Klarinet Archive - Posting 000539.txt from 1995/06

From: Chad Smith <csmith@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Practice Makes Perfect?
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 11:41:46 -0400

If I could put in more than one vote, I'd do it in a second...

PRACTICE EVERY DAY!!!!

Even if it is only for 10 minutes, practicing every day is so important for
the young player. I've read all of the other replies so far, and I have to
agree with the ones who say that your daughter is just not being challenged
enough. I used to teach privately, and I could always tell when my kids didn't
practice, as any teacher should in my opinion. If I thought the problem was
that the student was bored but still had a desire to practice, we'd move on
to more challenging repertoire, but not too hard! I read in one response that
your daughter should try the Nielsen or other pieces along that difficulty
range. I really don't think that's possible for a 14 year old. In my
experience, if you give a piece to a student that is beyond their capabilities,
frustration sets in, and the problem is only worsened - daily practice is once
again not done, and incorrect practice sessions result due to the student's
trying to play something that is technically too difficult. So, I would
recommend the Mozart Concerto, a piece that is not too technically difficult
and one that is also a lot of fun; further, once she masters this piece at her
age, she could come back to it in a few years at a different level and pretty
much relearn it on a more mature playing basis.

She's played the Mozart? Well, then have her try Weber's Concertino, another
piece indispensable to the clarinettist's "portfolio", and one that is going
to be a bit more challenging than the Mozart (except perhaps the 3rd movement).
Further pieces I would advocate would be Weber's Grand Duo Concertant or
Brahms Sonatas I, II.

Now, the problem may be that she is just tired of practicing, period. In this
case, with my students, I would have to decide whether or not to continue to
push the student and hope he/she didn't get burned out or to slow down a bit
and play a few "fun" things for a while. I hope that this is not the case with
your daughter. But if it is, why not try another instrument? Now that would
definitely be a challenge, and I've found that that is exactly what the child
wants in some cases, to simply play something else. Saxophone would be a good
choice if she's interested - an instrument that is easy to learn how to play
(as I learned through self-teaching) but one that is very difficult to play
well (as I learned in lessons of my own)! The "if she's interested" is an
important part of the previous sentence. She must have a desire to play her
instrument - very important!

So, she doesn't think she needs to play her scales? WHAT?!? Scales are the
basis for every piece she has played, is playing, and will ever play! I am
a very strong advocate for knowing your scales. One thing I have done for my
students is to have them go around the circle of fifths, playing every scale
in scale rhythm, all octaves, tongued ascending, slurred descending, and
timing them in the process with my stopwatch. I would tell them in advance that
if they ever played them in less that one minute then I'd buy them lunch,
whatever they wanted, for a week. (Well, I could do it so why shouldn't they?)
I did come to realize this was not very plausible and moved the time to 1'20''.
When I did that, I had several students play under this time, and they were
so excited! I'd never heard them play their scales so well before! They were
practicing them every day to achieve that goal (I think the goal was not to
break a minute twenty seconds, but to get pizza or Taco Bell for a week!!!!)!
Well, this was an expensive way to get my kids to practice, but it worked.
If they didn't "beat the time" one week we'd try it again the next week, and I
heard so many times, "Mr. Smith, next week I'm gonna do it!" What a joy to
hear! I'd just get a big grin and say that we'd see, and sure enough, more
than once that very student did come back next week and "beat the time". Though
my wallet didn't like my little plan, my students sure as heck knew their
scales, and I had several comments from band directors I taught for telling me
how pleased they were with the weekly scale-playing-exams for my students.
Maybe you could come up with a similar "prize" for Meghan.

Let's assume your daughter can play all her major scales from memory and can
sight read moderate pieces in keys such as C-sharp or G-flat. That's great, but
does she know the arpeggios for each scale? Has she played through studies
such as the Bearmann Complete Method for Clarinet, the Klose-Prescott scale
studies, the J.B. Albert scale studies, or the Langenus scale studies? Does
she know the relative minors to each major scale, and can she play that minor
scale as natural, melodic and harmonic? I already know the answer to all these
questions, so I would advise that she begin to do some of these scale studies.
This is an area where I don't really care what my student's thought.
They would play scales for me every week whether they liked it or not. Now,
I wouldn't be a slave-driver about it. I'd try and make the atmosphere as light
as possible (unlike my college teacher, Steve Girko!!) so that they would
always leave a lesson feeling reinforced, positively and constructively, but
also be challenged to do better next time.

Well, I'm very sorry for rambling on so much. It's just that I feel very
strongly about practicing EVERY DAY. Make sure you talk to her teacher and that
he feels the same way and is providing her with the challenges and positive
reinforcement she needs in this stage of her playing.

Thanks for listening!
-chad smith
csmith@-----.com