The Blue and The Grey

I'm in the local community college band and I have been since summer '09. The first summer I was there we played a piece called The Blue and The Grey. It has to be one of my all time favorite pieces. Anyways! This fall we are playing it again! So take a listen if you want.

It is actually weird listening to it and playing it now that I'm a second clarinetist. Still cool though. :)

-The Clartist

Vaclav Nelhybel..

There are so many musicians who inspire me.. but I think Vaclav Nelhybel has got to be one of the most inspiring composers. At least in my book(but I don't have one.. so in my head?)

Summer '09 was my first practice with the community college band and I was nervous as all get out but I slowly began to like it because you get to hear and play more pieces than if you were in the middle school band.. so I was completely overwhelmed by all the music. It was crazy.

But Fall '09 my band director picked a ton of pieces and he also put out Festivo by Vaclav Nelhybel. And BAM! It hit me.. I wanted to compose.

I think I had tried to compose little pieces before that for the clarinet.. but after awhile and after I heard this I was inspired even more to compose.

If you haven't heard any of his compositions you should.

Here is Festivo. Tell me what you think if you'd like.



- The Clartist

Wladyslaw Szpilman..

Have you ever heard of Wladyslaw Szpilman? I can hardly say his name but he was an amazing pianist. Not only did he play the piano well but what he put into the pieces he played were crazy. The emotion he could convey in one piano piece could have your face like this ":O" afterwards.

All artists have their own way of putting there troubles or joys into music. To show others what they feel. And some musicians go to music when they have nothing left.


Szpilman was a Jew, who like many Jews in the 1940s and such got persecuted for their beliefs by the Germans. Szpilman and his family had to suffer through being taken from their homes, watch people being killed just for fun by some of the German soldiers, and even watch friends abandon them for fear of being known that they helped a Jew. But some how even through all his troubles and pains of hunger and death he always found a piano.

He was even saved by a German officer who spared his life after hearing him play on the piano. The German officer even hid him and fed him even though he could have been punished severely for helping.

Wladyslaw Szpilman, after the war had ended, went back to playing on the radio. It is incredible how he survived and still after everything bad could happen to him he still clung to music.

He inspires me. And if you want to know how he survived and what he went through you should really watch The Pianist. A fantastic movie that showed him for what an amazing pianist he is and how he still kept with it. Anyway. That's all I have to say about him and his awesomeness. :)

- The Clartist