{"id":29223,"date":"2017-03-04T13:40:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-04T21:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/?p=29223"},"modified":"2018-09-10T22:13:54","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T06:13:54","slug":"nerdy-good-times-a-tarogatonists-confessional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/nerdy-good-times-a-tarogatonists-confessional\/","title":{"rendered":"Nerdy good times \u2013 a t\u00e1rogat\u00f3nist\u2019s confessional"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nerdy-Good-Times\"<\/p>\n

Quite apart from being unquestionably sexy and having a reputation as savvy trendsetters, musicians also have a nerdy<\/em> side. When string players visit\u00a0their favourite luthier<\/em>\u00a0to have their bows rehaired, they will talk with disturbingly\u00a0fevered intensity about the relative merits of Appaloosa<\/em>\u00a0over Arabian<\/em> horse hair required\u00a0for the job. Pianists tie rubber bands to their fingers to increase dexterity, and are known to also have preferred rubber band manufacturers<\/em>, about whom they argue on Internet forums. Of course, none are worse than oboists who have no social life whatsoever. How could they? They spend the greater part of their lives sealed up in basement cells shaving their reeds down to a microscopic fineness; then, emerge only to perform and complain about how much more work they need to do to achieve reed perfection<\/em>. To a lesser degree, it\u2019s the same for other woodwind players of\u00a0reed instruments: As a rule, most reed players can\u2019t tell a bad reed from a bad week.<\/p>\n

By taking up the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3, I seem to have painted myself into a particularly arcane corner (even by musician standards), so it’s no surprise that\u00a0I too find myself just as prone to the same sort of nerdy obsessiveness as what\u00a0dogs players of other instruments. It was inevitable.<\/p>\n

\"Studio\"
Working on Adam Hill’s “I Will Stay Here” for t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 and electronics<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I commissioned my t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 from Toth & Tarsa of Budapest<\/em>, I was provided with a deluxe menu of options similar to what you might expect when purchasing a custom Tesla or investing in a teak plantation. I could choose the wood (cocobolo), the fingering system (I chose the German Albert <\/em>system over the French Boehm <\/em>only because I\u2019d been playing a borrowed Albert system t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 prior to investing in my own horn), and the mouthpiece style (I naturally chose one that would take a clarinet reed over one that took a soprano saxophone reed\u2014there are no t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 reeds).<\/p>\n

\"My
My t\u00e1rogat\u00f3’s birthplace – Toth & Tarsa, Budapest, Hungary<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When my t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 arrived, I was delirious with joy and didn’t mind some of its\u00a0funky tuning (\u201chey, it\u2019s a folk instrument!\u201d) and its limited range (only two octaves compared with four on the clarinet). Gradually, however, that nerdy musician thinking started to peer into the room and make suggestions about how\u2014if only I tweaked this or bought that<\/em>\u2014my playing would improve\u00a0unstoppably.<\/p>\n

All my neighbours are out of earshot of my practising, so it is to their good fortune that they missed out on the months of squawking that transpired as I attempted to extend the range of the instrument. While clarinettists can chose from a number of method books that\u00a0contain vast anthologies of fingerings for every note on the clarinet (I have one such book with over forty fingers alone\u00a0for the altissimo G#), the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3nist must contend with a miserable starter\u2019s fingering chart displaying\u00a0but one fingering per note. Working on the two new works I commissioned from Jeffrey Ryan <\/a>and Adam Hill<\/a> forced me to extremes, so thanks to them and a lot of aforementioned squawking, I have now amassed quite a handsome new chart of t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 fingerings.<\/p>\n

\"Tarogato-fingering-chart_Jason-Hall\"
Caution<\/strong><\/span> should be taken\u00a0when attempting these fingerings as they have only been tested on\u00a0the Albert system t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 (nobody knows for sure what would happen on a Boehm system t\u00e1rogat\u00f3).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just as t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 reeds are not known to exist, t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 mouthpieces are a rarity. You can’t just march into your local guitar and drums music store and demand to see their display of t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 mouthpieces.<\/p>\n

\"LOTR_tarogato\"<\/p>\n

My t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 came from Budapest with a pleasant sounding mouthpiece, but with nothing to compare it against, I really couldn\u2019t be sure if it was good or not. My\u00a0quest for a superior mouthpiece led me to Dr. Ed Pillinger of Middlesex, England.<\/p>\n

Dr. Ed is\u00a0a skilled craftsman who spends most of his days whittling away at custom clarinet and saxophone mouthpieces. But every now and then, some t\u00e1rogat\u00f3-wielding colonial who\u2019s heard he makes a good Stowasser copy, rings him up. I now have two “Pillingers”: one is pitched at about A445 (European pitch), whilst the other is\u00a0pitched appropriately for North America at A440. The doctor\u00a0and I had to find a cure in the\u00a0latter one when the former\u00a0one proved untunable and untenable with piano (or anybody on this side of the pond).<\/p>\n

\"Pillinger-mouthpieces\"
Photographed on arrival (nothing makes social-media light up like the arrival of new t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 mouthpieces).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With all this nerdiness now becoming a fixture in my life, I was instantly smitten when clarinettist Fran\u00e7ois Houle<\/a> let me try his new Ishimori Kodama II ligature (the thingy that holds the reed onto the mouthpiece). Smitten enough that\u00a0I couldn\u2019t be stopped until one of these babies was flying its way to me from Japan (of all places).<\/p>\n

\"Ligature-instructions\"
Ishimori & Co. wins “World’s Shortest User Guide” award for 2017.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All of these marvels together has done much to strengthen the tuning of the instrument (no more excuses) and improve my confidence in the upper register. I\u2019ve yet to start affixing tape into\u00a0tone holes, a laborious practice to coax individual notes into pitch by adding successive layers of electrician\u2019s tape (or as I’ve recently learned, \u201cKapton\u00a0tape” available at any fine purveyor\u00a0of\u00a0model train accessories). Tone-hole taping\u00a0will undoubtedly commence\u00a0once all the new equipment has had time to settle in.<\/p>\n

\"Tarogato-setup\"
A marvel to behold – New Pillinger mouthpiece with even newer Ishimori ligature.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So if ever you have romantic thoughts of the life of a musician as some care-free communion with the muse, think again: Musicians are about the nerdiest people you\u2019ll ever meet.<\/p>\n

\n

Jason plays a custom Albert-system cocobolo t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 made by Toth & Tarsa of Budapest, Hungary, a replica Stowasser mouthpiece by Pillinger Mouthpieces of Middlesex, UK, a Kodama II ligature by Ishimori Wind Instruments of Tokyo, Japan, and L\u00e9g\u00e8re Signature synthetic reeds formulated by Guy L\u00e9g\u00e8re of Montr\u00e9al, Canada.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Tarogato-Project-logo\"<\/p>\n

On 30 April 2017 (4pm),<\/span>
\n The T\u00e1rogat\u00f3 Project and St. Philip\u2019s Church (Dunbar) presents<\/span>
\n \u201cREFUGE\u201d<\/span>
\n a concert of Hungarian music\u00a0and stories (old and new)<\/span>
\n of refugees to Vancouver.<\/span>
\n St. Philip\u2019s Anglican Church,<\/span>
\n 3737 27th Avenue West,<\/span>
\n Vancouver, BC, Canada<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quite apart from being unquestionably sexy and having a reputation as savvy trendsetters, musicians also have a nerdy side. When string players visit\u00a0their favourite luthier\u00a0to have their bows rehaired, they will talk with disturbingly\u00a0fevered intensity about the relative merits of Appaloosa\u00a0over Arabian horse hair required\u00a0for the job. Pianists tie rubber bands to their fingers to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[21,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29223"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29484,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29223\/revisions\/29484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jasonhall.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}