 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2003-11-30 10:51
Well, all my other areas are doing OK, but my rhythm is less than perfect. It seems that sometimes, I just stop subdividing. And to me, it goes unnoticed.
What can I do over my summer holidays to improve this area before starting 2nd year next year? I CAN'T go into 2nd year with bad rhythm!!!
Thanks in advance!
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Author: jo.clarinet
Date: 2003-11-30 12:33
Hi again LeWhite!
I'd recommend doing as much chamber music as possible - of whatever sort, but definitely only one-to-a-part music (it's too easy to 'hide' or get carried along in an ensemble!). The ideal would be to play with people who you know are just a bit better than you, where you have to keep 'on the ball' all the time in order to avoid having the music break down. It's amazing how quickly one can improve in that sort of situation!
In your solo stuff you can easily sort out the counting in eg. slow mvts of concertos (where one tends to suddenly be faced with demisemiquavery bits after having been playing simple rhythms) by writing in your copy where each quaver comes in those bars - then once you have practised it in the correct rhythm and know 'how it goes' you can go back to counting in crotchets or whatever.
Also, for what it's worth, in group playing (mostly recorder consorts for me) I almost always tap my toes of one foot inside my shoes - if you see what I mean - to keep an absolutely steady beat. It's not considered good form to actually noticeably tap your whole foot as you play, but inside your shoe nobody notices!
Hope this is some help,
Jo
Joanna Brown
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2003-11-30 12:43
Three thoughts: First of all, try to subdivide your music with a pencil in your hand and mark your music. With a soft pencil, draw a line over every point where the beat begins. This means having a knowledge of music theory - maybe you need some more training in written music theory? Look for groups of notes within the measure. For example, 16 notes are all grouped together with a double line over or under them. 8th notes are grouped with a single line over or under them. Quarter notes stand on their own. If your time signature is 4/4, then look for 4 groups of notes in the measure - if it's 3/4, look for three groups of notes. If it's 6/8, you'll look for two groups of three beats, and if it's complex music you may need to break it down into groups of 6 in order to get the timing correct.
Once you've done this subdividing with your pencil, then you can start to play the music. Start slowly!
Second - on your own you can play pieces of popular music that you're familiar with. Popular music often has a lot of syncopation so would be a good test of your thythm. But since you know the music, you can catch yourself. Test yourself by writing out above the notes exactly where the beats are, even if the beat begins during a slur.
Third - have a more experienced player (or a teacher, of course) listen to you play parts that you've been playing. This person doesn't have to be a clarinetist since music is music. A pianist or flutist will do just fine. They'll catch you when you play the rhythm wrong and help you figure it out, and if they're really good they'll generously congratulate you when you do well!
Be patient with yourself. With some concentrated effort and some outside assistance you'll catch on. You'll amaze yourself with your progress in a couple of months. We've all been there at one point in our careers.
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2003-11-30 12:48
Brenda - I'm a little beyond that part.
What I mean is... My sense of pulse and general rhythm is not ACCURATE. I can count, I can sit there with a pencil and mark all I want, I can play things as slow as mm=40, but when I've got something advanced in front of me, I'll slow down, speed up, in minute increments in some places, often quite small and difficult to notice, but listening to a recording of myself recently, I noted it big time.
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2003-11-30 16:04
Then, that's good that you have the basics down. Recording yourself can be really enlightening, can't it? We all have the same difficulty with pacing the easier and more difficult parts.
Then perhaps working with a metronome for a spell would help. If you can isolate where you're slowing down, then just take that section and play it precisely in time with the metronome, then add a measure or two to the section, and keep adding another measure or two.
When you're satisfied that it's coming together, then play without the metronome and record yourself. Or, play with one of the accompaniment programs, and see how you're progressing.
Maybe this will help you.
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Author: Ray
Date: 2003-11-30 16:31
I recently had the good fortune to sit in a master class led by the great jazz musician Eddie Daniels. You who have heard him know that his technique is amazing, and that you can clearly hear every note he plays. Nothing gets so run together that it is a blur of sound. In this class he stressed the importance of playing evenly, so that every note gets its due, and so that you are heard clearly.
If you can't play evenly, it may mean that you are unconsciously speeding up a little on the stuff that flows easily from your fingers and slowing down a bit on the more awkward intervals. This is exactly what Mr. Daniels stressed.
You must slow down until you can play the passage perfectly evenly. Then add speed so long as it stays perfectly even. Don't ever sacrifice evenness for speed. This will add great clarity to your playing.
Best regards,
Ray
Post Edited (2003-11-30 16:51)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2003-11-30 18:18
One thing that might help is (while learning a piece anyway) putting a slight accent or sfz on the beat. So if you're playing a run of triplets for twenty measures, and it happens to be a C scale up and down over and over again, (just an example), if you place a little breath accent on beats one and three of each measure, it'll help you to keep from speeding up.
Definitely practice music with a metronome. That'll help you realize the spots that you tend to speed up or slow down and you'll have a better idea of where to be careful when you play the piece without one.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2003-11-30 19:56
Play to the downbeats. It's amazing how many people don't do this (myself included, very often). Know where the downbeats are, and have your fingers ready to go there. The notes that are not downbeats should pull to the downbeats. There should always be motion, even in your head.
For example, in 2/4...
2 eighths then 4 sixteenths: 1 & 2 e & a 1...
Know where 1 is. However, once you get to 1, don't fixate on it. Immediately have your fingers thinking of the +, and how it is going to get you to 2. Land on 2, right when it's supposed to happen, giving it firm tone. Without downbeats, you have nothing. However, don't hang out on 2 too long, and immediately think of the fingering of e, and how that will get you to the &, and how the & will get you to the 1 by means of the a.
Everyone knows where the downbeats 1 and 2 should be, so there's no need to accent them. However, if they aren't where they should be, the music quickly loses its time.
To summarize, no notes should be static, including downbeats and offbeats. If you're thinking about the note you're playing for its own right, and not where it's going, you're bound to lose time.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2003-11-30 22:11
Here's something else you could try with a metronome. Set the metronome to the tempo you want to play at, eg. quarter=100. But instead of hearing the metronome as the beat, hear it as being the off-beat. To play accurately with the metronome, you'll have to have a very strong inner sense of the pulse. If you find it difficult (which I'm sure you will at first!), slow the tempo right down to as slow as necessary for you to play accurately. For pieces in triple time, hear the mtronome as the 2nd or 3rd of each group of three. I find that this exercise forces me to play more strictly in time than just having the metronome playing on the downbeats. Hope this helps?
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Author: Someone who knows
Date: 2003-11-30 22:21
The advice Liquorice gives is most wise. He is absolutely correct. This type of metronome use will aid one's sense of rhythm and time.
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-11-30 23:06
I have the same problem as LeWhite, and what I found helpful was to start the metronome, and just play the first note of each beat on each click. After I got the idea of where the beats where, then I would play all the notes. With this part I would usually slow it down and then gradually work back up to the correct tempo.
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Author: marcia
Date: 2003-12-01 01:18
The best advice I have heard about rhythm difficulties is"subdivide and conquer".
Marcia
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-12-01 01:26
I'm afraid in my experience you either have an good sense of rhythm or not. It's a rare beast who can sight read AND memorise with ease ... I'll bet you've got a fantastic memory and find memorising your music a piece of cake?
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2003-12-01 02:01
Memorising I do unconsciously - one day I just play a piece without even realising I have memoried it.
Liquorice's advice sounds great, it should get me counting in no time.
I noted my rhythm in Weber Grand Duo 3rd movement especially... When I had rests, I came in too late or too early sometimes, so I obviously wasn't counting.
Advice aside, I think I just need to COUNT, and pay attention to it. There is no miracle cure for it!!
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-12-01 02:14
LeWhite ... one thing you might like to do is play duets with your clarinet teacher (I recommend Lazarus Book III as they are the most challenging). When I studied with Margaret Smith (who used to play in the opera orchestra in Sydney) we spent a lot of time duetting ... and apart from fine tuning my (already) brilliant sightreading ability ... it was good to fit in with her and learn to "follow the leader".
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
Post Edited (2003-12-01 03:22)
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2003-12-01 08:12
I've done duets with my teacher but I don't enjoy it, his ego gets in the way and he has too good a time... And I feel very very small next to him!
I want to gain CONFIDENCE in my rhythm, I want to be accurate and KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!!
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Author: jo.clarinet
Date: 2003-12-01 11:07
Why shouldn't your teacher enjoy playing duets with you?! You should feel pleased at that! I have great fun playing duets with my pupils.
You WILL gain in confidence and be accurate etc. - it'll come with time. I guess you are only about 20 or so, so there's no need to panic!
You've had plenty of good advice here; my own advice (at the beginning of the thread) was to do LOTS of one-to-a-part work with your friends, and I firmly believe that this would do you a lot of good. I put all my pupils in various combinations for duets, trios, consorts etc., and it does wonders for those who are weaker rhythmically!
Joanna Brown
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2003-12-01 12:00
LeWhite - I'll bet you're already playing better!
A couple of thoughts came to mind in the last day. Over the summer I read Ken Shaw's description of playing Weber's Concertino and how important it was to play the notes so they're exactly even. So I practiced that diligently with the metronome and found out how NOT even my runs were. I had to go to the extreme of subdividing even the 16 notes (bumping up the metronome to twice the speed) just to make sure that I was fitting two notes into one shorter beat as opposed to four notes into the normal beat. Then of course the quarter notes or half notes had to be held for their whole time, which can seem like too long if you're in a hurry.
After doing this diligent discipline of pacing the playing to be perfectly even, I started again playing with the computer program (SmartMusic) that plays the accompaniment. That was a great help near the end of my preparation. The accompaniment wouldn't hold back to wait for me or advance when I tended to run ahead of it. Besides, it was at my side any time of day or night, whenever I needed it.
With the clarinet, something that's not to be forgotten is that the fingering progression from one note to another isn't always the movement of the same number of fingers. You may need one, two, or a whole handful to get to the next note. To add to the difficulty some fingers work better than others. If you think of the difficulty of trilling a clarion G with your left ring finger as opposed to using your right index finger on the alt key, you can visualize the problem. So the transition from one note to another isn't only a matter of KNOWING what you should do, it's training the fingers to be in control and moving only when they're supposed to, no sooner and no later! Then the playing starts to even itself out.
I suspect that with the help provided already you'll be able to make significant progress in the next few weeks. You sound like you already have a solid basis. Please let us know.
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2003-12-01 13:31
jo.clarinet, I meant that *I* don't enjoy duets with *HIM*. He just overpowers me and when I get something wrong, he kinda looks down on me. He's done these duets before, I'm sight-reading.
Back to rhythms, thanks guys, hopefully I can begin to make some progress!
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2003-12-01 14:46
That's a powerful reminder for those of us who work with students. We have to be so careful to be constructive and remember where the student's coming from. This is the difference between a good player and a good teacher.
Find which ensembles or duet experiences, etc. help you out, and you'll do just fine. Stay with those who help you move forward and challenge you in a positive way.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2003-12-01 17:18
Sounds to me like lots of metronome work. As for duets, try playing along with yourself on tape. Whatever it takes to coordinate the recorded you with the live you, is going to provide a world of education in striving for accuracy.
Allen Cole
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2003-12-01 20:49
In addition to all the other suggestions, playing along with "Music Minus One" recordings or similar will allow you to make your errors in private. As previously suggested, scanning duets into SmartScore and then playing along with the unforgiving, unbending, computer is also a good way to go and you can set and reset the tempo as you wish. You can play in unison with one part or pick one part and let the computer play the other.
Also, as one who is definitely rhythmically challenged, I found a louder metronome helpful.
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