Klarinet Archive - Posting 000117.txt from 2009/09

From: "Jay Webler" <jaywebler@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Re: Preparing for auditions
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:29:56 -0400

When people think of technique they generally think in terms of
fast fingers. I tell my students that technique is the ability
to properly and accurately play a musical passage, whether it is
slow or fast. One cannot execute a passage properly if they
don't have good breath control or smooth movement of the
fingers. The end of practicing technical exercises should never
be the ability to play scales real fast.

Take a young violin student who first tries to drag a bow across
the strings. Usually these first attempts sound similar to
someone stepping on a cat's tail. Only through methodical
practice does one actually gain the ability to produce a good
tone on a violin: (If that is actually possible).

The fact is that both listening and practicing are both
necessary. Applying good technical skills to music in a musical
matter is only done with a good understanding of the music.
Trying to execute a musical passage; in a musical matter,
without the technical expertise to do so, usually results in the
torture of the listener. This is often experienced by the
private teacher in the lesson studio. In short, one does not
work without the other. IMHO.

Jay Webler
Jay's Clarinet and Percussion
678-315-3782
www.jaywebler.com
jaywebler@-----.net

Jay Webler
Jay's Clarinet and Percussion
678-315-3782
www.jaywebler.com
jaywebler@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Nichols [mailto:mrn.clarinet@-----.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 9:43 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] Re: Preparing for auditions

One aspect of mental preparation I don't think anybody has
really
touched on yet is careful study of the music away from the
instrument.
Practice is important, of course, but I think there's something
to be
said for sitting down with the score and coming to a good
musical
understanding of the piece or excerpt. I think (for me, anyway)
this
is easiest and best done away from the instrument, where the
mechanics
of playing the instrument and one's technical limitations do not
interfere with one's artistic thought. In my own musical study,
I
like to formulate an "ideal" mental picture of what the music
should
sound like apart from the instrument, before I spend significant
practice time on the mechanics of it. I think it helps--in
fact, I
find it to be rather essential, since it doesn't really make
much
sense to practice something if you don't really have a clear
idea as
to what the goal of your practice should be.

There are a lot of players out there who are highly competent
technically, but the more I listen, the more I learn about
music, and
the better listener I become as a result, the more I am
convinced that
the number of players who demonstrate a truly excellent
understanding
of musical interpretation and style is surprisingly small. It
seems
to me, then, that any time spent *thinking* about the music on a
purely *musical level* (as opposed to a technical level) is time
well
spent, particularly if one is preparing for a competitive
audition.

Why is it that neither Chicago nor New York can decide on a new
principal player? If all it took was fast fingers, fast tongue,
and
good tone, surely they would have picked somebody by now. It
seems to
me that who they are looking for is someone who will demonstrate
outstanding musicality (in addition to technical competence, of
course), and that person may be much harder to find. So if
excellent
musical and stylistic understanding would give someone an edge
in that
kind of high stakes audition, it stands to reason that in any
other
audition, it is one's good grasp of musicality that makes one
stand
out from the crowd.

So I think this sort of *musical* mental preparation is every
bit as
important as rote practice or efforts directed toward quelling
performance anxiety. In fact, I think the more one prepares
mentally
in terms of musicality, the more one is able to enjoy the music
when
it comes time to perform it and the less nervous one is likely
to be.

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