congrats on the first chair spot and on the great performance! two years ago i was in that first chair seat, and last year it was my good friend trevor, and you're killing it holding that spot! keep up the good work and good luck on next year's auditions!
Great playing! Wish one of those flutes (or another higher pitched woodwind?) was better in tune...but this is one of my favorite pieces and you did great!
Thank you! I’m using the Selmer C* that comes standard along with the Selmer Silver Plated Ligatures and Vandoren Traditional 3s! The reeds are more inconsistent than the Légères, but when I find a good one it sounds and plays way better!
I trialed the Clark W Fobes mouthpieces at TMEA. From my experience they were terrible… (They were the ones made for the Selmers and not the Leblanc bore sizes) I haven’t tried the Vandoren.
Sick we have the same setup! I’m new to contra and I’m having trouble with throat A and Bb; they’re super unstable, sharp, and want to jump to the next harmonic really easily. Did you ever experience this problem? I tried a LeBlanc mouthpiece and it didn’t have the problem for some reason (although it didn’t sound as good as the C* overall)
@@jackwoodruff7889 Are you having this problem on the B♭ Contrabass? If so, I have had this problem to an extent. What I found is that the angle of the mouthpiece entering your mouth plays a large role. Have the instrument a lot lower on the peg than you would otherwise do and angle the mouthpiece at an angle similar to how a B♭ clarinet mouthpiece would be entering your mouth. This is my experience with the Selmer B♭ Contrabass. Unfortunately I realized this after TMEA, so you can’t base the angle off of this video. However, it does sound like you might be biting or not keeping your corners tight enough as well. Make sure you’re not suffocating the reed, nor making your embouchure so loose that your corners aren’t securing the mouthpiece. Another thing that has helped me is making sure the instrument is adequately warmed up. It usually takes 15-20 instruments for the B♭ Contrabass to be warm enough for the tuning and response to be stable.
Hey man thanks for the response, I’ll try what you said! We’re playing this piece at my university so I volunteered to play the contra part… the instrument is a beast but so fun to play, especially in this piece 😄
congrats on the first chair spot and on the great performance! two years ago i was in that first chair seat, and last year it was my good friend trevor, and you're killing it holding that spot! keep up the good work and good luck on next year's auditions!
Thank you so much for your such kind words! I’m hopeful to hold this spot!
This was such a good performance, I hope I can move up bands next year.
BBb and contrabassoon sound amazing! Nicely performed :)
Thank you, the contrabassoon was incredible!
Get it Brayden! 🔥🔥🔥
nice, my friend was the contrabass in the 5A group
Great playing! Wish one of those flutes (or another higher pitched woodwind?) was better in tune...but this is one of my favorite pieces and you did great!
Thank you!
there was definitely a very out of tune flute in there but everything else sounded amazing
Hey nice playing, I was in the audience for this! What mouthpiece are you using?
Thank you! I’m using the Selmer C* that comes standard along with the Selmer Silver Plated Ligatures and Vandoren Traditional 3s! The reeds are more inconsistent than the Légères, but when I find a good one it sounds and plays way better!
I trialed the Clark W Fobes mouthpieces at TMEA. From my experience they were terrible… (They were the ones made for the Selmers and not the Leblanc bore sizes) I haven’t tried the Vandoren.
Sick we have the same setup! I’m new to contra and I’m having trouble with throat A and Bb; they’re super unstable, sharp, and want to jump to the next harmonic really easily. Did you ever experience this problem? I tried a LeBlanc mouthpiece and it didn’t have the problem for some reason (although it didn’t sound as good as the C* overall)
@@jackwoodruff7889 Are you having this problem on the B♭ Contrabass? If so, I have had this problem to an extent. What I found is that the angle of the mouthpiece entering your mouth plays a large role. Have the instrument a lot lower on the peg than you would otherwise do and angle the mouthpiece at an angle similar to how a B♭ clarinet mouthpiece would be entering your mouth. This is my experience with the Selmer B♭ Contrabass. Unfortunately I realized this after TMEA, so you can’t base the angle off of this video. However, it does sound like you might be biting or not keeping your corners tight enough as well. Make sure you’re not suffocating the reed, nor making your embouchure so loose that your corners aren’t securing the mouthpiece. Another thing that has helped me is making sure the instrument is adequately warmed up. It usually takes 15-20 instruments for the B♭ Contrabass to be warm enough for the tuning and response to be stable.
Hey man thanks for the response, I’ll try what you said! We’re playing this piece at my university so I volunteered to play the contra part… the instrument is a beast but so fun to play, especially in this piece 😄
Selmer contra 😱
So lucky for our school to have both the B♭ and E♭!