A connection I made earlier

Random thought I had during orchestra.

So we’re playing Petite Suite by Debussy right now, and the second movement “Cortège” is in just an awful key for us Bb clarinet players. Frankly, there are a couple spots I just don’t have the flexibility for in my hands (I’m not completely sure if they’re very realistic at all).

I ended up finding a transposed version of the part for A clarinet, which puts it into a very nice key. Pretty much everything lays on the instrument really well, and it was pretty much sight-readable at that point.

Gave a copy to my section-mate during rehearsal, and it went a lot better than during our first rehearsal. That one change was massive, as it means we can focus on practicing things that aren’t just the notes. The music improved holistically, not only specifically on playing the right notes. Pretty nice.

Anyway, this is a post about accommodations. I hope the connection is clear; it surprised me how similar the two were.