For my duet, I am performing Allegretto by Arcangelo Corelli with Eric Du. This piece is one of the more difficult choices we could have selected from however it is within both my ability and my partners.
As an individual, I find that my main issue is continuing through sections with large changes in pitch. My second issue is transitioning after the sixteenth note runs back into the eighth notes smoothly without accidentally resting or playing the wrong notes. This piece have various melodies throughout that are arpeggios or arpeggio like where they ascend upwards and afterwards ump back down to repeat the same arpeggio like pattern. Sections like this are difficult for me as the large jumps often involve jumps between the different registers on the clarinet which is something I need to work on being able to do smoothly. My plan to remedy this is to continue practising this piece and various other challenging pieces as they often involve large pitch jumps like this. Another exercise I can do to improve my ability when moving between registers is to do slurs up or down an octave as a part of a warm up.
As a duet, I believe we are doing a good job at playing the correct notes and rhythms however the main thing we need to work on is our ability to stay together and keep tempo throughout sections which include syncopation and sixteenth notes. The majority of this piece is eighth notes meaning it is relatively easy to stay together and keep tempo. The issue arrives when we get to sections which include syncopation or where one of us has rests and the other has quarter, half, or other “not normal” rhythms in comparison to the rest of this piece. To work on this I think we can practise together with a metronome until we can get these sections together and once we do, practise just those sections without the metronome making sure they are together and then finally play those sections along with the rest of the piece. Other than that, as a group we are able to start together and end together as well as playing crescendos or decrescendos together. We have a good group dynamic and I think our performance will sound great!