Tricky Licks: Gnomus

 

In 1980, my family moved from Austin, TX to Omaha, NE. Shortly after moving there, I auditioned for the Omaha Area Youth Organization. I was fifteen years old and had been playing the violin for seven years to that point. I spent those early years studying and playing violin in the University of Texas String Project. It was a wonderful time for me and I built a solid base of music theory, literature, instrumental performance and ensemble play. But passing the audition and being welcomed into the OAYO opened new doors for me. First, it allowed me to play in an orchestra with woodwinds, brass, and percussion...not just strings as was the case in the String Project. This meant that I would also be introduced to a wider range of repertoire too. Right off the bat, in 1980, I played Brahms' Academic Festival Overture and the Finale of Sibelius' Second Symphony. But the highlight that season was Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky. This is a hard piece for players in every section. I had to practice my ass off for sure. 

When I started hearing and listening to music outside of the classical realm, I learned new terminology. In rock music, I heard words like riff and lick. A cool phrase or musical idea is called either a riff or a lick. Classical music is full of cool riffs and licks. Here's a great one that I spent many hours woodshedding. At the top of the page is the lick in question...these are the last six bars of the movement called Gnomus from Pictures at an Exhibition. You can see that the key signature is full of flats...six of them. There are also accidentals mixed in there too, as if it wasn't already hard enough. And it is fast...

If you practice something over and over, it's possible that you will never forget it, even after forty years. Riding a bike is a good example. Maybe swinging a golf club or throwing a baseball are also examples. In my case, I can still remember how to play this lick. I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I can remember these six bars of music. Weird. 

I have been learning how to play the electric guitar this COVID year. Learning something new, and hard, has been really fun and good for my mind and spirit. I decided I needed to play this awesome lick by Mussorgsky. Here it is on violin and electric guitar.

And here is Gnomus from Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky (1874 piano) and later orchestrated by Maurice Ravel in 1922.