Music

About my playing - I play clarinet, bassoon, piano and recorder, and have some ability on the rest of the woodwinds and just a bit on horn. I started playing bass clarinet the second semester of my first year in high school, and didn't play clarinet til my first semester of college. So... I've been playing some sort of clarinet for 5 and a half years. When I auditioned for the Baylor School of Music I had not played a Bb clarinet for more than a few hours, so that didn't go well at all. Needless to say I sucked! I still have that clarinet hanging on my wall. I took a semester of lessons then quit on that. Then I transferred to Texas A&M University Kingsville, where Dr Nancy King Sanders convinced me to add music as a major (officially this time!). She's helped me so much, I've been studying with her for the past two years. She is also the bassoon teacher, so I've been playing bassoon for two years as well. I'll be getting my BM in Clarinet and Bassoon performance in two years as well as my BA in Biology. I have some clips of our band concerts below, hopefully I don't sound too gross. You can e-mail me comments on my playing by clicking on the e-mail me link at the bottom of this page.

About my compositions - I try to write things when I have a lot of free time, so I can see what kind of things I can say with music. I do want to get better at it, and I would appreciate any constructive comments on the material I have presented already. I don't know how well any of my fugues conform to whatever rules people say there are about the writing process. I was once told that my Fugue for Mixed Clarinets was too 'chordy' or 'tonal' I forget which word it was, and not contrapuntal enough, I'm not sure what was meant exactly. Perhaps too homophonic as oposed to polyphonic? Perhaps I was just making it sound pleasing to my ears and that's how it came out. Just e-mail me by clicking the button below.

Clips of my Eb, Bb Clarinet and Bassoon Playing.
MP3 File	Size, Length	Comments
TMEA Convention Performance 2001, TAMUK Symphonic Band, Second Chair Clarinet, Eb Clarinet
Eb Clarinet - Feste Romane, Mvt 4	88kb 5s	Damn I'm good! Haha! I love that solo, it was so fun to play :). It opens up the entire last movement.
Eb Clarinet - Tunbridge Fair	112kb 7s	My early Eb clarinetting days. Notice how it starts off great then the flutes come in and the tuning goes haywire, as the hair on the back of my neck raises and I fight with my life to tune with 5 different vibratos going on at once...
CBDNA Southwest Convention 2002, TAMUK Symphonic Band - Principal Clarinet and Eb Clarinet
Eb Clarinet - Circus Ring	142kb 8s	I'm playing the Eb part, my friend Veronica (Ronnie) Alegria is playing principal in this piece since I had to cover the Eb part. Isn't it so cute?!
Eb Clarient - Circus Ring	128kb 9s
Eb Clarinet - Circus Ring	244kb 15s	This is the slow waltz part of the piece. Again, me on Eb and Ronnie on 1st Bb. There's more but I wanted to keep these clips short and to the point.
Eb Clarinet - Circus Ring	270kb 17s	Piccolo solo - Ok so I'm not the one playing the piccolo, its Veronica (I can only WISH it was me, I suck on piccolo!). But - I have a little solo at the end of this clip that adds magic and color to the piece (lol...)
Bb Clarinet - Dance Movements, Mvt. 1	298kb 19s	I'm the one playing the Bb clarinet solo, so obviously I'm not playing the piccolo. Our piccoloist is Veronica Saenz-Solis, a wonderful musician and one of the most beautiful people I know!
Bb Clarinet - Dance Movements, Mvt. 2	122kb 7s	This is at the beginning of the second movement, the bassoonist is Arnold Salinas. This piece was great fun to play! No Eb part in the whole piece, though. Oh well!
Spring Concert 2002, TAMUK Symphonic Band - Principal Clarinet and Eb Clarinet, Concert Band - Principal Bassoon
		will hopefully be getting a copy of the only CD from band director... have patience :)

Title	Date Completed	Length	Instrumentation	Comments
Minute Trio for Mixed Clarinets		a minute? haha	2Bb Cls, Bb Bass Cl	I will need to add more movements since its pretty short, or so my clarinet teachers says.
Fugue for Mixed Clarinets 1		3:10	Eb,BbCl or 2BbCls, Bb Bass Cl, EEb Contraalto Cl.	This one is completely done! Will be performed by a clarinet quartet soon, hopefully. Teacher like it ;) very good thing.
Fugue 2 for lack of a real title	January 7, 2002	3:00	Eb,Bb Cl or 2Bb Cls, Bb Bass Cl, EEb Contraalto Cl.	This is completed too, and will need to be arranged for clarinet quartet or some other chamber group. I like the way it came out, it actually turned out to be a double fugue, so it'll be a big longer than the Fugue for Mixed Clarinets. I'm actually not too sure if I developed the second (major) subject well enoughl ater one but who cares, it sounds nice. Teacher also like.
Fugue 3 for lack of a real title	not done		Eb,Bb Cl or 2Bb Cls, Bb Bass Cl, EEb Contraalto Cl.	A Work in Progress. Coming along well. I found F Major to be way to happy, so I'm throwing lots of minor stuff in to please my shadowy mysterious side.
Fugue 4 for lack of a real title	not done		Eb,Bb Cl or 2Bb Cls, Bb Bass Cl, EEb Contraalto Cl.	A Work in Progress. Who knows? This is more like a "wow fugues are getting to be easier, lets see how much better I can make the next one" piece.
Fugue 5 for lack of a real title	not done		Sopranino, Soprano, Alto, Tenor Recorders	A Work in Progress. I'll try not to make it too hard for most recorder players ;).
Some Wind Ensemble Piece	not done		everything!	something other than a fugue! finally! Teacher says it sounds like background music to some weird French movie. lol I guess that's alright. Still a work in progress, it needs help haha. I hope it comes out ok.
Fantasie and Fugue in c minor	Fantasie - need to write fugue	Fantasie - 3'35'' Fugue - Total -	Organ	I was inspired by the beauty of the organ a few years ago and feel its finally time to make a real attempt to write something nice for it, its going to have two parts, sort of like a fantasia and fugue, or whatever. Moving right along to the fugue - gotta thing of a doozy for a subject ;)

The Teacher I'm talking about is Dr. Nancy King Sanders, my clarinet instructor, whom I find very generous with her knowledge of music to everybody that asks. Of course! She is Dr King Sanders, enough said. I'm currently working towards my Bachelors of Science in Biology and Bachelors of Music Performance as a clarinetist and bassoonist. I attend .