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Short Cuts by Tinoco

2K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  DaveR 
#1 ·
Has anyone played Short Cuts by Luis Tinoco?

It uses a notational system for covered and uncovered timbre changes that my quartet is having some difficulty understanding. There are times where the notes are marked with a + or a o which we assume means covered and uncovered. but then there is a series of notes with a dotted slur marking over as well as some notes that are marked ord. If you have played or performed this piece we would greatly appreciate any insight into what these notations mean!

Thanks so much!
Portlandsax
 
#2 ·
Ord. typically means to play normally. Is it typically appearing after rests? I think it's a marking most often used in brass music meaning to remove a mute. I don't remember ever seeing a dotted slur in instrumental music - it usually shows up in strophic vocal music to accommodate minor differences in text setting from stanza to stanza. Maybe the dashed slur means optional slur??? I've never played this piece, so this represents some educated guessing.
 
#3 ·
Is this one of the pieces on the Apollo Quartet's CD "Short Cuts"? David Roach, who is the bari player on that CD, is a forum member -- "DaveR" I think. Send him a PM!
 
#4 ·
Hi, sorry to take a while to get to answering this, I haven't been on SOTW much lately.

Yes + and o relate to false fingerings as you suggest.

When we recieved Short Cuts from Luis (he is a lovely man, really, you should email him) I asked the very same question about the dotted slurs and to be honest he did not want to be drawn too hard on this point! However, after pressing Luis he did explain that he wanted an effect of the note resonating on, as if you had played the note in a very reverberant accoustic and so the sound carries on but sort of dies in a natural way. My own take on this is that there are some long phrases that it is best if you get the notes out of the way to allow the detail from the other parts to come through. Ord just means 'normal' playing. I can't be bar-specific about this, I don't have a copy of the music since I left the Apollo.

An interesting side note to this is that Luis originally wrote all those false-fingered passages to be double-toungued. Unfortunately none of us could double-toungue at that time (I still can't and have a woefully slow single toungue too, hey-ho).

Good luck, I think it's a difficult piece, but works great if you really can play it up to speed. I remember practicing certain passages for weeks before the recording and making many visits to my osteopath for treatments to my hands and wrists as some of the baritone writing is such hard work. There is also a very good recording by the UK chamber group Lontano which uses mixed winds.

Dave
 
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