 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Fontalvo
Date: 2006-06-14 23:47
I wanted to know all the different ways each of you keep time. Do you all use your foot, or is it more internal??? For example in an excerpt like Firebird, do you tap your feet or keep time internally.
Thanks
Rafael
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2006-06-14 23:51
Time is relative to the length of the note. That is, the note you are playing stands in relation to the note before it and the one that is to come.
Once I started to see this clearly I stopped counting and tapping. Haven't tapped my foot in over ten years.
.........Paul Aviles
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Author: ClariTone
Date: 2006-06-15 00:22
I tap my toes inside my shoe, so as not to make an audible sound. When people "stomp" their feet in time on stage at a concert to keep time, that really bugs me...makes me feel like I'm at a hoe-down...
I know a girl who keeps time with her chest - kinda' distractin'...
Clayton
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Author: Kevin
Date: 2006-06-15 01:47
I use my cell phone as well as the timestamp on the bottom right corner of my computer screen. I've stopped using old-fashioned clocks with hands and gears b/c they "click" every second and that gets annoying sometimes.
Every once in a while, my cell phone time runs ahead. If this happens, I turn on a news channel...and fix the time back accordingly.
Post Edited (2006-06-15 01:48)
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2006-06-15 02:52
My foot and or feet tap occasionally in response to the internal pulse I feel. Internalization is the best way to keep time; my feet (and sometimes elbows!) just can't help moving along with the beat!
My ex-husband (a tuba player) keeps time with his eyebrows...
Katrina
Post Edited (2006-06-15 02:52)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-06-15 13:56
When you got sent to the principal's office in junior high, they always kept you waiting for several minutes, to show who was boss and embarrass you by having you sit in a public place where you wouldn't be if you had been good.
The office had a big clock with a pendulum that swung once a second. I would watch it to get the tempo of 60 into my head and close my eyes and try to stay synchronized. I would tongue silently at 120 (quarters), then at 240 (eighths at 120) and then 480 (16ths at 120). Great practice.
Practice with a metronome also helps. A Juilliard grad once asked me where my electric metronome was set, I said 120, and he said "It's at 116. You need to adjust the dial."
The principal trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra said that he had spent years developing an infallible counter for the long stretches of rests between entrances.
It's like learning scales. You keep at it until you do it without thinking.
Everyone does something to mark the measures during long rests. Since most music is in groups of 8 bars, I use my fingers (minus my thumbs).
I agree with Alex that when you're playing, you shouldn't tap your foot. I think that even if I tap my foot with perfect accuracy, I'm still playing on my own, even though I happen to be synchronized with the group. Instead, I try to merge myself into the group pulse.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-06-15 14:38
Time keeping by movement has another flaw that may not be apparent to the musician. Where microphones are in use, a solid stand resting on a stage or platform will easily transmit those toe taps up through the stand, into the microphone, and thus out over the PA head to the audience.
This effect is particularly bad with "old" venues, the kind with "hollow" stages and platforms. In effect, the hollow space below the stage resonates the vibrations from the tapping toes, making the final moment transferred through the microphone stands all the more "loud". And, the noise is transmitted for considerable distances; one trumpet player that I had on Trumpet 4 had his tapping transmitted down through a riser, through the stage, and all the way over to the other side of the group where the vocalist microphones were set on mike stands.
Many sound systems have a low pass filter that can be thrown in to the chain of transmission that removes a lot of "rumble" (into which category this particular problem fits), but some systems only offer this on a portion of the inputs. In any event, the musician won't hear it, only the audience. And, even then it doesn't strip it all out.
Some band leader from the 1940's actually threatened to nail a performer's shoe to the platform to stop the process. What I did is to take all of the tapper (three, all old school musicians and mostly brass players) out in front of the group and have a similar number of others tap their toes on a lively stage. Other than one very old guy, all have reformed their ways. For the old one, I put a rubber pad down under his seat position when we're on a "live" stage.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2006-06-15 15:42
Ken Shaw wrote: When you got sent to the principal's office in junior high, they always kept you waiting for several minutes, to show who was boss and embarrass you by having you sit in a public place where you wouldn't be if you had been good.
So, it sounds like the principal's office was a familiar enough place that it played a part in your mucical training -- Hmmm
I typically do not tap my foot. The body movement I do use is not to keep time but to support rhythm. Foot tapping in an ensemble situation is a distraction for the player him or herself and for others. The point is to synchronize the internal timekeeping with what is going on externally with the other musicians
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Author: Sean.Perrin
Date: 2006-06-15 20:40
Interesting... I usually use my cell phone, havn't owned a watch in years.
As far as music... it's good to internalise, but tapping inside the show is rpetty good too... or watching the conductor, that works too.
Founder and host of the Clarineat Podcast: http://www.clarineat.com
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2006-06-15 21:43
Sean.Perrin wrote:
> As far as music... it's good to internalise, ... or watching the conductor, that
> works too.
>
Both, both, both, as well as watching the bows of the string players, listening to the pulse of the horn or the flute or the bassoon or wherever one's part needs to fit in, etc
Fontalvo's question about internal timekeeping being mental has kept me thinking all afternoon. It is mental in the sense that it accesses the appropriate parts of the brain, but I do not find the "sensation" of timekeeping to be all in the head. The body is involved. In fact, I would be very interested in comparing how instrumental musicians and dancers approach timekeeping. Any instrumentalist/dancers out there on the BB?
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Author: Gobboboy
Date: 2006-06-15 23:17
Claritone wrote
"I know a girl who keeps time with her chest - kinda' distractin'..."
How on earth??????....please put my mind at rest as it's working overtime!!!
G
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-06-15 23:51
If you are playing in an orchestra or band (whatever) taping your foot is not only distracting but displays your inability to watch the baton and keep time using its beat.
If you are caught taping your foot in a professional symphony orchestra, your career in that ensemble will be very short lived, trust me.
Learning to keep time by watching the music director or conductor is an essential skill that should be developed as early as possible.
When I was young and learning clarinet, my wicked witch of a teacher would make me play to her beating time ... but it taught me to watch.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: mtague
Date: 2006-06-16 00:25
Strange. My old teacher always insisted we tap our feet (quietly, more like the toe tap inside the shoe) and would check us. He also insisted we watch him all the time and to be aware of the other instruments and especially the first chairs for our section.
I can't vouch for the validity of all that since I'm a repeat beginner, but I do tap my toe in the my shoe now and in my private lessons I watch my new teacher out of the corner of my eye when we play duets.
She's been teaching me to use a metronome and to keep time internally (the pulse idea that's been mentioned before). Sometimes she'll turn the metronome volume down when I play and turn it back up later to see if i'm keeping time.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2006-06-16 00:47
Have we addressed what exactly we are to do if the toe-tapping happens to be in poor rythm?
For me, the mental aspect of time is not an esoteric portion of the brain, it is simply memory. If you can remember how long the last quarter note you played was, and then apply that memory accurately to the quarter note you are now playing..... THAT is rhythm.
Applying a physical representation of the sound we are trying to produce just seems to me to be the addition of an unnecessary component.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: Fontalvo
Date: 2006-06-16 03:52
As a student many teachers tell me that good time is one of the reasons people get kicked out of the first round of orchestra auditions. For me I try to keep time in my head, but in some excerpts like Firebird it is still hard for me to be completely accurate. How do you all practice the rests in excerpts such as this one????
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Author: allencole
Date: 2006-06-16 04:53
To me, physical timekeeping is primarily a learning device. It is also a handy analytical device when listening to music, or when sounding out a difficult new rhythm. Once a musician can subdivide, I don't see where it would be necessary for performance even in an unconducted group.
Most physical timekeeping that I see with accomplished musicians amounts to some swaying to reinforce downbeats in circumstances when the notes are coming in places other than downbeats.
Allen Cole
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Author: Alex M.
Date: 2006-06-16 14:01
I don't play in a band, and so don't have other cues (or other people to annoy with my habits!). I try foot-tapping to keep rythym, but find I usually start tapping my foot to the notes, rather than keeping the notes to the tapping.
What I find is that I often sway my upper body to keep rythym.
Alex M.
Massachusetts
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2006-06-16 21:27
So which is worse; tapping your foot or not playing the rhythms correctly?
N.B. This is the sort of question that needs no answer.
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Author: Dori
Date: 2006-06-17 03:32
clarinetwife wrote:
...I do not find the "sensation" of timekeeping to be all in the head. The body is involved. In fact, I would be very interested in comparing how instrumental musicians and dancers approach timekeeping. Any instrumentalist/dancers out there on the BB?
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While I am nowhere near professional in either one, I do consider myself to be both a musician and a dancer. Experience in each field has definitely helped the other.
Mostly I internalize the beat , but as an instrumentalist, I do at times tap my toe (inside my shoe, unless I'm wearing sandals, then the secret is out!). I don't do it all the time, usually just as I'm learning a piece or in a section that for whatever reason I seem to need it.
Also, I keep track of multiple measures of rests by tapping or moving the side trill keys. I confess it's more to have something to do to keep focused rather than really needing the help.
As a dancer, I tend to "feel" the beat whether or not I am consciously counting it. Even when exercising, I find I must do the movements to the rhythm of the music or else it just feels wrong. It's interesting we say "follow the music" when dancing when really you need to anticipate the beat and move WITH it.
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Some of the craziest people are musicans and dancers - and I'm both!
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2006-06-17 04:14
When people on juries focus on the rhythm of a performer do they ever tap as a means to determine the regularity of the performers tempo? I sense they do. If it's good enough for the listener then I say it's ok for the performer to inconspicuously move a toe once in awhile to anchor a difficult section. I would shy away from leaping in the air however as landings can be dangerous.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: crnichols
Date: 2006-06-17 08:31
As far as time goes, the excerpt you mention (I assume the Firebird variation) makes in painfully obvious if someone has bad time. Usually they can play the notes, more or less in time, but rather miscount the rests. My suggestion regarding that excerpt is that you practice hearing the violin part (or in different places if the violin isn't playing this any other part that is playing the 1/8th notes)while you play the clarinet part. I played this in graduate school a few years ago, and the flute player was having a tough time with the rhythms and feeling together with the ensemble. I told her to just listen to the first violins and she'd be fine, she'd know where to place everything, they keep the pulse. They are the orchestra's metronome. She never had a problem playing the variation in the orchestra again. Playing without the orchestra, it's a little tricky to try to sing something in your head while playing, but if you are at the point that you are playing this for a committee, you shouldn't need to be staring at the music very hard just to read it. That part should be instinctive. Also, if you hear the other parts while you play an excerpt, it will be clear that you really know the piece to a committee as it affects the way you play it, the way you shape the phrases, how you interpret the dynamics, etc.
Good luck!
Christopher Nichols, D.M.A.
Assistant Professor of Clarinet
University of Delaware
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