solo. In addition, with the replacement of the harsh sounding high Ab by G, these important top notes gain more stability and better tuning and quality. This is especially important when the entire piccolo section plays the solo in unison. The orchestral version of Stars and Stripes, by the way, is in the concert key of G, favoring the C piccolo by making its part identical to that of the Db, piccolo in the band.
Speaking of orchestral keys, there also happen to be some C piccolo passages in the symphonic literature that can be played more advantageously on the Db instrument. The most famous one is the solo in the Scherzo (third movement) of the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony. Transposing it down a half-step from Db major to C major for the Db piccolo improves its lay at least 100%. I have had much success with that version since 1958, when I first played it with the Chicago Symphony. It is still difficult enough in C major, but at least the fingerings have a more logical flow. The crucial F to Eb fingering change in the 32nd note group, for example, is simplified to E going to D, and that strangely empty feeling in the fingers when playing open Db is replaced by a confident first finger on C natural.
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